Oppenheimer told the story of history’s most infamous scientist. But the movie’s own story is far from over. It’s still airing in many theaters. The film is also all but guaranteed to garner countless nominations for major awards. It will likely take home a lot of them, too. And while the ‘Barbenheimer” phenomenon has already secured Oppenheimer a spot in cinematic history, the movie’s place among the greatest films ever made won’t be known until we have more time and perspective. What we don’t have to wait on, though, is a chance to pore over the script ourselves. You can now read Christoper Nolan’s Oppenheimer script online.
Deadline‘s “Read the Screenplay” series has let fans take a look at the full scripts of 2023 films like Across the Spider-Verse and John Wick: Chapter 4. Now the latest entry in the collection dives into another of the year’s best, most successful films, Oppenheimer.
While it’s always insightful to see the written works that serve as the foundation of popular movies, you won’t encounter many like this. As star Cillian Murphy has spoken about previously, Nolan (along with Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin) wrote the screenplay in a very unusual way. It’s presented in first person in J. Robert Oppenheimer’s scenes (which make up the vast majority of the film). So when the script says he looks down at his prepared speech during his testimony it reads, “I glance down at my notes.” A typical script would say, “He looks down at his notes.”
That’s no small change. It completely changes the experience of reading the script. It puts you in Oppenheimer’s shoes as he defends his entire career and life. This is his story, one that changed the world forever.
Will this be the script that takes home Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards? It very well might, but that doesn’t matter right now. We don’t need to know how Oppenheimer‘s story will end to enjoy reading it.