Christopher Nolan’s next film, Oppenheimer, is one of the most anticipated movies of the summer. The movie details the work of theoretical physicist Robert J. Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) and his work on the Manhattan Project, the World War II project which lead to the splitting of the atom and the creation of the first nuclear weapon. With a budget of $100 million and an all-star cast, like many of Nolan’s films, it is expected to be both a blockbuster and a critical darling with an eye toward potential Oscar nominations.
Oppenheimer follows Dunkirk as Nolan’s second historical film, and both are centered around World War II. While the filmmaker has made more superhero movies than historical dramas, and nothing will likely ever top his Michael Caine films (Inception, Interstellar, The Prestige, The Dark Knight trilogy), Oppenheimer does continue an interesting trend for Nolan. Why has the director been so interested in historical films as of late? Is this slow trend going to be a recurring thing for the director is it just a coincidence? These historical dramas speak to the director and allow him to tap into themes, motifs, and techniques he has used across his filmography.
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Dunkirk Is a Historical Film in a Nolan Context
Warner Bros. Pictures
Dunkirk is a Christopher Nolan film in every way. Aside from featuring many recurring faces in Nolan’s films like Cillian Murphy and Tom Hardy (plus the aforementioned Michael Caine in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him cameo), the film allows Nolan to experiment with time in terms of the language of film.
Nolan’s breakout movie was 2000’s Memento, which told a murder mystery in a non-linear way. Batman Begins told the origin story of the superhero through flashbacks. The Prestige jumps from different points of view and time periods to unravel its story. Inception features different levels of dreams moving at different time speeds. Interstellar’s climax centers on the idea of time as a circle.
Time is a popular theme for the filmmaker, and in Dunkirk, he blends three perspectives — land (one week of action), sea (one day of action), and air (one hour of action). While these events are all happening in different time frames, Nolan blends them all to make them seem like one cohesive whole. This is a long story, one that many thought would be difficult to tell, but Nolan jumped at the chance to show how it could be done, showing how the basic art of film techniques like editing and sound can bring history to life for an audience that no textbook could truly convey.
Oppenheimer Continues Nolan’s Fascination With Science
Universal Pictures
Similar to Dunkirk, Oppenheimer is a historical movie that fits into previous themes and ideas Nolan has touched on in the past. Nolan is in many ways a science fiction director, even though his films may not fit the traditional mold. The Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, Interstellar, and Tenet are all science fiction films, but they tend to ground their fantastical ideas in tangible real-world science, or at least as close as it can be to allow some of the colorful flights of fancy. Nolan wanted Interstellar to be as scientifically accurate as possible, and both Tenet and Inception spend a good amount of their run time explaining the rules of their world so that audiences can go along for the ride.
Oppenheimer allows Nolan to explore a real-life scientific breakthrough. The director seems to be fascinated by this concept, and with Oppenheimer, he has a chance to explore a story that is not science fiction, but science history and how this moment was one of great accomplishment and great horror. Oppenheimer is a historical film, but one that continues recurring motifs across Nolan’s past filmography.
Nolan’s Lost Film
Miramax FilmsWarner Bros.
While Oppenheimer might mark Nolan’s second historical drama after Dunkirk, there is one project Nolan had been working on that he scrapped that had it been made would have Oppenheimer his third historical drama. Between the release of Insomnia and before he took on Batman Begins, Nolan had been developing a script for a biopic on the famous philanthropist and pilot Howard Hughes. However, Nolan scrapped the project following the announcement that Martin Scorsese was working on his own Howard Hughes movie.
Scorsese’s film The Aviator was both a box office hit and a major awards contender and was nominated for eleven Academy Awards including Best Picture. The film went on to win five Oscars, and by that point, Nolan had moved on to Batman Begins which would help solidify him as both a well-respected auteur filmmaker and one that could deliver a crowd-pleasing blockbuster. While many might wonder what if Nolan had gotten to make his Howard Hughes biopic, considering audiences got Scorsese’s The Aviator and Nolan’s Batman Begins, it seems like a fair trade. Yet it does point to the director’s fascination with historical dramas.
Nobody Knows What Nolan’s Next Film Will Be
Unlike some filmmakers, who will line up a project before their latest one comes out, Nolan doesn’t do that. Even during The Dark Knight trilogy, it was not a sure thing he would return to direct the two sequels and instead made his own original films between them. Tenet was not announced until 2018, one year after the release of Dunkirk. Even Oppenheimer wasn’t spoken about until after the release of Tenet and Nolan’s falling out with home studio Warner Bros. over their decision to release their entire 2021 slate on HBO Max.
With that in mind, nobody knows what Nolan will choose to do following the release of Oppenheimer. The only safe bet is it will be another three years until he releases another film as since Interstellar in 2014 he has released a film every three years (Dunkirk in 2017, Tenet in 2020, and Oppenheimer in 2023). Nolan’s next movie could be anything, another historical dramatization or an original concept like Inception. If he does choose another historical picture, it will fit comfortably in the themes and motifs the director has tackled but in a new direction.
