Awesome / Oppenheimer

• Christopher Nolan's commitment to practical effects reaches its zenith here, with he and special effects supervisor Andrew Jackson somehow recreating a nuclear explosion without CGI, and especially without an actual nuclear weapon.
  • The trailers show off these various effects in all their glory, with ghostly particles, electric bands, flying sparks, and big clouds of fire turning a subject as dry as subatomic physics into a big screen spectacle.
• The Trinity detonation itself deserves its own bullet point. All the tense preparations, the countdown beginning, the seconds ticking by as detonation inches closer. The amount of anxiety and anticipation is palpable, especially when the test was close to being cancelled due to the weather. Hours become minutes, then seconds, then the final countdown, and then... detonation. A blinding flash fills the vision of all watching behind their protective goggles and lenses, like a second sun, only brighter. No sound is heard. The flash fades... and in its place is a massive fireball, the power of the atom unleashed. All who behold the sight are shocked silent, but Oppenheimer's words ring in his thoughts, the infamous line: "And now I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds." And then, only then, does the shockwave and sound of the detonation hit. A massive blast that knocks people off their feet and rattles the buildings, a sound no man has ever heard before. They've done it. By God, they've done it.
• At the end, with his confirmation to commerce secretary on the rocks after multiple damaging revelations about his treatment of Oppenheimer, Strauss pins all of his hopes on testimony from scientist David Hill, who he claims is not part of the "Cult of Oppie". All the audience has seen of Hill is him being dismissed by an impatient Oppenheimer twice in passing. So it's immensely satisfying when Hill gets up on the stand and starts to completely eviscerate Strauss, accusing him of ruining Oppenheimer's reputation out of pure pettiness.
• Kitty standing her ground against the McCarthy-esque assault from the prosecutor in defending herself and Robert. She also was the most prominent, and often only, voice in his circle who said to fight Strauss' campaign to discredit him.
• Oppenheimer says that Niels Bohr is the only person who can help them solve certain problems, but he's in Denmark under Nazi occupation. During Christmas, General Groves announces that he's given the team an early present: Niels Bohr, who they smuggled out of Europe at great risk.^note The operation to smuggle him out of Denmark is not shown in the movie, but was awesome in and of itself, involving a harrowing escape from Denmark by sea just as the Gestapo began arresting Jewish families in Denmark (which Bohr's family was considered through his mother), and then being spirited to Britain in the bomb bay of a Mosquito bomber and passing out during the journey due to not turning on his oxygen.
• Despite Strauss having Oppenheimer's background as a communist, setting up a Kangaroo Court, and succeeding at ruining his rival, Oppenheimer, with nothing but the truth and especially his wife, takes Strauss' career with his.

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