Oppenheimer Featurette Highlights Christopher Nolan’s IMAX Techniques

While once a format relegated to documentaries and special-interest films, Christopher Nolan utilized the large-format IMAX cameras for The Dark Knight in 2008, offering audiences a new way to immerse themselves in the adventure, with subsequent films like The Dark Knight Rises, Inception, Interstellar, and Tenet also utilizing the format. Nolan’s upcoming Oppenheimer could arguably be his most ambitious use of the format, as he brought his boundary-pushing cinematic sensibilities to a historical epic that aimed to honor the titular figure, opting to utilize as many practical filming methods as possible as opposed to relying on digital techniques. Check out a new featurette for Oppenheimer exploring how the project came to life below before it lands in theaters on July 21st.

Written and directed by Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer is an IMAX-shot epic thriller that thrusts audiences into the pulse-pounding paradox of the enigmatic man who must risk destroying the world in order to save it.

The film stars Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer and Emily Blunt as his wife, biologist, and botanist Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer. Oscar winner Matt Damon portrays General Leslie Groves Jr., director of the Manhattan Project, and Robert Downey, Jr. plays Lewis Strauss, a founding commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Academy Award nominee Florence Pugh plays psychiatrist Jean Tatlock, Benny Safdie plays theoretical physicist Edward Teller, Michael Angarano plays Robert Serber and Josh Hartnett plays pioneering American nuclear scientist Ernest Lawrence.

Oppenheimer also stars Oscar winner Rami Malek and reunites Nolan with eight-time Oscar-nominated actor, writer, and filmmaker Kenneth Branagh.

The cast includes Dane DeHaan (Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets), Dylan Arnold (Halloween franchise), David Krumholtz (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs), Alden Ehrenreich (Solo: A Star Wars Story), and Matthew Modine (The Dark Knight Rises).

The film is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and the late Martin J. Sherwin. The film is produced by Emma Thomas, Atlas Entertainment’s Charles Roven, and Christopher Nolan.

Oppenheimer is filmed in a combination of IMAX 65mm and 65mm large-format film photography including, for the first time ever, sections in IMAX black-and-white analog photography. Nolan’s films, including Tenet, Dunkirk, Interstellar, Inception, and The Dark Knight trilogy, have earned more than $5 billion at the global box office and have been awarded 11 Oscars and 36 nominations, including two Best Picture nominations. 

Oppenheimer hits theaters on July 21st.

Are you looking forward to the new movie? Let us know in the comments!