Two years on from that summer of cinema when Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster went head-to-head with Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, Oppenheimer is now available to watch on BBC iPlayer after it aired this week.
In 2023, the film’s concurrent release with the Margot Robbie-fronted pink explosion of Barbie resulted in the Barbenheimer phenomenon, which saw fans watch the movies back to back as a double feature.
The contrast between the equally well-received bold fantasy comedy and the serious historical drama had audiences in a chokehold and spawned memes, viral TikToks and excellent box office sales for both films.
Now three-hour biographical thriller Oppenheimer is available on the BBC as the perfect festive watch for those looking for something meaty to chew on between turkey sandwiches.
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of American physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, American Prometheus, the film focuses on the ‘father of the atomic bomb’ and his torment at creating such a deadly weapon of mass destruction.
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The film has a star-filled cast with Cillian Murphy as Oppenheimer, Emily Blunt as his wife Kitty, Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock, plus Matt Damon and Robert Downey Jr.
Spanning across several years, the film begins in 1926 when Oppenheimer was a student and ends in 1963 after exploring the events of the discovery of nuclear fission, the Manhattan Project, the devastating use of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima, and Oppenheimer’s 1954 security clearance hearing.
Writer-director Nolan – whose new film The Odyssey arrives in cinemas summer 2026 – is behind the project, so you know it’s going to be a good one, as his previous films include Inception, The Dark Knight trilogy and The Prestige.
The film was met with high praise and was nominated for thirteen awards at the 96th Academy Awards, winning seven awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Murphy) and Best Supporting Actor (Downey).
It also snagged five Golden Globes and seven Baftas.
Metro’s Tori Brazier said in her review: ‘As expected (and hoped for), Nolan has produced a taut and twisty intelligent blockbuster that asks its audience to think along with the film.
‘However, he never quite tips over into the realms of overly complex or intellectual – this is mainly down to the riveting character study he and Murphy present of Oppenheimer, and the pace and panache with which other figures enter and exit his life.’
Rolling Stone listed it as 86th in the 100 best films of the 21st century, while Rotten Tomatoes reviews dub it
‘Oppenheimer left me stunned: a character study on the grandest scale, with a sublime central performance by Cillian Murphy. An epic historical drama but with a distinctly Nolan sensibility: the tension, structure, sense of scale, startling sound design, remarkable visuals. Wow,’ praised Total Film’s deputy editor Matt Maytum.
Telegraph film critic Robbie Collin called it ‘a total knockout that split my brain open like a twitchy plutonium nucleus and left me sobbing through the end credits like I can’t even remember what else’.
Oppenheimer is available to stream now on BBC iPlayer. This article was originally published on July 10, 2025.
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