Characters / Oppenheimer

Character page for Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer.

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J. Robert Oppenheimer

Julius Robert Oppenheimer

"They won't fear it until they understand it, and they won't understand it until they've used it."

Portrayed by: Cillian Murphy^{Other languages} Rémi Bichet (European French)

A theoretical physicist who's pivotal in developing the first nuclear weapons as part of the Manhattan Project, ushering in the Atomic Age.

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• Affectionate Nickname: His students and fellow faculty members at Berkeley, and later the entire scientific community at Los Alamos, call him "Oppie".
• Anti-Hero: Oppenheimer is a complicated man, to put it bluntly. Despite being a brilliant physicist who's helming the development of the nuclear bomb in the hopes of it bringing an end to World War II, he's also presented as arrogant, a womanizer, an adulterer, an inattentive father, and not that great of a husband. It's also left ambiguous if his attempts to restrict the use of atomic bombs are truly out of regret for his work, or if he's simply trying to make a martyr out of himself out of flagellating self-pity or, even worse, a desire for keeping the world's eyes on him as the father of the atom bomb without being overshadowed by the hydrogen bomb. Ultimately, for all his talk of regret, he cannot even wholly stand by his convictions when pressed about them and will backpedal to justify his actions despite the devastation.
• The Atoner: He feels profound guilt about building the bomb after hearing of its use against Hiroshima and Nagasaki and spends his life after the war advocating against nuclear proliferation. This eventually gets him in very hot water, though Kitty and Strauss both believe, in different ways, that he wanted the humiliation — Strauss because he believed Oppenheimer relished the opportunity to play the martyr, while Kitty believes Oppenheimer felt he deserved the ruin of his reputation as the only way he could make amends.
• Bad Liar: Oppenheimer is a garrulous man by nature and not well known for his discretion. When Boris Pash questions him about his involvement with the CPUSA his attempts to cover for his old friend Chevalier by telling increasingly complex and implausible lies backfire badly and nearly get him and Chevalier in deep trouble.
• Bourgeois Bohemian: He, an upper class, highly paid and respected scientist nearly joins the Communist Party, though this is shown multiple times to be far too simplistic. For what it's worth, he does claim his actual political affiliation is "New Deal Democrat."
  • Ross sarcastically notes that "intellectual" Communists that are more interested in the political theory rather than actually achieving revolution like every other communists simply do not exist. While he is immediately proven wrong by both Evans and Kitty, he has somewhat of a point given that reality or not, this is likely how Oppenheimer will be perceived.
  • Oppenheimer reveals that in reality, most links with the CPUSA are due to his donations to aid the Spanish Republic and refugees, or out of infatuation with his lover, Jean, meaning his actual views are clearly not Marxist, and as his friend notes at his first CPUSA meeting, him reading all three volumes of Marx's theory makes him far more educated on the topic than the more fervent members present.
  • He rather insultingly calls Strauss "a lowly shoe salesman," one of the events that cause Strauss to embark on a personal crusade against Oppenheimer to destroy his career rather than a more reasonable one based on national security. He actually intended it as mark of respect for his achievements (less looking down on Strauss' humble origins and more praising how far he's risen above said origins) but it still comes across as very classist.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Oppenheimer is unquestionably a brilliant physicist and the man who can build the U.S. an atomic bomb before the Axis, but his frequent breaches of security and uncooperative nature with the government get on General Groves' nerves. However, as seen interspersed throughout the film, these incidents would later provide Strauss' Kangaroo Court plenty of accusations to throw against him. Teller flat out admits that while he does not believe for a moment that Oppenheimer is a traitor to the United States, he has seen Oppenheimer act so erratically that "I would prefer to see this country's safety in hands I understand better and trust more."
• Byronic Hero: He is a socially withdrawn and unhealthy man who achieved great fame after leading the development of the nuclear bomb. Horrified by the potential consequences of his creation, he sought to challenge the political elite to prevent the spread of this new weapon, but to no avail.
• The Casanova: Aside from his affair with Jean Tatlock and marriage to Kitty, he was in a dalliance with Richard Tolman's wife, Ruth. It should be noted that the real Oppenheimer did indeed date several women in his life. Notably, this trait screws him over in two ways: his affair with the known communist Jean (especially meeting her for the last time in Chicago before his going to Los Alamos and her suicide) is used against him during the hearing, and his affair with Ruth is exploited to get Lawrence to testify against him at the hearing, especially when it is framed as the reason why Richard committed suicide (though him seeing a broken Oppenheimer has him back out at the last second and claim that he cannot testify due to colitis).
• Ditzy Genius: Despite being a brilliant scientist, he forgets to put a kitchen in his own (self-designed) home. He is hopelessly naive in his interactions with Boris Pash, believing that he has convincingly protected a friend and gotten on Pash's good side while anyone with eyes can tell that Pash sees right through Oppenheimer and loathes him^note Hell, Groves does not even have to have been in the same room as Oppenheimer and Pash to know their meeting went horribly for Oppenheimer. He tends to contradict himself in his own testimony during his security clearance; he makes the mistake of accidentally insulting the President of the United States to his face in a meeting in which he planned on trying to convince Truman to follow a certain agenda; and he alienates Strauss several times in a meeting in which Strauss is offering him a job without even realizing it (though, in fairness, Strauss is fairly thin-skinned in general). It is a good thing Oppenheimer was such a brilliant scientist, but he seems nearly hopeless at almost anything else, except perhaps womanizing.
• Fatal Flaw: Shortsightedness. Throughout the film, Oppenheimer makes impulsive, ill-thought out decisions, from attempting to poison his teacher to dating and impregnating a married woman, to dumping a woman who is clearly suffering from mental health issues, and doesn't reckon with the consequences until they're almost or far too late. He created the atom bomb believing it will end all war, but realizes that politicians and military would instead want more and bigger bombs only after the fact, and casually dismisses and insults his colleagues, leaving him with almost no one on his side when his government turns against him.
• Fish out of Water: He does fine when arguing his point of view with other scientists, but when he's put in a room with soldiers or politicians and tasked with presenting an argument or defending his character, he becomes uncharacteristically diffident, stumbling over his words and often lapsing into silence when pressured. This is most obvious when he meets Truman and tries to tell the president his misgivings about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Oppenheimer can barely get the words out of his mouth and has no response to Truman's contemptuous Armor-Piercing Question.
• Geek Physiques: He's notably very skinny; when he and Isidor first meet properly, he notes that if Oppenheimer gets any skinnier, he'll disappear into the seat cushions and encourages him to eat something. The real Oppenheimer was often dangerously underweight; despite being nearly 6 feet tall, he usually weighed around 120 pounds. The already skinny Cillian Murphy even lost twenty pounds to better achieve the gaunt look.
• Graceful Loser: Despite being visibly broken, Oppenheimer accepts the panel's decision to remove his Q clearance with respectful grace. Though part of that is because by that point he feels he deserves to be publicly broken, as Kitty sadly acknowledges in her last line onscreen.
• Has a Type:
  • His two main love interests (Kitty and Jean) are educated, strong-willed, and deeply troubled dark-haired women who are also extremely intelligent.
  • It is not mentioned in the film, but Ruth Tolman — the wife of a colleague that Oppenheimer has an affair with — also not only had a PhD, but was a professor and researcher who is remembered as an important figure in clinical psychology. Oppenheimer clearly had a thing for highly educated, ambitious women despite being a chauvinist as typical of his era.
• Hidden Depths:
  • In addition to being well-versed in the humanities for a scientist (though not always as a good student of history), despite his arrogance and self-absorption, he is a charismatic leader of the Manhattan Project who knows how to soften the egos of volatile scientists. Despite seeming to have No Social Skills, he can be persuasive and even manipulative (for the greater good) when defusing arguments. Too bad he can't take that persuasiveness into his meetings with politicians.
  • Despite being presented as a neglectful parent most of the time, we do see him holding his toddler son and making silly faces to calm the boy in one of his very few moments of levity in one shot.
  • He is also surprisingly a skilled outdoorsman, owning a ranch and at least competently riding a horse, putting up tents and lighting a campfire when scouting Los Alamos. He even remarks that he always felt more at home in New Mexico growing up than he ever did in New York City.
• His Own Worst Enemy: While Oppenheimer does have a lot of enemies in both the scientific and political community, those enemies are made because of his arrogance, dismissiveness, and unconventional politics. It's only a matter of time before the various people he alienates over the course of the film destroy his career.
• Historical Beauty Update: Generally averted. Cillian Murphy has famously delicate, somewhat androgynous features, but the hair and makeup team on the film do their best to make him look like the real Robert Oppenheimer (who was himself gaunt enough to have similarly prominent cheekbones, even if they couldn't be chalked up to genetics alone and were largely the result of being severely underweight most of his life). The real Oppenheimer has also been mentioned by people who knew him to have indeed had startlingly blue eyes, just as Murphy does.
• Historical Hero Upgrade: The film tones down Oppenheimer's casual cruelty to underlings he saw as less gifted than himself. He is portrayed as arrogant in the film but less vindictive than he was in real life. The film also doesn't depict Latino and Native American communities being uprooted at the Los Alamos site he selects, and the detail of him suggesting to Truman to give the land back to those people after Japan surrenders does not have historical evidence backing it.
• Hypocrite:
  • His critics paint him this way, suggesting he wants all the credit for the incredible scientific achievement the bomb represents but none of the responsibility for the death and destruction it will cause. Strauss even angrily suggests that he did Oppenheimer a favor by letting him pretend to be the unjustly-persecuted martyr at the hands of the closed-doors hearing to determine if he deserves to keep his security clearance, while Kitty believes Oppenheimer legitimately wanted to be publicly shamed as a form of atonement, in hope of forgiveness rather than pity.
  • He advocates for Leftist ideals but disavows his attempts to unionize the Radiation Lab (and stick up for his own students) in order to be involved in the Manhattan Project, in part because he is ambitious and wants to win a Nobel Prize in addition to genuine conviction.
  • He is a bit of an upper-class snob towards both Strauss (a self-made man) and Frank's waitress fiancée, Jackie, despite seeing himself as an advocate with socialist tendencies. This overlaps a bit with Innocently Insensitive, however, as he generally doesn't have malicious intent; it's mainly down to blindness caused by both his privileges in life and his generally somewhat socially-awkward nature.
• I Did What I Had to Do: This is part of his reasoning behind heading up a project to build a weapon of incredible destructive potential, so much so that his fellow scientists become increasingly concerned over continuing the project. He's apprehensive over helping America build the bomb. He's horrified at the thought of Nazi Germany building one first...
• Innocently Insensitive: Oppenheimer means well and is almost always polite but has trouble not knowing when he's insulted or offended someone, in part due to his more upper-class background and partially just due to his own awkwardness. This ends up starting his feud with Strauss as he unknowingly makes Strass feel he's being looked down on when Oppenheimer was actually trying to show respect for how Strauss built himself up.
• Jewish and Nerdy: Oppenheimer fits the trope even though he tends to bring up his Jewishness only in response to the Holocaust a few times or in a round-about way in conversations with other Jews, aside from snapping at Lawrence at one point for underestimating the extent to which The Holocaust emotionally affects him. Oppenheimer himself actually invokes the fact that there were many Jewish physicists in a conversation with Groves, pointing out Hitler's antisemitism ended up driving out some of the best scientists in Europe. This is Truth in Television as European fascism drove out not only Jewish scientists such as Edward Teller and Niels Bohr but also people like Enrico Fermi, who was not Jewish but opposed Hitler's racist policies on principle.
• Jewish Smartass: Although his Jewishness is somewhat downplayed in-universe — Oppenheimer takes the Holocaust very personally and faces subtle antisemitism, but he is more assimilated than either Rabi or Strauss — he still fits this trope for being fairly snarky when his Jewish identity comes up. One of his first lines to Strauss is a dry remark that both of them are obviously Jewish, no matter how Strauss chooses to pronounce his name. He also somewhat flippantly quips in response to Rabi's concerns about rising antisemitism in Europe in a way typical of culturally Jewish dark humor.
• Lawful Pushover: To Kitty's never-ending chagrin, Oppenheimer proves to always turn the other cheek whenever faced with any sort of real opposition, even if it will lead to the ruin of himself and his family. Kitty constantly lambasting and pushing him to fight back has Oppenheimer finally start resisting the ridiculous Kangaroo Court he's enduring in the last hour of the movie, albeit with some help.
• Manchild: He forgets to put a kitchen in his Los Alamos home, is useless with childcare, poisons his professor's apple after being scolded for destroying lab equipment (his own fault), practically throws a temper tantrum over being denied a security clearance, and, with the exception of Jean's death and the deaths from the bomb, has a tendency to blame other people's incompetence over his own failures in leadership skills.
• Martyr Without a Cause: He has a tendency to self-flagellate, especially during his security clearance hearing, to the frustration of his wife. Although Oppenheimer is implied to potentially be acting out of guilt, naturally, his suffering during the hearing does nothing to negate the pain of Hiroshima and Nagasaki no matter how much he may want to punish himself.
• Omniglot: Aside from German and English, Oppenheimer learns how to speak Dutch well enough to lecture in the language in a few weeks, and can read Sanskrit. Ironically, he does not know how to speak Yiddish despite his Jewish heritage; his family are too upper-crust for that.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: Aside from his obvious support of bombing Japan (at first), his description of Los Alamos to Groves boils down to, "Oh, no one ever comes up here except Indians to bury their dead, so it's completely uninhabited." Even his suggestion to give back the land later is too little, too late. Although, as previously noted, he has no problem with women or people of color taking his classes or even being involved in the Manhattan Project, his immediate response upon meeting a Harvard-educated female scientist is to automatically assume she is a secretary. He also noticeably refers to her by her first name, "Lilli", instead of "Dr. Hornig", even though she has a PhD when all the men in the Manhattan Project are addressed by surname. In fairness, Oppenheimer's attitudes were not uncommon for the time in which he lived, and like many other Jewish intellectuals such as Einstein, he was comparatively open-minded.^note The real Oppenheimer could be fairly progressive for his time period, being more open-minded about homosexuality than many of his peers (as he had lesbian acquaintances). While he was no feminist, he was willing to collaborate with female physicists at a time when many of his peers were not, such as Melba Phillips, with whom he co-published studies on what would later be called the Oppenheimer-Phillips effect.
• Really Gets Around: His (entirely justified) womanizing reputation ends up being part of his downfall.
• Self-Imposed Exile: Kitty's last lines (rather gently) accuse her husband of letting his reputation be dragged through the mud and his Q clearance denied, leading to his ostracization from the scientific community, because he feels that's the only way to make amends for the people killed and sickened by the bombs he invented without actually apologizing. Oppenheimer has no response.
• Serial Homewrecker: He not only started an affair with his future wife Kitty while she was still married, but also had an affair with Richard Tolman's wife Ruth.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: The final scene of the film has him adopt a truly haunting one as he realizes he and his team have just given mankind the weapons with which to completely annihilate itself in the most horrifying manner possible.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Robert initially hopes the bomb will never be used again after the war is over and that it will lead to peace through the United Nations. Then, after the war is over, he desires that the strictest of arms controls be set up to prevent nuclear proliferation. He realizes too late that the atomic secret is now out, and the world is at the mercy of the politicians who will sidestep him if need be.

Kitty Oppenheimer

Katherine "Kitty" Oppenheimer, née Puening

Portrayed by: Emily Blunt ^{Other languages} Laëtitia Lefebvre (European French)

Robert Oppenheimer's wife.

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• Addled Addict: Her alcoholism deeply affects her ability to parent her children (though it is actually toned down in the movie than in real life, as she once actually drunkenly yelled at at least one of her husband's colleagues (Lawrence) in public at some point prior to the Manhattan Project while wasted).
• Ambiguous Situation: When did Oppenheimer tell her about Jean? On the one hand, he mentions there is a woman in his life in their first scene together, but he admits he does not know if it is going to last. She knows about his past with her by the time of Jean's death, and by the time of the hearing, he has apparently confessed to having cheated on her. Did he admit it right after the fact, or did Oppenheimer — who is often a coward when it comes to facing uncomfortable aspects of himself — not tell her for a long time?
• Awful Wedded Life: Her interest in Oppenheimer began when she was already married to Richard Harrison and she flat-out admits that her marriage was on the rocks by then. Her marriage to Robert is not a happy one, and she well knows that Oppenheimer is not faithful to her, but proves to be more stable and they are still together at the end of the movie (and, historically, were married until his death in 1967).
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: A muted but definite example. Despite Oppenheimer's multiple affairs and martyr complex, the former which Kitty clearly holds him in contempt for and the latter which she gets very frustrated by, she sticks with him through thick and thin and in her own angry way acts as his biggest supporter. Her speech in the security clearance hearing manages to convince one of the three judges to rule in Oppenheimer's favor, and the two stayed together until the very end.
• Betty and Veronica: Though Oppenheimer's relationships with both women are very turbulent, Kitty is shown to be less unstable than Jean. Their marriage continued even after all she went through and she even testified in his favor in the 1954 security hearings.
• Brainy Brunette: She has a PhD in biology and was a scientist in her own right before her marriage(s) and later motherhouse forced her into being a Housewife, something she laments in her very first introduction. She is also able to understand concepts in quantum physics very quickly when Robert explains them to her, is well-versed in Marxist theory, and savvy enough to outwit the prosecutor in her husband's security clearance hearing. She is also much more socially savvy than Robert, correctly identifying Strauss as the mastermind behind the hearing and just flat out has more common sense when it comes to everything from remembering to put a kitchen in their house at Los Alamos to giving pragmatic advice during the hearing.
• Broken Bird: It is clear the death of her second husband in the Spanish Civil War still deeply affects her. Add Robert's infidelity, her general boredom and misery as a housewife and mother, her obvious loneliness in Los Alamos, and past divorces/being widowed, it is no wonder she is in a vulnerable place when Robert meets her. Between her and Jean, he clearly Has a Type for smart but troubled women.
• Child Hater: When shown with her kids, she's always portrayed as frustrated and overworked, though her animosity isn't so much towards her own children themselves, but due to the fact that Robert is often too busy to help her, at least until he and Kitty get assistance from Chevalier for caretaking.
• Closer to Earth: Despite her alcoholism, she has much more common sense than Robert both in terms of managing their daily lives and in terms of being able to read and respond to people. This is most noticeable in her ability to identify Strauss as the mastermind behind the hearing when Oppenheimer always underestimated Strauss because Oppenheimer only recognizes one kind of genius — academic intelligence as opposed to political/personal intelligence — and so it never occurred to him Strauss could have ever outsmarted him and in the fact she is able to get under the skin of prosecutor Robb in part by Obfuscating Stupidity.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Despite her addiction, she is much more grounded than her husband, at least recognizing that their house needs a kitchen and being clear-headed enough to identify Strauss as Oppenheimer's true enemy correctly.
• Commonality Connection: Kitty and Robert are both scientists (in different fields) who are in failing relationships (Kitty with her third husband, Robert with Jean) when they meet with politically Leftist sympathizes but mixed feelings about the Communist party; both are very witty and charming (at least before motherhood sucks out Kitty's energy), and both are somewhat impulsive when it comes to romance and sex (starting an affair despite Robert working with her husband). Despite this they are not necessarily well matched during their marriage, as Robert is an absent-minded genius Cloud Cuckoo Lander but a competent director and Kitty is more down to earth but an alcholic.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Kitty is far smarter than she lets on, bringing up many valid points during Oppenheimer's security clearance hearing (mainly that making himself a martyr will only turn the prosecution against him). She at first stumbles her way through her testimony before proving how smart she can be and expertly countering just about every single one of Robb's questions, something that visibly impresses several of the prosecution members.
• Foil:
  • To Jean Tatlock. Both are Brainy Brunettes with doctorates (of different kinds) who keep Robert on his toes intellectually, both are opinionated and blunt, but also troubled. However whereas ultimately Jean ends up sinking beneath her inner demons, Kitty ends up recovering (at least in the movie). While Jean depends heavily on Robert, it is actually Robert who comes to depend heavily on Kitty to the point he has complete and total faith in her ability to face the prosecution at his hearing when no other witness has succeeded.
  • To her own husband. Though both are intellectuals with PhDs, Kitty is more pragmatic and able to advocate for herself and her husband while Oppenheimer often comes off as a Ditzy Genius when forced to deal with real life outside of science and is willing to allow himself to be a punching bag. When the two of them meet, both are in unhappy relationships and both share Leftist political ideals; however, Kitty has actually suffered consequences because of her ideals (first living in poverty, then losing her husband) while for Robert, social revolution is mostly an abstract idea that he believes in but frequently fails to fight for throughout the movie truly. Kitty's savviness in contrast to Robert's naivete is especially obvious during the security hearing, where Robert tries to answer honestly but destroys his own credibility throughout while Kitty understands the Kangaroo Court is a "game" and plays the prosecution like a piano. No wonder Robert had such complete faith in his wife to own her testimony.
• Get a Hold of Yourself, Man! : Her reaction to Oppenheimer's breakdown over Jean is to essentially tell him to get a grip because too many people need him.
• Hands-Off Parenting: Though not as distant as Robert, she doesn't seem to care much for her kids, even joking to the Chevalier family at one point about them adopting her son. Truth in Television as the real Katherine Oppenheimer had a very difficult relationship with both of her children, leading to her son being sent away to boarding school as a teenager and her daughter being forced to take care of her alcoholic mother and ultimately coming to resent her.
• Hidden Depths:
  • After spending much of the movie in an alcoholic haze, Kitty testifies during her husband's security clearance hearing and proves that she has a razor-sharp mind of her own, the only witness on Oppenheimer's side to well and truly skewer the prosecution and, implicitly, helping to turn the only vote in Oppenheimer's favor to his side with her testimony.
  • The real Kitty Oppenheimer was a gifted scientist in her own right whose career in biology was uprooted due to expectations that a woman's marriage should override her scientific endeavors. It is only mentioned once in the film but subtly contributes to the depiction of her unhappiness with marriage (and, later, motherhood) first to her third husband but also later to Oppenheimer.
  • In another life, despite coming from money, she was an active Leftist organizer, even choosing to marry a much poorer man to participate in activist causes for the Communist Party. Between that life and her science career, no wonder being a normal housewife first for her third husband and later for Robert was boring for her.
• Historical Beauty Update: Even with all the makeup put on her so she looks like a weathered housewife, Emily Blunt still looks more stunning than the real Kitty Oppenheimer.
• Hypocrite: She cheated on her third husband with Robert — who was in a relationship with Jean at the time (and mentions his relationship to Kitty before they get together) — and is still furious at Robert's many affairs. To be fair, she seems to have been loyal to him throughout their marriage.
• Lady Drunk: To cope with the stress of raising two children almost completely on her own, Kitty hits the bottle quite hard. That said, she already showed signs of alcohol abuse before the marriage when Oppenheimer showed her the plains of New Mexico and she is taking a Quick Nip from a flask.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: She pretends during the hearing not to remember how many years ago she was a communist, what happened to her card, or what her belief systems were. Given how detailed her account of her political life was to Robert in their first conversation in New Mexico was and her obvious intelligence, it is clear she is playing dumb to downplay her communist ties and take advantage of the chauvinism of the hearing board by playing "ditzy housewife" to gain their sympathy. Nonetheless, she still manages to take Robb down a peg or two.
• Parental Neglect: She is not a particularly happy mother, struggling with alcoholism and implied depression. She was pregnant when she married Robert and it is clear that she probably would not have wanted to be a mother were not for social pressure at the time. At one point, she even ignores her wailing infant to drink. In real life, she ended up sending her son Peter off to boarding school as a teenager due to their constant bickering (with Robert somewhat reluctantly agreeing) and had a particularly volatile relationship with her daughter Toni, who ultimately died by suicide.
• Remarried to the Mistress: Gender-inverted, as Kitty and Robert started their affair while she was still married to her third husband.
• Second Love: Implied Robert is this for her since she still is grieving her dead second husband and seems to have only married her third husband for security.
• Shotgun Wedding: Essentially, what her and Oppenheimer's marriage was, seeing how she got pregnant with Oppenheimer's child before divorcing her current husband.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: The only witness called in the hearing who manages to interrupt Roger Robb's bluster effectively enough to get him to shut up for a second. It implicitly tilts the opinion of one of the judges in Oppenheimer's favor; Ward V. Evans, the judge who looks impressed with her, is the one who voted his way in the 2:1 decision.
• Stepford Snarker: "...are you sure you don't want to adopt him?"
• Tantrum Throwing: Throws a bottle on the wall during a heated discussion where she insists that Strauss was a bad guy.

Lewis Strauss

Lewis Lichtenstein Strauss

Portrayed by: Robert Downey Jr. ^{Other languages} Bernard Gabay (European French)

The chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission.

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• Affably Evil: Though he might not be entirely "evil", he is the antagonist. But he is genuinely friendly to Oppenheimer when they first meet and seems truly excited to welcome him as a colleague. He is also always polite to the senate aide, directing his Villainous Breakdown at Oppenheimer not the aide, aside from his parting passive-aggressive smile. He may be a vindictive jerk but he genuinely seems to have not forgotten his own humble roots and is typically probably an amiable enough guy as long as you don't get on his fickle bad side. That being said, he is still resentful as all hell despite having some redeeming qualities and presents himself as a Fake Friend to Oppenheimer to avoid suspicion.
• Arch-Enemy: Strauss sees Oppenheimer as this and assumes Oppenheimer sees him the same way, becoming determined to take everything from him thanks to their various disagreements and making fun of his concerns about isotopes being used to make nuclear weapons. In truth, Oppenheimer barely ever acknowledges Strauss and he's little more than a footnote in the color scenes taking place from his perspective to highlight Strauss' ludicrously overinflated ego.
• Big Bad: He is the main antagonist of the 1950s segments, scheming to ruin Oppenheimer's career over perceived slights and being the most personal enemy to Oppenheimer himself.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Likes to present himself as a kind figure and friend to Oppenheimer, but he is later revealed to be a petty and vindictive asshole, as well as the chief architect of the destruction of Oppenheimer's career and influence in atomic policy.
• Deuteragonist: Next to Oppenheimer, his story is the most emphasized, to the point where it is shot in black and white when we're witnessing it from Strauss' point of view compared to it being in color from Oppenheimer's.
• Didn't See That Coming: Strauss is ultimately undone by a mixture of this trope and good old-fashioned human decency. He gets David Hill to testify at his Senate confirmation hearing, expecting that he'll have nothing but good things to say about him due to their shared negative feelings towards Oppenheimer. What he doesn't expect is for Hill to testify against him and reveal his true nature to everyone, dashing any chances for Strauss to get a cabinet position and permanently tarnishing his political career.
• Disproportionate Retribution: He's determined to ruin Oppenheimer's career and destroy his credibility by turning the government and scientific community against him. Why? He thinks Oppenheimer might have said something about him to Albert Einstein that caused the latter to snub Strauss. Even his aide can't believe Strauss could be that petulant.
• Even Evil Has Standards: A petty, vindictive asshole he may be, but he makes sure that Joseph McCarthy and his ilk aren't involved in any way in the investigation of Oppenheimer's security hearing. It's partly because he knows McCarthy's hearings are a clown show and he doesn't want to make Oppenheimer's martyrdom a public affair where he can bring his personality to bear, but the clear distaste in Strauss' voice as he describes McCarthy's public crusades and him the man a "self-promoting clown" makes it clear he's not at all a fan.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good:
  • That Hill would actually expose Strauss' true character for the senate instead of gratify himself by lambasting Oppenheimer, who had been shown to be dismissive and rude to him earlier, is something that never occurred to him. For all his talk about Oppenheimer's faults, he is clearly incapable of recognizing his own makes him even less likable than the man he views to be his nemesis.
  • In the post-war segment Strauss keeps insisting Oppenheimer is motivated purely by ego and spite, and not once concedes that he might genuinely be concerned about the dangers of nuclear proliferation.
• Evil Counterpart: Strauss is a Jewish man himself, like Oppenheimer, and is evidently envious of his brilliance and the reverence he commands since he was unable to pursue a career in physics himself. It's implied that his humble beginnings as a shoemaker, which he believes Oppenheimer is mocking when they meet for the first time in comparison to his prestigious career in academia, signifies that Oppenheimer is dead set against him and wants to poison the world of science against his character when he sees him talking to Albert Enstein and the latter ignores him when walking. As the Senate Aide points out, the two likely weren't even talking about him at all, although there's no way for us to know for sure.
• Evil Is Petty: While he and Oppenheimer do have legitimate policy disagreements, it turns out Strauss ruined his credibility out of a mixture of hateful resentment for publicly humiliating him and the belief that he was turning the scientific community against Strauss, starting as early as misinterpreting a disagreement between him and Einstein as somehow being about Strauss.
• Foil: It's subtle, but to Edward Teller. Both are "outsiders" in different ways to the scientific community (Strauss as a self-taught man, Teller as a Hungarian-Jewish refugee), both have similar conservative political views, both dislike and distrust Oppenheimer while admiring his genius, and both are extremely ambitious. But while Strauss pretends to be friendly and supportive to Oppenheimer while loathing him, Teller is extremely straightforward in his criticism of Oppenheimer and though they are often at odds, Teller does not actually hate the man and is unhappy while testifying against him, even as he believes Oppenheimer is unworthy of a security clearance. Most notably, while Strauss' attack on Oppenheimer is entirely personal, the fictional person of Teller is entirely Nothing Personal — showing a contrast between the two most prominent on-screen opponents of Oppenheimer.^note In real life, Teller and Oppenheimer did have more personal and political clashes. That being said, the movie representation of Teller as genuinely believing in Oppenheimer's loyalty to the United States and defending Oppenheimer from espionage charges is taken nearly word for word from the real Teller's actual testimony.
• Freudian Excuse: He came from a working-class background and achieved everything he did entirely through his own efforts, causing him to dislike the more privileged Oppenheimer and resent seeing him praised as a genius. The real Strauss also nearly earned a college scholarship in high school but lost it after a bout with typhoid fever which caused him to miss out and later had to delay college to work in his family shoe store, saving twenty-thousand dollars (equivalent to four-hundred and fifty-seven thousand in 2023) in just three years, explaining why he gets so pissed at Oppenheimer claiming he was simply a "lowly shoe salesman", even if he didn't mean anything insulting by it.
• Grayscale of Evil: An unusual example. Almost every time Strauss appears onscreen, it's when the film is in Deliberately Monochrome scenes. This adds to how antagonistic and petty the man is to Oppenheimer behind closed doors.
• Green-Eyed Monster: The source of his animosity towards Oppenheimer comes down to simple envy. Strauss is an amateur physicist and a veteran public servant who will nonetheless never have the level of genius and influence as Oppenheimer — a fact that he is aware of and bitterly resents. A mocking answer Oppenheimer gave during a public hearing that torpedoed a policy proposed by Strauss sticks with him for years.
• Graceful Loser: Downplayed. While he still rambles and whinges about Oppenheimer, he accepts his defeat without making a scene and puts on a smile before going out to meet the press. He is at least comparatively calmer compared to his previous rant.
• Hidden Depths: He initially presents himself in his own cabinet confirmation hearing as a reasonable, professional man who may not have enjoyed "the Oppenheimer Incident" but felt it necessary to do his duty despite not having a personal grudge against the man. His personal and petty loathing of Oppenheimer is only slowly revealed throughout the movie. On the positive side, though the movie does not represent it, the real Strauss was a philanthropist who never forgot that he grew up poor and an advocate who worked to help Jewish refugees escape the Holocaust, making him both a petty vindictive asshole and someone who also had redeeming qualities and could show compassion to suffering people at the same time.
• Hidden Disdain Reveal: While Strauss and Oppenheimer have their differences, it does seem like they respect one another's intelligence and integrity for much of the film. But during his Villainous Breakdown after the hearing in front of Congress, it turns out Strauss was the one who orchestrated the revocation of Oppenheimer's security clearance, and that he sees Oppenheimer as a Glory Hound who wanted to be "the most important man in the world" for his achievement of building the atom bomb, but then also wanted to bask in martyrdom and performative grief once it was used so he didn't have to feel bad about doing it.
• Historical Beauty Update: Even under heavy make-up, Robert Downey Jr is still more conventionally handsome and distinguished looking than the real Strauss,
• Historical Villain Upgrade: The film generally portrays Lewis Strauss as little more than a vindictive and egotistical jerk. While this is, by all accounts, an accurate portrayal of his personality^note One of his fellow AEC members famously quipped: "If you disagree with Lewis about anything, he assumes you're just a fool at first. But if you go on disagreeing with him, he concludes you must be a traitor"., in reality he had plenty of genuinely admirable traits, doing his best to get U.S. policy to accept Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany (helped by the fact he was Jewish himself like Oppenheimer) and while Strauss did advocate for the H-Bomb post war, he was at the time one of the very few top politicians actually lobbying against nuking a Japanese city and suggested they bomb an uninhabited island as a demonstration to Japan instead. This contrasts with Oppenheimer, who did support the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and only regretted it later. Strauss also never forgot his humble roots and became a philanthropist who donated much of his money to the needy and did fund raising for cancer research after both of his parents died from the disease. Part of his issues with Oppenheimer was that he saw the man as an academic snob, an assessment which the film does grant is very much on the nose.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Strauss' vindictiveness earns him exactly what he deserves in 1959 with his political career ruined by the reveal to the Senate of what he did to Oppenheimer, and he is denied the position of Secretary of Commerce. His time in government comes to an end, and he leaves the world of politics in disgrace.
• Hypocrite: He was wanting to affirm that there’d be a system in control of the nuclear power once harnessed that would prevent its misuse and yet because he feels so personally offended by Oppenheimer and is wanting a political office too, makes arrangements for Oppenheimer to be condemned by an oversight board that will revoke his security clearance when he's in the midst of voicing his My God, What Have I Done? concerns that would fit right in with what Strauss was saying. Ultimately, he’s far more concerned with getting both the Senate seat and sticking it to Oppenheimer that he'd rather put focus on that than working with him on actually helping to develop a plan on that—and also totally breaking down and insisting Oppenheimer's disingenuous when Strauss himself was the one deceiving and scheming otherwise.
• Improperly Paranoid: Strauss believes that Oppenheimer has been setting the scientific community against him for years based on a contemptuous glare Einstein once gave him after talking to Oppenheimer. As the senate aide — and the admittedly-subjective final scene — suggests, they probably didn't talk about Strauss at all.
• Insistent Terminology: He insists on being referred to as "Admiral Strauss". It's not mentioned here, but he served in the Naval Reserve during WWII and was appointed to rear admiral by Truman for his efforts. He was quite adamant on being referred to as such.
• It's All About Me: Strauss seems to believe that Oppenheimer and Einstein's discussion at the pond was about him, hence Einstein not acknowledging him as he walked away. Given the nature of the ending revisiting this scene through Oppenheimer's subjective view, it likely wasn't about Strauss at all, but there's no way to be sure.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Strauss accurately points out that Oppenheimer never actually apologized for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Oppenheimer both wants to self-flagellate in public but is still too cowardly to openly admit that guilt because it would destroy his public credibility, and while Strauss has scummy personal motivations to take Oppenheimer down, he is not wrong in that assessment of Oppenheimer's hypocrisy. He also points out that it wasn't as if he had to manipulate anyone; Oppenheimer had left a trail of enemies just waiting to conspire against him throughout his career. Strauss specifically calls out Lt. Col. Nichols as someone who needed no convincing to help him destroy Oppenheimer.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Though Strauss is NOT a Graceful Loser who privately goes on a Villainous Breakdown when Hill denounces his role in The Oppenheimer Incident, he does seem to realize his dreams of being a cabinet member are crushed and instead of trying to appeal the situation he forces a fake smile and does not offer a rebuttal.
• Laser-Guided Karma: The culmination of his life's work in public service (i.e., his appointment to a Cabinet post) was taken away from him in exactly the same manner he employed to destroy Oppenheimer's credibility and government career, to wit, a weaponized bureaucratic procedure turned Kangaroo Court. And he very clearly takes note. It becomes all the more ironic when one of the very people whose vote sank his nomination - John F. Kennedy - would publicly rehabilitate Oppenheimer's reputation.
• Liar Revealed: Strauss plays innocent the entire movie when talking to the senate aide, claiming he has no idea how Borden came in possession of Oppenheimer's security file. It's a slip up involving wording in Time magazine that gives him away. Once caught, he essentially fesses up and defends himself.
• Manchild: In spite of his work ethic, accomplishments and intelligence Strauss turns out to be a deeply flawed and immature man, behaving more like a petulant child than a talented scientist and statesman. He makes the assumption that Oppenheimer said something negative about him to Albert Einstein — and concludes this because Einstein didn't look at him as he walked past him. This incident along with Strauss' envy of Oppenheimer caused Strauss to spend years plotting to use the entire government to destroy Oppenheimer's reputation and credibility. Even his own aide is astonished at this.
• Near-Villain Victory: Strauss successfully ruins Oppenheimer's career through a bureaucratic Kangaroo Court over a petty grudge. But in the end, his pathetic crusade comes to bite him at the confirmation hearing to make him Secretary of Commerce; his actions against Oppenheimer are revealed by a scientist, David Hill, that he believed also had a grudge against the man and thus thought would make him look good. Hill actually chooses to do the right thing by testifying to the truth because he's not interested in getting revenge on such a prominent member of the science community over a few slights. As a result, Strauss ends up being denied the position and publicly humiliated for it.
• Odd Friendship: Not a friendship but a professional relationship, but "grassroots" Democrat Harry S. Truman promoted the vocally Republican, self-taught intellectual Strauss to Admiral and the later considered him a trusted voice, in part out of respect for his military career but also in part to attempt to "bridge across the isle" and encourage bipartisanship. Strauss' support of Truman's armament program despite their opposing political parties — something Strauss mentions several times in the film — also no doubt helped him gain Truman's respect.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Strauss succeeds in ruining Oppenheimer's career and credibility by manipulating a Kangaroo Court to have his security clearance revoked. This ends up costing him dearly when David Hill exposes his petty, vindictive behavior at the confirmation hearing for his nomination to become Secretary of Commerce, publicly humiliating him and costing him the confirmation vote. Just as it did in real life, this effectively ends his political career. Less than a decade later Oppenheimer would be politically rehabilitated by John F. Kennedy — one of the same people who voted against him no less — meaning his victory didn't even permanently damage Oppenheimer's reputation in the end.
• Pronouncing My Name for You: His surname is pronounced "straws" as he makes a point of informing Oppenheimer when they meet. He claims it's the result of living in the South and not an attempt to hide his Jewishness.
• Psychological Projection: Strauss interpreting Oppenheimer's actions as political sabotage by an ambitious rival is likely because Strauss himself is an expert when it comes to such maneuvering. And his rant at the end suggests that the reason that Oppenheimer's "lowly shoemaker" remark bit so deep is because he himself has some insecurities and self-loathing about his humble origins.
• The Resenter: Strauss is revealed to be this towards Oppenheimer. He is still very sore that Oppenheimer undermined him during the Senate hearing on sending isotopes to Norway, and he believes that Oppenheimer badmouthed him in a conversation with Einstein (he is strongly suggested to be wrong about the last one).
• Self-Made Man: Something he takes pride in. He was a shoemaker and worked hard to achieve his influence in contrast to Oppenheimer who was born to a rich family (though Robert tries to connect with Lewis by explaining that his father was self made). It's part of his resentment toward Oppenheimer as he thinks he is being condescended as a former shoemaker when Oppenheimer doesn't hold it against him.
• Unknown Rival: Oppenheimer does make fun of him a couple times, but he doesn't necessarily bear the man himself much personal ill will even when they disagree on the handling of the nuclear arms race and Kitty bearing down on him for not fighting back against Strauss' antagonism more. Strauss, meanwhile, plots for years to destroy Oppenheimer's career and public image, and succeeds in tarnishing the former.
• Unreliable Narrator: In no small part because Strauss himself is extremely manipulative and capable of turning people against each other, he assumes that Oppenheimer is working behind the scenes to turn scientists against Strauss from the day they meet. Actually, Oppenheimer not only doesn't even think about Strauss but is generally a bit socially inept and his strategy for getting people to do what he wants is either to try to bulldoze over them with his genius and arrogance or actually clam up in situations where powerful people surround him. The final scene in the movie shows that the conversation between Einstein and Oppenheimer which Strauss sites as the beginning of his "rivalry" with Oppenheimer was not even about Strauss at all.
• Villain Has a Point:
  • Even though the rest of the film makes him more and more unsympathetic, his original statement that "genius is not wisdom" basically holds true of Oppenheimer throughout the film.
  • No less a figure than Oppenheimer's wife thinks he's basically right about Oppenheimer wanting to martyr himself via government censorship to absolve some of the responsibility he feels for making the bomb.
  • While much of Strauss' dislike of Oppenheimer is generally due to reading too much into petty slights, he is not wrong that Oppenheimer is often arrogant and condescending, tends to be bad at considering other people's points of view, evasive about his own point of view despite having a job that demands he give advice, and can be subtly classist despite his alleged egalitarian politics. While Oppenheimer probably did not mean to offend Strauss by calling him a "lowly shoemaker," it still reeks of snobbery and says a lot about how his privileged upbringing undercuts Oppenheimer's leftist views. While Strauss may have overreacted, he's not out of line to be annoyed.
• Villainous Breakdown: After a scientist he expects to give a glowing review of his accomplishments to Congress instead lambastes him as a vindictive man who destroyed Oppenheimer for petty personal animus, something which narrowly sinks his nomination, Strauss melts down among his aides in the waiting room, ranting about Oppenheimer's faults and why he deserved what happened to him.

Lt. Gen. Leslie Groves

Lieutenant General Leslie Richard Groves

Portrayed by: Matt Damon ^{Other languages} Damien Boisseau (European French)

A United States Army Corps of Engineers officer who oversees the Manhattan Project.

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• Black Comedy: At one point, Groves lightly suggests to Oppenheimer that they could simply order the assassination of a defecting scientist. He has to add quickly he was just joking at Oppenheimer's blank stare.
• Establishing Character Moment: The very first scene with Groves involves in entering a room, loudly declaring who he is, taking off his jacket and throwing it at a subordinate to have it dry cleaned.
• Deadpan Snarker: Abrasive and sarcastic to pretty much anyone.
  Oppenheimer: The chances [of blowing up the world] are near zero.
  Groves: ...Near zero?!
  Oppenheimer: What do you want from theory alone?
  Groves: Zero would be nice!
• Four-Star Badass: Well, he is not a general *yet* when introduced but he is quickly promoted leading the Manhattan Project.
• Friend on the Force: After a rough start, he begins readily cooperating with Oppenheimer and later defends him at his hearing and even offers advice against more brutal investigators like Boris Pash.
• Hidden Depths: As Oppenheimer notes, Groves graduated from MIT with a degree in engineering, so he is not simply an army grunt. Additionally, despite his brisk, blunt nature, Groves is able to read people well enough to correctly realize that it is Oppenheimer who is best equipped to run the Manhattan Project due not only to his multiplicity of fields but due to his ambition.
• Historical Beauty Upgrade: The real Groves had a belly pouch and was far less attractive than Matt Damon.
• Historical Relationship Overhaul: Though Groves and Oppenheimer developed a mutual respect for one another, Groves actually testified against Oppenheimer at his security clearance hearing. In the movie, he is portrayed as being a witness for the defense despite having to admit that under the McCarthy era guidelines, he would not have appointed Oppenheimer director of the Manhattan Project. However, his testimony in the movie is at times taken verbatim from the actual transcript, even though in real life he ultimately admitted he could not defend the renewal of Oppenheimer's clearance.
• Innocently Insensitive: Immediately after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Groves calls Oppenheimer to congratulate him and tell him sincerely that hiring Oppenheimer as the director of Los Alamos was one of the best decisions Groves has ever made. Despite this being probably the nicest thing Groves has ever said to Oppenheimer, given Oppenheimer is starting to spiral into shock and horror, you can see in Cillian Murphy's expression that the words hit a nerve.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Groves is a very abrasive, hard-nosed man^*In real life, his military career ended because Eisenhower refused to appoint him as Chief of Engineers due primarily to his rude personality, but he comes to develop a genuine friendship of sorts with Oppenheimer, and it's revealed late in the movie that he took personal steps to protect the scientists of the Manhattan Project from the borderline Ax-Crazy Colonel Pash by having him reassigned to London.
• Large Ham: He can be pretty theatrical when he gets heated about something:
  Groves, in response to someone asking why they should abandon their research to join the Manhattan Project:"HOW ABOUT THE FACT THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT FUCKING THING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD???"
• Mildly Military: Not so much Groves himself... exactly... as much as he found out the hard way it is difficult to enforce military discipline on a group of scientists who value their independence. He eventually has to learn to have some patience with their idiosyncracies, though you see him get visibly annoyed at Lawrence cheerfully announcing he doesn't care about compartmentalization at one point or other times that he has to go against his instincts as an officer.
• No Indoor Voice: Has a tendency to raise his voice often.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Oppenheimer straight up calls him out on the fact that as an MIT graduate, Groves is a lot smarter than the blunt and hard-nosed man he pretends to be when dealing with the scientists.
• Odd Couple: He and Oppenheimer are very different people, both in personality and profession, but they develop a mutual if slightly grudging, respect for each other at Los Alamos.
• Only Sane Man: Downplayed in that Groves is so intense and unconventional in his own right that he is just as memorable a character as the scientists he is managing, but in other ways, he acts the way most people would to things like Fermi betting ten dollars on whether or not the world will end or Oppenheimer admitting hours before the Trinity test that there is a small chance they might destroy the world.
• Pet the Dog: At Oppenheimer's security clearance hearing, he goes out of his way to reaffirm his belief in his loyalty even though he admits that he wouldn't have been able to appoint him under the new guidelines. It earns him a smile from Oppenheimer, who at that point had seen multiple former colleagues testify against him. The rabidly anti-Communist Boris Pash, who had fought with the Whites in the Russian Civil War and once suggested murdering a leftist scientist, reveals Groves had him moved to London where he couldn't keep trying to dig up dirt on the Los Alamos scientists. Groves never told Oppenheimer he'd protected him in this way, who is visibly surprised and pleased to discover it during his hearing.
• Properly Paranoid: He butts heads with Oppenheimer over the issue of compartmentalization, as Oppenheimer worries it will slow them down but Groves fears the Soviets stealing the secrets of the bomb. Klaus Fuchs turns out to be a Soviet spy who hands atomic secrets to the USSR, vindicating Groves' fears.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Whilst his demeanor is brusque and abrasive and he is often critical of the laissez-faire attitude the scientists in the Manhattan Project have towards operational security Groves knows and understands the value of the work that the scientists are doing and gives them the resources to do it. He also protects them from the zealous anti-communist Boris Pash, and never once tells any of them that he did it.
• Smarter Than They Look: As Oppenheimer notes, Groves went to MIT and had an engineering degree so he is not simply an average army officer. Oppenheimer grows suspicious that Groves selected him because of his leftist past because it makes Oppenheimer easier to control. Groves laughs it off, saying he's not that manipulative. In fact, it turns out Groves has been protecting Oppenheimer and the other scientists with communist ties without Oppenheimer knowing it until many years later.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: Pretty much anytime he and Oppenheimer get in a conversation, it falls into this. But while their first conversation is essentially verbal swordplay they slowly soften a bit towards each other as they grow to respect one another.
• What You Are in the Dark: Groves protects the Los Alamos scientists from the anti-communist Colonel Pash by relocating him to London, something that he never tells anyone and isn't brought up until Pash testifies at Oppenheimer's security meeting years later. Oppenheimer is visibly appreciative of Groves upon learning of this fact and lets out a small smile.

Isidor Isaac Rabi

Isidor Isaac Rabi

Portrayed by: David Krumholtz ^{Other languages}Bruno Magne (European French)

A Jewish American scientist who becomes Oppenheimer's closest friend.

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• Adaptational Curves: The real Rabi had a more average build compared to the heavy one he has here.
• Affectionate Nickname: Oppenheimer calls him "Izzy" as a sign of their close friendship.
• Big Applesauce: Like Oppenheimer, he's from New York City although from a more working class background than the more upper class Oppenheimer.
• Brooklyn Rage: He grew up in Brooklyn and the Lower East Side and has the accent and cocky personality to match.
• Commonality Connection: Despite being an Interclass Friendship, both Oppenheimer and Rabi are New York City Jews who got their physics degrees in Europe and first met as young scientist prodigies.
• The Conscience: He's one of the few if not the only scientist to have reservations about creating weapons of mass destruction from the outset. He declines to participate in the Manhattan Project because of this and unsuccessfully tries to persuade Oppenheimer to do the same.
• Deadpan Snarker: He has a dry remark for every situation and provides much of the film's comic relief.
• Foil:
  • Arguably to Lawrence. While both start out close friends with Oppenheimer, Lawrence and Oppenheimer drift apart due to political differences (and, it is subtly implied, increased personal conflict as Oppenheimer's career increasingly outshines Lawrence's) while Rabi is loyal to Oppenheimer to the end. They are also very different in background as Lawrence is a gentile from South Dakota educated in the US while Rabi is a New York City Jew from a working-class background educated in Europe. Additionally, Rabi initially expresses apprehension about the building of a nuclear bomb, whereas Lawrence never does, before or after it is dropped on Hiroshima. Finally, Rabi testifies at the Q clearance hearing in Oppenheimer's favor. Lawrence waffles, coming close to testifying for the opposition, but loses his nerve at the last minute after seeing a broken Oppenheimer in the hallway and receiving a Death Glare from Rabi.
  • Arguably to Oppenheimer himself, though not as obviously. Rabi comes from a Yiddish-speaking working-class family while Oppenheimer comes from a more assimilated, wealthy family and is more vague about his Jewishness in most contexts. Oppenheimer can be self-obsessed and cold, while Rabi is generally a pretty Nice Guy.
• Fat and Skinny: Rabi and the very slender Oppenheimer fit this image when standing side by side.
• The Heart: Probably the kindest character in the movie and the first person to truly articulate deep concerns about the ethics of building a bomb.
• Hidden Depths: Despite being introduced as a cocky American in his comical first appearance, he later proves to be Oppenheimer's most loyal ally, and he is perceptive enough to realize the tides are turning regarding antisemitism in Europe when Oppenheimer, for all his intelligence, is somewhat in denial. Rabi is also the first person to raise deep ethical concerns about the Manhattan Project. Also, despite being a Nice Guy, the death glare he gives Lawrence when the later shows up to testify against Oppenheimer could rip paint off a wall.
• Interclass Friendship: Although both men are New York Jews, Oppenheimer's family are very rich, owning a ranch out in New Mexico, while Rabi's are implicitly poorer and still speak Yiddish.
• Jewish and Nerdy: He's a Jewish man from New York and a genius physicist. At one point he makes fun of Oppenheimer for not being able to speak Yiddish despite his heritage.
• Jewish Smartass: Like Oppenheimer, he has a dry, droll, very culturally Ashkenazi sense of humor about his Jewishness, snarkily (but lightly) teasing Oppenheimer first in Yiddish and then for not knowing Yiddish. He responds to Oppenheimer, claiming he doesn't experience much antisemitism in his department in Europe with a dry quip about the department being heavily Jewish.
• Nice Guy: Despite being a physicist important enough to help on the Manhattan Project, unlike many of his colleagues, he doesn't have much of an ego and is typically a friendly guy.
• Only Friend: The only one of Oppenheimer's closer colleagues who testifies on his behalf (though not the only colleague testifying on the defense). Even someone like Groves or Teller, who do defend him from charges of being a communist, ultimately end up proving the opposition's point but while Rabi does not do well under cross-examination he stays by Oppenheimer's side throughout.
• Undying Loyalty: To Oppenheimer. He's one of the few scientists to stick with him throughout everything.

Jean Tatlock

Jean Frances Tatlock

Portrayed by: Florence Pugh ^{Other Languages}Ludivine Maffren (European French)

A psychoanalyst and medical student studying to be a psychiatrist, Marxist sympathizer, and Robert Oppenheimer's girlfriend, and, after he's married Kitty, his mistress.

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• Adaptational Sexuality: Historians generally believe Tatlow to have been gay or bisexual, and that her repressed sexuality was a major factor in her depression and ultimate suicide. The movie's depiction of her barely so much as hints as this, since it depicts Tatlock exclusively through her relationship with Oppenheimer.
• Age-Gap Romance: The real Robert Oppenheimer was 10 years older than Tatlock, but Cillian Murphy is 20 years older than Florence Pugh (though presumably he is meant to be playing the character younger).
• Ambiguous Situation: Is the shot of the hand forcing her head underwater suggesting the FBI murdered her, an imagine spot from Oppenheimer wondering if she was murdered, or rather symbolic of his own guilt over her death?.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: She weeps when Oppenheimer insists that their affair is genuinely over, she begs him to stay with her by saying, "You said you would always answer!"
• Aww Look They Really Do Love Each Other: Despite Jean being a Defrosting Ice Queen at best, it is clear she and Robert do genuinely care for one another. Even as she pushes him away due to her own emotional turmoil, she clearly does rely on him emotionally and he always comes for her when she calls, even after he is married.
• Bait-and-Switch Comment: She is quite annoyed that Oppenheimer shows up to her house and brings flowers. Oppenheimer points out she keeps calling him, to which she meekly responds, "Well, don't answer."
• Betty and Veronica: Though Oppenheimer's relationships with both women are very turbulent, Jean is shown to be more unstable than Kitty. Not only she is troubled enough to commit suicide, their affair proves dangerous enough to be used against Robert in the process of not renewing his security clearance. In contrast, his marriage to Kitty continued even after all she went through, and she even testified in his favor in the 1954 security hearings.
• Bookworm: She is well-read in Marx, Jung, Freud, and stops in the middle of sex with Robert to check out his bookshelf and admire his taste in literature. She even takes this to the level of asking Robert to read the Bhagavad Gita to her in Sanskrit in the middle of sex.
• Brainy Brunette: See Bookworm above. Also, she is studying to be a psychiatrist — not a therapist — which requires not only a psychology degree but actually attending medical school and becoming a doctor. (The real Tatlock actually graduated from Stanford Medical School at a time when it was unusual for women to do so).
• Brick Joke: Jean tells Robert how she hates receiving flowers and other sappy romantic displays. Later in the film when he shows up at her apartment and brings flowers, she promptly drops them in the trash.
• Broken Bird: Due to her depression and difficulty committing to Robert despite obviously relying on him.
• Brutal Honesty: "You needed to get laid." Also, her matter-of-fact comment on Robert knocking Kitty up.
• Chummy Commies: A dedicated Communist Party member with whom Oppenheimer has a very passionate relationship.
• The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: A psychiatrist with severe depression, which ends in her taking her own life. This is not unheard of, as many mental health professionals were inspired to enter the field by their own mental struggles.
• Commonality Connection: Jean and Robert are both highly educated, politically Left, somewhat troubled (with Robert being implied to have suffered from severe depression and even been suicidal in the past while Jean suffers from depression in the present), independent with difficulty settling down, and have an eclectic range of interests outside of physics for Robert and psychiatry for Jean, including literature and philosophy.
• Driven to Suicide: She overdoses on alcohol and barbiturates before drowning herself in her bathtub, having suffered from clinical depression. One of Oppenheimer's visions of her death includes a brief glimpse of gloved hands forcing her head under the water, alluding to conspiracy theories that Jean was murdered. Alternatively, the gloved hand could have represented Oppenheimer feeling responsible for her death.
• Foil: To Kitty. While both women are intelligent, highly educated, dark-haired, opinionated, and troubled, Jean's unhappiness with Robert is due to their off-again, on-again relationship that she tends to sabotage, while Kitty is faithful to Robert despite knowing he is not faithful to her. While Robert is Jean's support system, Kitty is Robert's. Both women have no problem calling him out on his bullshit ("You come into my life whenever you want... how is that not power?"/"You don't get to sin, feel terrible about it, and expect everyone to feel sorry for you") but while Jean ends up sinking further into depression after Robert leaves her for the final time, Kitty grows more assertive and independent as she ages and seems to get her alcoholism under control.
• Goodbye, Cruel World!: She leaves an unsigned note addressing her loved ones.
• Hidden Depths: Her medical training aside, she is well-read in Marxist theory and Jungian psychoanalysis. She is also more perceptive than she lets on, seeing right through Robert's facade more than once.
• Historical Beauty Upgrade: The real Jean Tatlock was quite plain, whereas the movie version is conventionally attractive.
• Ice Queen: Jean has an icy-cold demeanor and refuses any explicit romantic gesture Oppenheimer tries to make with her, such as bringing her flowers and holding her hand in public, which is implied to be as a result of her depression. Despite this, Oppenheimer still loves her deeply and is utterly devastated when he finds out about her death.
• If I Can't Have You…: Mostly averted as she never targeted Robert or Kitty, but she does admit she hates the idea of her relationship to Oppenheimer ending even though she knows it's not perfect. When it does, she commits suicide.
• Irony: An aspiring psychologist with severe depression in a dysfunctional relationship with an almost equally troubled man. Truth in Television in that many mental health professionals become drawn to the subject due to their own personal struggles (though she has a hard time getting outside her own feelings).
• The Lost Lenore: Somewhat downplayed as it is clear Robert does love his wife, but he never forgot her. Kitty seems to fear that deep down, Jean is this to Robert as evidenced in the scene where she imagines them having sex making eye contact with Jean.
• The Mistress: Despite having a relationship with her before his eventual marriage to Kitty, Oppenheimer continued to carry an affair with Jean.
• Ms. Fanservice: The sole female character to get nude and sex scenes in the movie.
• Relationship Revolving Door: So much that Robert and Jean are engaged when Oppenheimer breaks off the relationship (for now) with Robert pointing out that there is something that she wants from him that he isn't providing.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Though she is only in the movie for less than 10 minutes, her affair with Robert not only deeply impacts him emotionally after she dies but also is used as evidence against him in his security clearance hearing.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: She outwardly appears to be a Tsundere, as she is dismissive of Oppenheimer and is annoyed by his romantic gestures. However, she continues to call Oppenheimer and is devastated when he breaks off their affair; his final breaking off seems to have driven her to suicide.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: She can be tender and vulnerable with Robert one minute and angrily push him away the next second.
• There Are No Therapists: She seems trained in psychoanalysis but boy does she need a therapist herself. (In fairness, a psychiatrist is not the same thing as a psychologist and she is studying to be the former — the real Tatlock earned an MD at Stanford Medical School while the version in the film reads Freud and Jung, implying Pugh’s version is supposed to be a psychoanalyst).
• Troubled, but Cute: She is played by Florence Pugh and has a LOT of issues.

Edward Teller

Edward Teller

Portrayed by: Benny Safdie ^{Other languages}Sacha Petronijevic (European French)

A Hungarian-American scientist who worked at Los Alamos and eventually helped invent the Hydrogen Bomb.

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• Ambition Is Evil: Downplayed, since he goes out of his way to attest to Oppenheimer's character and loyalty to the United States in the strongest possible terms, pushing against the narrative that he was a communist spy and traitor, but he does throw him under the bus in terms of whether or not he ought to be in charge of the United States' nuclear program so that he can take his place. It is ambiguous whether or not, in the film, Teller is acting at least in part out of ambition or if his concerns are sincere.^note The actual Teller was co-leading the Livermore lab at the time (with Lawrence, later named the Lawrence Livermore Lab after Lawrence's death) and was not actually in direct rivalry with Oppenheimer because Teller was explicitly working to develop technology for the US military and Oppenheimer oversaw theoretical research at Princeton, so Teller had no ambitious motivation to benefit from his testimony. Actually, his career actually suffered quite a bit for testifying against Oppenheimer though the movie does not show this.
• Easily Forgiven: Zigzagged. Oppenheimer decides there are no hard feelings as early as Teller betraying him during the hearing about his security clearance, but Kitty never forgives him for it and refuses to so much as shake his hand years later.
• Establishing Character Moment: In his first appearance, Oppenheimer states that Teller should wait a minute before entering... only for Teller to burst into the room, arms full of disorganized papers, sit down abruptly and immediately start scribbling, completely ignoring the other people in the room. This establishes him as an absent-minded genius like Oppenheimer himself (perhaps even smarter) but somehow even more socially awkward and completely either oblivious to that fact or perfectly fine being rude.
• Everyone Has Standards: Despite his many issues with Oppenheimer, both personally and professionally, Teller is adamant that he cannot imagine that Oppenheimer would ever betray his country. It would be very easy to throw his former colleague under the bus completely, but Teller refuses to believe that Oppenheimer was ever a spy without "very, very strong proof."
• Foil:
  • To Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer and Teller are equals in intelligence (in fact, in real life, Teller was probably the more versatile physicist than Oppenheimer), both are arrogant and can be condescending but dedicated, have a tendency to be blunt to the point of rudeness, are both Jews who are personally affected by the Nazis, both extremely theoretical physicists who are better at theory than mathematics, and both tend to be competitive and resent being told what to do. However, while Oppenheimer is a self-described liberal Democrat (probably closer to a Democratic Socialist by today's understanding) who later came to advocate nuclear regulation and did not trust the government to use bombs ethically, Teller increasingly became a conservative Republican who ultimately ended up not only help invent the hydrogen bomb but helped created the "Star Wars" program under the Ronald Reagan administration in contrast to Oppenheimer, who blew his chance to persuade Truman. Oppenheimer can be very charming but is known for being flakey, and it is not clear that even he knows what he believes. Teller is not particularly charming, but you cannot accuse the man of not being straightforward. Each man does seem to recognize the other as their rare intellectual equal, but they went from working closely together on the Manhattan Project to essentially being on opposite sides of the arms race and they are often used to represent the difference between the WWII era understanding of warfare (Oppenheimer) with the new age of the Cold War (Teller).
  • It's subtle, but with Strauss, in the movie at least. Teller's motivations in testifying against Oppenheimer are presented as Nothing Personal. Strauss' motivations are almost entirely personal. Tellingly, it seems neither man actually thinks Oppenheimer is a communist and Strauss is going after him for personal reasons, while Teller (in the film) is going after him for ideological ones. Also, like Oppenheimer, both Strauss, and Teller are Jewish and either immigrants (or specifically, a refugee in Teller's case) or the children of immigrants. Though the Red Scare was extremely antisemitic to the point of not only overly targeting Jewish people but also employing antisemitic rhetoric in general, Oppenheimer's Jewishness and his first-generation American status is completely irrelevant to both Strauss and Teller. Christopher Nolan seems to have decided to stick to Teller's testimony at the time instead of including other readings in order to contrast Teller's sincerely held concerns with Oppenheimer with Strauss' more petty issues to demonstrate that there were people who distrusted Oppenheimer for non-personal reasons.
  • Funnily enough, given they ended up becoming close friends and business partners in real life, Ernest Lawrence. They could not be more different — Lawrence, the blonde all-American boy from the Midwest with impeccable charm and a knack for experimental physics, and Hungarian-Jewish Teller with his black hair and even blacker sense of humor, his love of theoretical physics and hatred of mathematics and eyebrow tweezers. But both tend to have a very "hands-on" approach to their craft and regard Lt. Gen Groves' "orders" as more like "guidelines" than actual rules (except in the event of safety and even then Lawrence and Teller's reactions to a nuclear explosion was to get inside a car and hope a windshield protects from radiation and put on sunscreen, respectively). Lawrence cares deeply for his friend Oppenheimer but finds his idealism exasperating at times, while Teller also finds Oppenheimer exasperating but for the OPPOSITE reason: Teller wishes Oppenheimer would spit out his ideals because the straight-forward Teller hates how the group's leader refuses to articulate what he actually believes. Ironically enough, in 1952, both Teller and Lawrence would ditch Los Alamos (and Oppenheimer's legacy) and start their own lab, Livermore Labs (now named Lawrence Livermore after Lawrence’s death). Despite barely sharing more than a line or two in the film, it is it is actually amusing to watch these two in the same scene and realize that they later go on to be not only close friends but form an influential scientific partnership.
• Historical Beauty Upgrade: Benny Safdie has unconventional decent looks, but he is better looking than the real Edward Teller at that age.
• Historical Hero Upgrade: ...or at least a Historical Unpleasantness Downgrade. The real Teller was much more petty, paranoid, and vindictive than his film counterpart, with former friend Hans Bethe citing Oppenheimer appointing Bethe as head of the theoretical division over Teller as the real source of Teller's beginning animosity towards Oppenheimer rather than actual ideological differences (Teller's own account as per his autobiography). He was also even more arrogant and abrasive than the movie depicts, attracting criticism from other scientists for trying to take credit for accomplishments that were not his alone (though to be fair, given his legendary ego, he may have genuinely believed himself responsible for more than he actually was). The film portrays Teller's issues with Oppenheimer as Nothing Personal and downplays both how paranoid Teller was towards other scientists and the fact that even by his own admission he did have some both legitimate and petty personal grievances with Oppenheimer.
• Historical Relationship Overhaul:
  • Zigzagged with his complicated relationship with Oppenheimer.
    • While the film implies that Teller's determination that Oppenheimer should not influence public policy was Nothing Personal, Teller did (by his own account) grow a genuine dislike for and distrust of Oppenheimer even though he never believed Oppenheimer was a Soviet spy and clearly respected him as a scientist. The film tones this down to contrast Teller's sincerely held political concerns with the more petty and vindictive Strauss. In the movie, Oppenheimer and Teller cordially shake hands when being awarded the Fermi Medal by Lyndon B. Johnson and even share a smile. In real life, while there exists a posed photograph of Teller and Oppenheimer shaking hands at the White House when Oppenheimer succeeded Teller as the newest recipient of the Fermi Prize ([1]◊), Teller was later pretty open about his issues with Oppenheimer in his autobiography; meanwhile, one acquaintance of Oppenheimer's noted Oppenheimer's eyes flashing with anger at the mere mention of Teller's name, implying all was not forgiven between them. In the staged photo, Kitty Oppenheimer is in the background (looking far less than pleased), as is Glenn Seaborg (Nobel Prize winner for the discovery of Plutonium). The moment in which someone refused to shake Teller's hand after his testimony against Oppenheimer DID happen but not with Kitty Oppenheimer, but with scientist Robert Christy (a doctoral student of Oppenheimer's). Teller did write Oppenheimer a cordial letter congratulating him on the Fermi Prize out of professional courtesy but it is safe to say the two were not on good terms.
    • On the other hand, in real life, Teller and Oppenheimer actually started off fairly friendly with one another. The two men met a few years prior to the Manhattan Project with Teller writing a friend describing how much he enjoyed meeting Oppenheimer and looked forward to talking with him in the future and Oppenheimer personally recruited Teller for the Manhattan Project after haven been so impressed with their conversations. Hans Bethe would later claim the start of Teller's grudge against Oppenheimer began when Oppenheimer appointed Bethe head of the theoretical division of the Manhattan Project instead of Teller, an event that is portrayed briefly in the film but not framed as the primary source of Teller's distrust of Oppenheimer. In the film, the two seem antagonistic from the beginning, with Teller rudely ignoring Oppenheimer in his first appearance and Oppenheimer greeting him with an exasperated "Hello, Edward," signifying the two men have met before and Oppenheimer already dislikes Teller prior to working with him at Los Alamos. Regardless of whether you believe Bethe's account or Teller's in his autobiography, both accounts specify the animosity between Oppenheimer and Teller did not begin until later.
  • Also with Bethe himself. Though Bethe barely appears in the film, in his one noticeable appearance, he and Teller seem to have no respect for one another, with Teller insulting Bethe to his face and Bethe telling Oppenheimer just to let Teller leave the project because he is more of a hindrance than a help. In real life, Bethe and Teller were very close friends at the time, which is part of the reason Teller was deeply hurt when Bethe was appointed over him and this appointment was the start of their fracturing relationship, not a culmination of it.
• Ignored Expert: Subverted when his equation suggests that an atomic detonation would become continuous, igniting the atmosphere and destroying all life on Earth, which turns out to be the result of him messing up the math; the chances of atmospheric ignition are double-checked and found to be near-zero. Double-subverted when he conceives of the basic principles behind the hydrogen bomb only to get ridiculed by other members of the team, and Oppenheimer has to use sweet-talk and the promise of continuing his research on his own to keep him in Los Alamos.
• Irony: The man who was the most concerned about the atomic bomb's ability to destroy all life on earth takes over the project in Oppenheimer's absence and continues escalating the Cold War and the danger of global nuclear Armageddon by building the exponentially-more-powerful hydrogen bomb.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Teller is not the easiest person to work with — he interrupts other scientists all the time, clearly thinks he is smarter than most of them (with the possible exception of Oppenheimer, who he respects intellectually despite their personal differences), and is prone to having angry outbursts when his ego is insulted. That being said, he is absolutely right to call out Oppenheimer's hypocrisy and cowardice after Oppenheimer laments that he learned from Stinson that the Japanese had basically already surrendered by pointing out no one knows what Oppenheimer truly believes — if anything — and it is hard to trust someone who seems to have no stable moral principles. This also gives some context for why Teller does not trust the US's security in Oppenheimer's hands despite respecting him as a scientist and a director — nobody knows what he believes (possibly not even Oppenheimer himself). Teller is also correct to cut right through Oppenheimer's (perhaps guilt-assuaging) optimism that the atom bomb will end all wars by pointing out that it is only a matter of time before someone builds a bigger bomb.
• Nothing Personal: He doesn't see his betrayal of Oppenheimer as a personal one, just an honest difference of opinion, and despite being hurt by it Oppenheimer takes it in stride, even shaking Teller's hand on his way out of the hearing room. But Kitty takes it very personally and refuses to speak to him or shake his hand later in the film and is furious with her husband for doing so.
• Sour Supporter: Although Teller is always a bit confused by Oppenheimer even before their relationship sours (though less in the movie than it did in real life (See Historical Relationship Overhaul above)), he does respect Oppenheimer as a scientist and a director. He's not happy at Bethe being put in charge of theoretics instead of him and is prone to interrupting other physicists and generally being rude, but he does genuinely love his adopted country, believe he is doing the right thing, and despite his personal doubts about Oppenheimer leading him to testify against him, he is adamant that Oppenheimer is an American patriot and defends him from accusations of espionage.
• Worthy Opponent: Though they are less antagonistic in the movie, even as enemies or rivals, Teller and Oppenheimer respected each other as intellectual equals, which — given the ego of both men — says a great deal. Contrast Oppenheimer's dismissiveness of Strauss. Teller even nominated Oppenheimer for the Fermi Prize after years of mutual dislike and (in the movie) shares a respectful handshake as the two always had a deep mutual respect for the other as a scientist even when they were not in speaking terms. Additionally, in the movie, Oppenheimer respects Teller's "atmospheric ignition" hypothesis enough to go to EINSTEIN for advice on it despite everyone else dismissing Teller as crazy.

Ernest Lawrence

Ernest Lawrence

Portrayed by: Josh Hartnett ^{Other languages}Adrien Antoine (European French)

Nobel Prize-winning physicist and inventor of the cyclotron, who met Oppenheimer at Berkeley and worked on the Manhattan Project.

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• Always Someone Better: Initially Lawrence was far more famous than Oppenheimer as the youngest Berkeley professor in the school's history, even MORE of a prodigy in physics (though less rounded in the humanities), and a Nobel Prize winner by his 30s. However it is Oppenheimer who leads the Manhattan Project and eclipses his friend in fame and influence. The movie downplays Lawrence's subtle jealousy of his friend compared to his real life counterpart's correspondence but you see flickers of it in some of the black and white scenes. As an experimental physicist, he is also a Fish out of Water compared to many of the "Oppie gang" at Los Alamos but is generally good natured about it.
• Artistic Licence: In the film, Lawrence is alive when Lyndon B. Johnson awards Oppenheimer the Enrico Fermi Award in 1963 and he even congratulates Oppenheimer at the ceremony with a pat on the back. In real life, Lawrence died from colitis at the age of 58 in 1958 — years before Oppenheimer's reputation was salvaged.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: It's a brief moment, but despite having had a bad fall out with Oppenheimer to the point that Lawrence was willing to testify against him in his security clearing hearing after he sees his former friend with his head in his hands in the hallway, utterly broken, Lawrence cannot bring himself to do it, showing he still cares about Oppenheimer on some level.^note Some Truth in Television, though the real story is more dramatic. Even though Lawrence testified in absence in an interview in real life, he was very reluctant to do so and ended up not doing it in person. According to a colleague (James Brady), shortly after Oppenheimer's security clearance hearing, one night, Lawrence got uncharacteristically emotional and opened up in detail about his pain and bitterness over Oppenheimer betraying his trust by lying to him about his brother Frank's communist past and to military officials in general. Though Brady describes Lawrence as being "bitter, very bitter" over that betrayal of trust, Lawrence also seemed to be mourning how his and Oppenheimer's 20+ year friendship had collapsed and he seemed to take no pleasure in his former friend’s humiliation. Years later, Oppenheimer would grieve Lawrence's death (usually privately, only very rarely speaking or writing about it). In an interview, Oppenheimer was asked what he thought Lawrence would have said if he had testified in person against Oppenheimer in 1954. Oppenheimer immediately answered that he thought Lawrence would do what Lawrence thought was right, even if Oppenheimer disagreed, showing his respect for his late former friend before (uncharacteristically) choking up and being unable to finish the sentence while talking about the difficulty in keeping friendships. It was obvious the two still cared about one another after all those years of friendship despite never fully reconciling. On a softer note, Oppenheimer said the last time he saw Lawrence alive, in a chance meeting, the two had a brief but warm if slightly "disengaged but not at all hostile" conversation shortly before Lawrence passed away due to colitis.
• Casting Gag: Josh Hartnett played a lead role in Michael Bay's (widely considered failed) attempt at a character-driven historical drama, Pearl Harbor, and more than twenty years later plays a real life person involved in one of the most important events of World War II, spurred on by Japan's attack at Pearl Harbor. He's actually in the room when the military brass start deciding on where to drop the two bombs.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: While they're working together at Berkeley, Lawrence is the one who has to point out to Oppenheimer that his flirtations with leftist politics are making it impossible for him to be seen as reliable enough to work on the atom bomb project, and he helps Oppenheimer function better for the rest of the film.
• Exact Words: Lawrence assures General Groves he completely understands the need to compartmentalize secrecy... but that doesn't mean he's going to listen to it!
• Foil:
  • Arguably, to Rabi. Although both start out close friends to Oppenheimer, Rabi ultimately stays loyal to Oppenheimer throughout the trial, while Lawrence and Oppenheimer have a falling out due to different political stances, Lawrence blaming Oppenheimer for their colleague Tolman's death and possibly implied jealousy on Lawrence's part. Rabi also initially expressed ethical concerns about nuclear weapons, whereas Lawrence never did, before or after.
  • Also to Oppenheimer himself, as they were considered an Odd Couple at Berkeley. Lawrence is an experimental physicist, a gentile from rural South Dakota, outgoing and optimistic, generally a friendly and easygoing person, focused entirely on physics with little use for politics or philosophy, politically conservative, and very pragmatically minded, while Oppenheimer is a theoretical physicist, a Jewish New Yorker, more melancholic and introspective, abrasive and socially awkward, a Renaissance man, a self-described New Deal Democrat who flirts with communist ideals (probably closer to a Democratic Socialist by today's standards) and despite his snarky nature, an idealist at heart (first believing in Leftist causes, then in his belief that the Atom Bomb would end all wars, then in his attempts to advocate for disarmament). It is partially why they initially work together well as physicists and friends but later why they clash politically.
  • Also to Edward Teller, who later became his professional partner and close friend. While Lawrence is a charismatic, upbeat close friend of Oppenheimer's despite getting annoyed at Oppenheimer's political activities and opinions, Teller is an abrasive critic of Oppenheimer's precisely because he thinks Oppenheimer should be more upfront about what he thinks and believes. In the film, Teller testifies against Oppenheimer but defends his character while asserting his unfitness for a Q clearance while Lawrence chickens out at the last minute^note In real life, Lawrence did testify against Oppenheimer by transcript, although Strauss apparently screamed at him over the phone for not appearing in person.. However, both Teller and Lawrence have a very "hands-on" approach to physics in contrast with the more theoretical Oppenheimer and both do not take Groves or the military in general very seriously. Lawrence and Teller's reaction to a nuclear explosion is to watch behind the windshield of a car and put on sunscreen and pull up a chair, respectively. After the war, in 1952, both broke away from Los Alamos and started their own lab Livermore, which Teller renamed Lawrence-Livermore after Lawrence's death in 1958. In the film, the two barely share a few lines with one another and mostly serve as Foils to counter different attitudes in the Manhattan Project towards Oppenheimer with both of them being more politically conservative but one being a concerned friend and the other being a critic.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: While he originally refuses to testify at Oppenheimer's hearing, being informed of Oppenheimer's long-term affair with the now-deceased Richard Tolman's wife changes his mind, especially when it's framed to him as causing the man's Death by Despair. (Oppenheimer is dismissive of the possibility, claiming that Richard never knew.) He changes his mind again and backs out at the last second after seeing Oppenheimer in the hallway outside, telling the hearing officials that he's suddenly come down with colitis.
• Historical Beauty Update: The real Lawrence, while not bad looking by any stretch, didn't have Josh Hartnett's dashing good looks or chiseled features.
• Historical Hero Upgrade: Although the real Lawrence was known to be optimistic, extroverted, and popular, he had a lot of less likable aspects to his personality that the movie ignores in the sake of time. In the film, Lawrence is shown to support certain social causes such as desegregation and his frustration with Oppenheimer supporting the unionization of the Rad Lab students plays up his concern that his friend's left-wing activity will prevent Oppenheimer from joining what later becomes the Manhattan Project. In real life, Lawrence saw politics as a distraction to the true pursuit of science and he was completely uninterested in civil rights or other social issues. Additionally, like his friend Oppenheimer, Lawrence had a genuinely vindictive and jealous streak to his personality; thus, the fallout between the two men was much nastier than the movie had time to explore, getting extremely cruel and personal as well as political as both men knew each other well enough to know exactly how to twist the knife. At one point Lawrence even rubbed Oppenheimer's guilt over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in his face during a particularly heated letter exchange. Additionally, Lawrence never expressed (at least publically) any feelings over Hiroshima and Nagasaki aside from pride at "the accomplishment" and found Oppenheimer's ambivalence both annoying and concerning. He also supported McCarthyism and many of the "loyalty tests" of the Red Scare, increasingly embracing right-wing rhetoric throughout the 50s and 60s. The film positions him as opposing Oppenheimer on the H-bomb, but it does not go into his cooperation with J Edgar Hoover in the Oppenheimer Incident, his defense of academic "witch hunts" during the Cold War, or his growing jealousy of Oppenheimer as the later became increasingly famous and influential.
• Historical Relationship Overhaul: A bit of a subtle version regarding his post-war relationship with Oppenheimer. While Oppenheimer and Lawrence were close friends at Berkeley to the point where Lawrence named his second son Robert after Oppenheimer, the two had a falling out over a variety of issues, particularly their opposing stances on nuclear disarmament during the Cold War. In the film, Lawrence fakes a medical complication to avoid testifying in person after seeing a broken Oppenheimer. In real life, although Lawrence was unable to testify in person due to colitis, he did submit a scathing written testimony denouncing Oppenheimer, permanently ending their friendship. The film implies they were at least on cordial terms by the time Lyndon B. Johnson awarded Oppenheimer the Enrico Fermi Award. In real life, Lawrence died from colitis a few years after Oppenheimer's security clearance — long before Oppenheimer's image rehabilitation — and, by all accounts, the two never reconciled, although Oppenheimer still troubled over the end of their friendship well after Lawrence's death.
• Only Sane Man: He can come off like this at times as arguably the most well-adjusted of the scientists, especially compared to abrasive Teller, kind but quirky Rabi, whatever the hell is going on with Bethe (who is portrayed as more hotheaded in the film than he necessarily was in real life due to his one main scene being a fight between him and Teller (see Historical Relationship Overhaul under Teller's page)) and of course Oppenheimer himself.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: He tends to be a fairly upbeat Straight Man to the more eccentric scientists in the movie who is not easily rattled by very much (including the Trinity Test). So when he yells first at the unionizing Rad Lab students and then loses his temper at Oppenheimer for encouraging them, it is genuinely jarring and emphasizes the rising stakes of getting Oppenheimer on the Manhattan Project. Later, in one of the Atomic Commission black and white scenes, he snaps in anger at Oppenheimer for waffling on approving the development of the hydrogen bomb, showing his growing resentment of his influential friend.
• Playing Sick: How he gets out of testifying against Oppenheimer.
• Straight Man: Although he is still a scientist involved in an extremely experimental project, Lawrence tends to be a bit more grounded in reality than Oppenheimer, Teller, the other scientists, and even to some extent Groves who is overly intense and a character in his own right.
• Technician Versus Performer: As an experimental physicist compared to the more theatrical, theoretical Oppenheimer, Lawrence is very much the Technician to Oppenheimer's Performer.
• We Used to Be Friends: Lawrence and Oppenheimer clearly had a falling out at some point (over political differences and implied personal issues, though Lawrence blaming Oppenheimer's affair with his colleague and friend Richard Tolman's wife for Richard's Death by Despair seems to have been the final straw for Lawrence changing his mind about testifying against his former best friend. He still backs out at the last minute seeing Oppenheimer in the hallway as a shell of a man. The two are noticeably friendly or at least cordial in the final scene when Lawrence congratulates Oppenheimer for the Enrico Fermi Award.
• What You Are in the Dark: Although he arrives at the hearing to testify against Oppenheimer, he is ultimately unable to do so after seeing a devastated Oppenheimer in the hallway and receiving a death glare from Rabi, showing that he still cares about his former friend on some level. Oppenheimer has no way of knowing that Lawrence faked an illness to back out for him at the last minute..

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein

Portrayed by: Tom Conti ^{Other languages}Patrick Raynal (European French)

The famous physicist and developer of the theory of relativity, although he isn't nearly as happy about the quantum mechanics that grew out of it. Becomes a confidante to Oppenheimer in his later years.

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• Big Good: The closest thing to one the movie has - a convivial, grandfatherly figure beloved by the scientific community, who gives wise counsel to Oppenheimer at varying points in the narrative when he is faced with difficulties, and who seemingly doesn’t carry the same guilty burden over the rise of atomic weaponry from his research that Oppenheimer does (at least until their fateful conversation by the lake).
• Enemy Mine: Well if by "enemy" you mean the destruction of all life on Earth, Albert insists that if Teller’s calculations are correct, Oppenheimer and the other scientists must share their findings with the Nazis to stop EITHER side from killing all life on the planet.
• Friendly Enemy: Downplayed, as it's more Friendly Scientific Rivals From Incompatible Schools Of Thought. Einstein never accepted the world of quantum physics that sprang from his theory of relativity, which Oppenheimer was a key driving force behind. Despite this, in all of their shared appearances the two are perfectly civil and respectful to each other, though Einstein is not entirely shy about sending some pointed snark Oppenheimer's way.
• The Generation Gap: Einstein is literally and metaphorically a generation behind Oppenheimer, not least in his distaste for the wacky funhouse world of quantum mechanics that his theories of relativity helped create. While this originally creates a rift between he and Oppenheimer, he is somewhat sympathetic as he watches Oppenheimer going down the same general road he did.
• Glory Days: A subtle example. Einstein is far from the typical washed-up has-been typically depicted in this trope; he was and remains widely respected and admired by the general public and the scientific community for his foundational work on relativity, and in the movie is still consulted for his opinions by the government and his peers. However, it is nevertheless made clear that he is an old man and that his greatest work is long behind him by the time of the movie's events, and that he is no longer at the front line of current scientific thought. This is best illustrated in a conversation between Strauss and Oppenheimer where the former curiously wonders why the latter never approached "the greatest scientist of our age" to work on the Manhattan Project, only for the latter to (bluntly but not entirely unkindly) point out that Einstein is actually the greatest scientist of his age; he published his theory of relativity forty years prior, and has never been able to accept the world of quantum physics that younger generations developed from his work. As is made clear in the central conversation between himself and Oppenheimer, Einstein himself is keenly aware of this and the hints of condescension that he knows the current scientific orthodoxy holds towards him for not keeping up, though he doesn't seem to feel any particular grudge by this point.
• Intergenerational Friendship: He's Oppenheimer's senior by 25 years and originally pretty unhappy with him, but the two become close friends after the war, when he shares some advice about how people hoping to give him awards and make good with him are really just out to make themselves feel good about their previous mistreatment of him, just as they once did for Einstein himself.
• Mentor Archetype: Essentially becomes this in a way to Oppenheimer. Though at first he is not drawn to this young scientist who is both theoretically quite different not to mention cocky (while Einstein was confident but by all accounts more humble in real life), stating the two had nothing in common aside from hating mathematics, Einstein gives Oppenheimer some foreboding advice in the final scene and the two even seem on the verge of a hug when Strauss sees them. Oppenheimer even goes to Einstein for advice regarding his fears that Teller may have discovered world ending equations.
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • When asked to check Teller's equations suggesting a nuclear bomb would cause atmospheric ignition, he scoffs that, just like Oppenheimer, he's a great theorist rather than a good mathematician.
  • Also, as it turns out, partly the subject of the conversation between them that caused so much trouble. Einstein notes that Oppenheimer, after the development of the Bomb, is now in the position that Einstein was after theorising relativity. He alludes to an award and dinner Oppenheimer hosted in Einstein's honour despite the world of physics generally regarding him with varying degrees of resentment, envy, pity and condescension as a has-been who couldn't accept the fact that younger scientists were building on and expanding his work in ways that he disagreed with but couldn't do anything to stop. He notes, presciently, that Oppenheimer is headed down this exact same path.
• Old Shame: Won't get involved in the Manhattan Project because despite his letter to FDR advocating super weapons, he is not proud of that stance in the face of nuclear war.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He is only in two full scenes. One of which is the final scene and climax of the film. He also unwittingly sets much of the 1959 plot in motion by being so lost in thought he unintentionally ignored Strauss.
• Sore Loser: He grumbles about Oppenheimer, unhappy with the fundamental uncertainties inherent to quantum mechanics, coming to him for certainty in the face of the potential consequences.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: His ignoring Strauss due to being too wrapped up in the potential consequences of the development of the nuclear bomb causes Strauss to take personal offense to the perceived slight and either triggers or aggravates Strauss' vendetta against Oppenheimer when Strauss assumes that Oppenheimer was responsible.

President Truman

US President Harry S. Truman

Portrayed by: Gary Oldman^{Other languages}Vincent Violette (European French)

The 33rd president of the United States of America after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

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• Armor-Piercing Question: "Do you think the people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki give a shit who built the bomb?"
• Broken Pedestal: Both on the giving and receiving end with Oppenheimer. The latter is rather disappointed that Truman wouldn't listen to his pleas about non-proliferation, while Truman himself is disappointed in Oppenheimer acting like he's the only one responsible for what happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: Zig-Zagged; the film portrays him as being totally callous about the human suffering in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, mocking Oppenheimer for his regrets over the bombings. It is true that Truman insisted that the bombings were necessary and that many historians have questioned his motivations for this viewpoint, but he was well aware of the terrible weight of this decision, going so far as to suggest that the atom bomb might be responsible for the biblical apocalypse, a stark contrast with the film's depiction of Truman, framed as having nastier ulterior philosophies. With all that said, Truman's behavior towards Oppenheimer in the film is actually toned down from how the exchange went in real life — by all accounts, the real Truman was even less tolerant of Oppenheimer's angst, saying to Secretary of State Dean Acheson "Never bring that fucking cretin in here again. He did not drop the bomb. I did. That kind of weepiness makes me sick."
• Hidden Disdain Reveal: Downplayed as Truman's initial reaction to Oppenheimer is to assume the scientist is simply (completely understandably) nervous meeting the President of the United States and tries to put him at ease. But you see the growing disdain the moment Truman sincerely asks what he thinks should happen to Los Alamos' land. Truman still manages to hold back cold, utter contempt on his face until he sarcastically offers Oppenheimer a handkerchief.
• Irony: Oppenheimer spends much of the second act hoping to speak to Truman personally, certain he can persuade the President to accept his ideas about nuclear non-proliferation. When they meet, Oppenheimer bungles it, too tongue-tied by his own guilt to be particularly persuasive when one of the most powerful men in the world doesn't immediately roll over and listen. Truman is also thoroughly unimpressed with Oppenheimer's hand-wringing over the bombing once he's dismissed, telling his aide not to let "that crybaby" back in to speak with him ever again.
• Jerkass Has a Point: While he's very unsympathetic towards Oppenheimer's guilt over the death toll of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he does have a point that the Japanese people won't care so much about who made the bomb as who ordered for it to be used against them, and that Oppenheimer was very much in favor of using an atomic weapon right up until the very moment it happened.
• No Sympathy: He doesn't have any sympathy for Oppenheimer's guilt about the effects of his bomb, callously dismissing him as a "crybaby". As noted, this is actually downplayed compared to real life, where he reportedly expressed his annoyance with Oppenheimer's moral scruples in much stronger terms, referring to him as "that fucking cretin" after their meeting.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Aside from being, you know, the most powerful man in the world, the one scene in which he appears marks the beginning of Oppenheimer's dawning horror that instead of bringing world peace, his invention is only going to escalate MORE nuclear war and violence.
• Southern-Fried Genius: Technically from Missouri and not the Deep South, but he has a noticeable twang in his otherwise Midwestern voice and despite his "aww shucks" down to earth demeanor (which some historians claim was partially exaggerated to seem more accessible to the public), he is sharp as a whip and sees right through Oppenheimer, leaving the genius practically stammering. Truman would not have been a president and a strategist otherwise. It is immediately clear that, in terms of rhetorical debate, Oppenheimer is in way over his head.
• The Worf Effect: A rare nonviolent version. Not many people can leave J. Robert Oppenheimer at a loss for words and this is the moment Oppenheimer begins to realize he is in over his head when it comes to trying to continue to influence politics.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: He doesn’t say it out loud, but the look on Truman’s face when Oppenheimer sincerely suggests giving Los Alamos back to the Native Americans screams this.

Henry Stimson

Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson

Portrayed by: James Remar ^{Other languages}

The Secretary of War under Roosevelt and then Truman.

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• The Man Behind the Man: It doesn't get brought up in the film itself, but the entire Manhattan Project was his baby. He pushed hard for it to Roosevelt, ensured Congress gave it priority for funding, overruled objections to it from the military, and pushed for the bombs to be dropped as soon as functional ones had been built. Groves might be the direct overseer of the project, but Stimson is the man he reports back to.
• Pet the Dog: A downplayed example and one borne from real life. He strictly forbids Kyoto from being bombed and cites its cultural significance to the Japanese people, but then undercuts this by mentioning that he and his wife honeymooned there, making it clear that his objection is more personal than ethical. He certainly didn't extend the same consideration to any of the other Japanese cities he helped write off to be leveled.^note Oddly enough his actual historical reasons for removing Kyoto from the bombing list was much more obscure. While he did visit Kyoto with his wife some time before the war and wrote some praise about it in his personal journal, the myth that he'd fallen in love with the city while honeymooning there is just that. His reasoning for appealing to Hoover to remove Kyoto was due to its "cultural and historical significance," so it could have simply been more pragmatism than anything; it would have been rather difficult to get in the good graces of the Japanese after the war if they had levelled the Japanese equivalent of Paris or London.

Col. Boris Pash

Colonel Boris Theodore Pash

Portrayed by: Casey Affleck ^{Other languages}

A United States Colonel who has a personal vendetta against communism.

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• Ax-Crazy: Once threatened to interrogate a leftist scientist on a boat out in the ocean "in the Russian manner," then kill him and dump him overboard once Pash was finished with him.
  • To the point where it is heavily implied that Groves having him Reassigned to Antarctica isn't just to keep him from interfering with the project in general but because it's the only way he can guarantee everyone's safety.
• Death Glare: Despite his calm demeanor, the way he looks at Oppenheimer during their interview gives him the feel of a snake coiled up to strike.
• The Dreaded: Groves is terrified that Oppenheimer actually had a conversation with him, knowing Oppenheimer's loose-lipped and casual attitude and general belief that people will come around to his point of view will be very dangerous around a fanatic like Pash.
• Evil Reactionary: Groves notes that his father was a Russian Orthodox bishop and that he travelled to Russia to fight alongside the Whites during the civil war "to kill communists with his own hands."^note While not all the Whites were reactionary royalists, all of the reactionary royalists were Whites.
• Faux Affably Evil: He's outwardly friendly in his conversation with Oppenheimer about the potential leak to the Soviet Embassy, but can't quite hide the aura of menace he exudes. Even the usually loose-tongued Oppenheimer immediately clicks to the danger of disclosing his friend Chevalier's name to him and makes up some transparent lies instead.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Historically, Pash was a sixteen year-old private while serving with the White Russians and spent a large part of the time between wars working at a YMCA or as a teacher. Then, he became a major security figure in a project to make the most powerful bomb on Earth and showed a desire to go to murderous lengths to safeguard the project.
• Historical Beauty Update: The real Pash had glasses, a receding hairline and severe facial features. Here, he's played by the boyishly handsome Casey Affleck.
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: He's apparently very fond of this. Groves mentions to Oppenheimer that he had to deny Pash permission to kidnap, torture, and murder a scientist suspected of disloyalty at least once before.
• Kubrick Stare: He shoots a semi-subtle, if no less threatening glare at Oppenheimer as he continues clumsily throwing up lies during their meeting. Just take a look at the picture above.
• Leave No Witnesses: Pash fully intended to kill anyone he tortured to avoid the complications of a trial with inadmissible evidence.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: Downplayed, as London is hardly the middle of nowhere, but Groves has him reassigned to Europe to monitor the Nazi atomic program just to keep him from threatening anyone on the Manhattan Project.

David L. Hill

David L. Hill

"The Oppenheimer matter was initiated and carried through largely through the animus of Lewis Strauss."

Portrayed by: Rami Malek

An American Nuclear physicist who joins the Manhatten project, and later head of the Federation of American Scientists.

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• Beware the Quiet Ones: David Hill never utters so much as a word for much of the film, and his mistreatment by and dislike of Oppenheimer causes Lewis Strauss to believe he will be an effective ally in taking the man down and advancing his own career prospects. Once Hill gets on the stand and starts speaking however, Strauss quickly learns how mistaken he is.
• Chekhov's Gunman: He appears as a minor part of the scientists working in Chicago and barely speaks, only to reappear much later and torpedo Strauss' Cabinet nomination by exposing his pettiness.
• Everyone Has Standards: Strauss is not worried about him during his nomination since he never forgave Oppenheimer for not signing his petition against the use of the bomb. However, Hill's personal feelings toward Oppenheimer turned out to be irrelevant, as he is much more concerned about how Strauss poisoned the scientific community with his petty vendetta.
• Honor Before Reason: Though he's mistreated or otherwise ignored by Oppenheimer in the scenes they share together, it's clear that whatever misgivings Hill has for him, he is far more disgusted with Strauss' immoral actions against him, something he's quick to decry the moment he gets on the stand.
• Not What I Signed Up For: Hill is one of the leaders of the faction urging that the atom bomb (which was built for use against Germany when they were conducting atomic research of their own) not be used against the less well-armed Japan after Germany surrenders.
• The Quiet One: Most of Hill's screen time has him mostly act as a quiet observer. The only time we ever hear him speak is in his testimony against Lewis Strauss.
• Race Lift: The real David Hill was Caucasian, whereas this movie has him portrayed by Rami Malek, who is half-Egyptian.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Hill has very few scenes and hardly speaks for most of the film. However, his testimony against Strauss exposes the latter for the vindictive, petty man he is, costing him his nomination as Secretary of Commerce and leaving his career in as bad a shape as he left Oppenheimer's.
• Spanner in the Works: Hill's testimony against Lewis Strauss single-handedly destroys the man's career prospects, something Strauss himself is all too aware of as he fidgets in Tranquil Fury while Hill continues to speak on the stand.

Roger Robb

Roger Robb

Portrayed by: Jason Clarke ^{Other languages}

A U.S. Attorney and eventually circuit judge who serves as the prosecutor in Oppenheimer's security clearance hearing.

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• Amoral Attorney: Uses aggressive and unfair prosecutorial tactics throughout the entire hearing.
• The Dreaded: He is quite obviously not someone you want to sit on the other side of in any kind of official hearing. Mentions of his name tends to be met with open worry.
• Jerkass: He's quite condescending and rude in his talks with Oppenheimer, his lawyer, and various pro-Oppenheimer witnesses.
• Jerkass Has a Point: When trying to get Oppenheimer to admit his true feelings on Nagasaki and Hiroshima out loud, Robb has a point in stating that Oppenheimer apparently had no real moral qualms about atomic weapons until after they were used. Robb is also not wrong that Groves bypassed a number of formal military procedures to get Oppenheimer a security clearance based on his personal belief that Oppenheimer was the right man for the job of director despite it being against protocol. While Groves' judge of character turned out to be correct, Groves would have been in a world of hurt had he been mistaken. Robb is also not wrong that Oppenheimer's credibility as a witness is undermined by his past and present tendency to lie either for himself or others. It is no wonder Kitty is the only witness he questions who gives him a run for his money.
• Loophole Abuse: Since the hearing is not technically a trial, he is free to level defamatory accusations at Oppenheimer without the defense being able to have them struck from the record or even prepare a response in advance.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Robb is so zealous, aggressive, and often condescending that it is easy to forget that he is simply doing his job as a lawyer. It is his job to get to the bottom of the truth and it is not his fault that evidence in Oppenheimer's defense is being excluded^note In a normal trial, a judge decides what evidence from discovery goes into evidence though lawyers can make a case for or against. In this Kangaroo Court, the FBI is in charge of the evidence and while it is unfair that Oppenheimer's lawyers cannot see all the evidence against him because it is classified presumably Robb cannot either, and at any rate that is not the fault of the attorneys. At the end of the hearing, one of the judges says that everyone present unanimously agrees that Oppenheimer is a loyal American citizen and not a spy. That implicitly includes Robb.
• Smug Snake: His aggressiveness is par for the course, but it is his self-satisfied little smirk watching Oppenheimer squirm that makes his face truly punchable.
• Underestimating Badassery: Robb, having just outsmarted not only a series of hardened military men but some of the most brilliant geniuses in the country, goes into his investigation of Kitty Oppenheimer confident that this housewife is no match for him. Oh is he wrong.
• Unwitting Pawn: Robb might think he is fighting against a potential security risk for the nation and hunting communists, but the truth is that this is just a feud between two scientists. Strauss basically used him as an attack dog to make sure Oppenheimer loses his clearance in the most brutal way with a tarnished record. See also Punch-Clock Villain — there's an argument to be made that Robb is a normal, if aggressive, lawyer doing his job as a prosecutor (though still a Jerkass), but even though it is up to the judges, not the prosecutor, to decide the outcome, this 'normal job' has more ramifications for national security than the average court case.

Lloyd K. Garrison

Lloyd K. Garrison

Portrayed by: Macon Blair ^{Other languages}

A lawyer who Oppenheimer hires for his legal defense.

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• Crusading Lawyer: He's the diametric opposite of Roger Robb, expressing outrage at the blatantly unfair tactics the prosecution uses against his client, and does everything in his power to ensure Oppenheimer's name isn't tarnished.
• Named After Somebody Famous: He's named after his great grandfather William Lloyd Garrison, a famous abolitionist of the 19th century.
• Only Sane Man: He's the only lawyer in the room who expresses any sort of bafflement that the prosecution is allowed to present evidence that he himself is forbidden from seeing on account of it being classified. He almost outright asks if everyone in the room already decided to declare Oppenheimer a Soviet spy.

William L. Borden

William Liscum Borden

Portrayed by: David Dastmalchian ^{Other languages}

A lawyer, Congressional staffer, and World War II veteran who served as executive director of the Congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. Becomes a major opponent to Oppenheimer's security clearance renewal.

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• Ace Pilot: He was a decorated B-24 Liberator bomber pilot during the Second World War. While his flying skills never becomes relevant, his experience as a pilot does come up when he relates to an encounter with a German V-2 launching, which inspires him to discuss the possibility of loading H-bombs onto rockets in lieu of planes.
• The Dragon: Borden is Strauss's instrument to ruin Oppenheimer.
• Badass Bookworm: While not a scientist by training, Borden is an educated man with a strong understanding of nuclear weapons and flew several missions against the Nazis as a pilot.
• Villain Has a Point: After Oppenheimer argues that H-Bombs are impractical due to the fact that they'd be too big to carry on a plane, William makes a genuinely good point that rockets like the German V-2s and eventually ICBMs would solve the issue. Oppenheimer has no rebuttal.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Lets himself be used against Oppenheimer but only because he genuinely believes the country is in danger if it doesn't develop H-bombs before the Soviets.

Major General Kenneth Nichols

Major General Kenneth David Nichols

Portrayed by: Dane DeHaan^{Other languages}Benjamin Bollen (European French)

General Groves's second in command and Senior District Engineer of the Manhattan Engineer District.

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• Admiring the Abomination: When Strauss lets him know about the plan to sic Roger Robb on Oppenheimer during the Security Clearance hearing, Nichols simply replies, "Ouch," while flashing a wicked grin.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Glares over his glasses at everyone and he is portrayed as a sinister figure.
• Historical Beauty Update: While Dane DeHaan is about the same age as the real Nichols was at the time, the real Nichols was already bald and had rounder features, making him look noticeably older than his age, while he has a full head of hair and Dane DeHaan's more delicate, youthful features in the film.
• Jerkass: Loathes Oppenheimer and colludes with Strauss to ruin his reputation.
• More Despicable Minion: Downplayed. Nichols falls squarely into the More Unlikable Lackey category. Groves is rude and overbearing, dislikes Oppenheimer at first, but he ultimately proves to be a Jerk with a Heart of Gold and becomes a geniune friend to Oppenheimer after a while, and is fully willing to stand up for him during the security clearance hearing. Nichols proves a jerk through and through, he remains antagonistic towards Oppenheimer, and eventually collaborates with Strauss to undermine him.
• Number Two: General Groves' second in command.

Senate Aide

Senate Aide

Portrayed by: Alden Ehrenreich

A young Senate aide assigned to Strauss during his confirmation hearing.

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• Armor-Piercing Question: At the end of the film, after listening to Strauss repeatedly vent about his hatred for Oppenheimer over opposing Strauss' policies and turning the scientific community against him, the Senate Aide is the one to point out that part of Strauss' resentment is based around his interpretation of a conversation between Oppenheimer and Einstein that may have not have even had anything to do with him.
  Strauss: I told you. He turned the scientists against me. One by one, starting with Einstein. I told you about that. Einstein, I said, by the pond.
  Senate Aide: You did. But, you know, sir, since nobody really knows what they said to each other that day, is it possible they didn't talk about you at all? Is it possible they spoke about something... more important?
• Audience Surrogate:
  • He doesn't know much about the man he's been assigned or the confirmation hearing, so Strauss has to fill him on the basics of the situation. He also reacts to everything like a typical audience member would: expressing curiosity about who leaked classified documents to Nichols, being appalled at Strauss after finding out just how awful he is, being shocked but pleasantly surprised when Hill testifies against Strauss, and barely concealing his delight after Strauss gets passed up on the cabinet position he wanted.
  • From a film-making standpoint, he rarely appears on screen and when Strauss is talking to him it looks as though he is talking to someone near the camera in a very documentary like fashion.
• Bait the Dog: Inverted. At first, he offers Strauss frequent political advice about how to spin the hearing to his advantage and what sorts of strategies he should undertake, some of which involve carefully tiptoeing around the truth. But by the end of the movie, it becomes clear that Strauss, who's been around the block a fair bit longer than him, has also far surpassed him in political skullduggery.
• Broken Pedestal: He quite clearly loses any respect he might've had for Strauss after he's revealed to have been trying to sabotage Oppenheimer's career the whole time.
• Naïve Newcomer: A young staffer who was uninvolved with any of the other events of the film, the aide acts as an Audience Surrogate as he discovers the truth behind the revocation of Oppenheimer's security clearance.
• No Name Given: As a result of being one of the few characters in the film not based on a real life person.
• Token Good Teammate: He's a naive and decent young man who's quite new to the inner workings of Washington, and he's just trying to do his job instead of getting up to any maneuvering of his own. It's understandable given that he's a Senate aide who's been assigned to assist Strauss and doesn't work for him directly.
• Tranquil Fury: Upon divining that Strauss had initiated the downfall of Oppenheimer's career out of a petty, one-sided vendetta, he does little to hide his disgust that such an influential politician would put his own ego ahead of common decency as a way of getting back for some relatively small slights. Strauss pays him little mind until Hill is able to expose his deceit in front of the United States Senate, and finally unloads on the aide about all the grief he has with Oppenheimer, further validating the man's assessment of Strauss as an exceedingly small and envious man.
• The Watson: He actually serves both sides of this trope, first as a tool to explain many aspects of Washington politics and history to the audience by briefing Strauss, then serving as a sounding board for Strauss to angrily rant about his machinations and motivations to mid-Villainous Breakdown.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: The aide must not have worked in Washington for long. He seems shocked and angry to discover Strauss' true nature and betrayal of Oppenheimer and can barely disguise his delight when he is not given a Cabinet post.

Kenneth Bainbridge

Kenneth Bainbridge

Portrayed by: Josh Peck^{Other languages}Óscar López (Latin America)

A scientist who participates in the Manhattan Project.

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• Adaptational Context Change: In real life, just after the Trinity nuclear test, he is quoted to have said to Oppenheimer "Now we are all sons of bitches". This line was omitted in the film so that the silence following the explosion would have more impact on the viewers.
• The Quiet One: When he is told about the plans of the Manhattan Project and how they have to hurry before the Nazis discover the power of the atomic bomb, he simply reduces his answer to a laconic "Oh my god".
• Small Role, Big Impact: Even though he only appears in a couple of scenes, he was the one who pressed the button during the Trinity Test; he was also in charge of the assembly and transport of the bomb, as well as the logistics of the whole test.

Richard Feynman

Richard Feynman

Portrayed by: Jack Quaid

A theoretical physicist

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• Signature Instrument: Feynman is identified by surname once only in the movie ^note when he's sitting in the car before the Trinity test, the aid calls him Feynman when he offers him eye protection but he can always be picked out by the bongo drums he has with him.

Haakon Maurice Chevalier

Maurice Chevalier

Portrayed by: Jefferson Hall

A professor of French Literature at Berkeley and close friend of Oppenheimer.

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• Good Is Dumb: Has genuinely noble intentions suggesting to Oppenheimer that he could pass along information about the bomb's development to a friend with Soviet contacts, not considering that the person in charge of the project is the absolute last person he should mention this to. His career and livelihood are ruined as a result.
• Nice Guy: Chevalier is a pleasant, genial fellow who humbly looks after Robert and Kitty Oppenheimer's infant son while the couple is navigating a personal crisis, refusing to judge them for their difficulties.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Chevalier’s brief conversation with Oppenheimer regarding passing information about atomic physics to the USSR end up haunting both men for the rest of their lives.

Niels Bohr

Niels Henrik David Bohr

Portrayed by: Kenneth Branagh

A Danish physicist.

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• Historical Beauty Update: The real Niels Bohr was balding with a more haggard face and prominent jowls. Kenneth Branagh, despite being about the same age as Bohr as the time, is far more handsome and distinguished looking with a full head of hair.
• Mythical Motifs: He calls Oppenheimer an "American Prometheus", Prometheus being the Titan from Classical Mythology who gave fire to mankind and was punished for it. This doubles as a Mythology Gag since American Prometheus is the biography that formed the main basis of the movie.
• Punk in the Trunk: He's smuggled out of Nazi-occupied Denmark by being put in a British plane's bomb bay, and mentions having fallen unconscious during the flight because he made a mistake with his oxygen supply.
• Tampering with Food and Drink: He almost ends up on the receiving end of this when a younger Oppenheimer, in a fit of spitefulness, tries to poison his tutor with an apple. Bohr unexpectedly tries to eat it but is stopped at the last minute by Oppenheimer himself.