| Director | Christopher Nolan |
|---|---|
| Budget | $100 million |
| Box office | $983.1 million |
A 1959 Senate committee questions ex-AEC Chairman, Lewis Strauss, over his actions during Robert Oppenheimer's 1954 security hearing before the Gray Board, which revoked Oppenheimer's Q clearance and ended his government advisory role. Strauss, who is nominated for Commerce Secretary, alleges the FBI was suspicious of Oppenheimer since his teaching days, well before anti-Communist William Borden accused him of espionage in 1954. Strauss claims to not have acted against Oppenheimer through the Gray Board, despite having many public disagreements with him.
In the 1930s, Oppenheimer teaches at Caltech and Berkeley, after studying theoretical physics in Europe. A number of Berkeley academics are also Communist Party members, but Oppenheimer does not join himself. After World War II breaks out, Ernest Lawrence of the Radiation Lab cautions Oppenheimer against having communist connections. Oppenheimer scales back, and is approached by General Leslie Groves to lead the Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer proposes a new laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico, where they could endeavour to build an atomic bomb before the Nazis. Edward Teller is recruited to Los Alamos, and theorizes that an explosion would cause (global) atmospheric ignition. When his theory is disproved, he starts researching fusion-based weapons instead of working on the proposed fission bombs.
After the war, Soviets test a plutonium bomb, similar to one developed at Los Alamos. In a meeting of top advisors, Oppenheimer frustrates Strauss by favoring arms talks with Russia instead of escalating with Teller's proposed thermonuclear weapons. During a heated period of discussion, Oppenheimer's past security lapses are brought up, including rekindling an affair with Communist ex-lover, Jean Tatlock, immediately after gaining his security clearance in 1942. Oppenheimer had also protected his friend Haakon Chevalier from an espionage investigation, by directly lying to security officer Boris Pash. In his later hearing by the Gray Board at the AEC, the board's counsel, Roger Robb, replays these accusations to make Oppenheimer seem guilty of disloyalty towards the US.
In the present, Strauss alleges that Oppenheimer turned scientists against him, starting with Albert Einstein at Princeton in 1947. Teller testifies in Strauss' favor, and David Hill of the Chicago Met Lab is expected to do so too.
In July 1945, the Trinity plutonium test is successful, and two bombs are subsequently dropped on Japan. Oppenheimer meets with President Truman, to whom he expresses his remorse on building the bomb. Truman clears him of all responsibility, but is annoyed at Oppenheimer’s remorse. Oppenheimer is labeled 'father of the atomic bomb', but his public stance in the post-war years changes towards nuclear non-proliferation.
Irritated at constantly being undermined by Oppenheimer, AEC Chairman Strauss conspires with Borden to initiate the 1954 Gray Board hearing. He appoints Robb as the board's counsel, compromising its independence from the AEC. Oppenheimer's humiliation angers scientists, who had attested to his loyalty and discretion at the Gray Board hearing; at Strauss' Senate hearing, Hill claims the scientific community is against Strauss, who loses the Commerce Secretary nomination (and with it, his career).
While he receives the Enrico Fermi Award in 1963, a flashback shows Oppenheimer did not mention Strauss to Einstein at all. Consumed by guilt over bringing atomic weapons to the world, he admits to Einstein that the global catastrophe they feared, and then believed was averted, was now ironically inevitable.