Who’s Who in ‘Oppenheimer’: A Guide to the Real People and Events

The premise of “Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan’s biopic, is straightforward: tell the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist known as the “father of the atomic bomb.” But, as with the director’s other movies, the execution is far from simple. The film skips between time periods, and it features a dizzying array of scientists, politicians and possible Communist agents amid a series of government hearings.

Here’s a guide to help you keep track of the real-life characters and events of the movie.

J. Robert Oppenheimer (played by Cillian Murphy)

The American theoretical physicist (played by Cillian Murphy) spearheaded the development of the atomic bomb through the Manhattan Project.

Born in New York City in 1904, Oppenheimer spent his undergraduate years at Harvard before moving to Cambridge, England, for graduate work in physics. There, he grew frustrated with his tutor’s insistence that he focus on lab work instead of theory and is reported to have given the man, Patrick Blackett, a poisoned apple. The tutor never ate the apple, but university officials placed him on probation. That said, the episode is the subject of conflicting stories.

After receiving his doctorate in physics at a German university, Oppenheimer accepted professorships at the University of California, Berkeley, and the California Institute of Technology, helping to pioneer work in an American school of theoretical physics.

With World War II well underway, Oppenheimer was appointed director of Los Alamos, part of the mammoth effort to develop the bomb. Having fallen in love with New Mexico when he was sent there as a boy to recover from dysentery, he established a secret lab in the desert of Los Alamos, N.M., coordinating efforts by top physicists and engineers that culminated in the first nuclear explosion, at Alamogordo on July 16, 1945, known as the Trinity test.