Paul Schrader says ‘Oppenheimer’ is “best movie of this century”

18 July, 2023

'Oppenheimer'

Taxi Driver writer Paul Schrader has lauded Oppenheimer as the “best movie of this century”.

The upcoming biopic from Christopher Nolan stars Cillian Murphy as scientist and “father of the atomic bomb” J. Robert Oppenheimer, and is set to be released this Friday (July 21).

The film has received rave reviews from critics and Schrader has become the latest to share overwhelming praise for the film.

In a Facebook post after attending the film’s New York premiere, he called it “the best, most important film of this century”.

Schrader added: “If you see one film in cinemas this year it should be Oppenheimer. I’m not a Nolan groupie but this one blows the door off the hinges.”

One of the film’s stars, Robert Downey Jr., also gave the film high praise, calling it “the best film I’ve ever been in”.

Downey Jr. was among the Oppenheimer cast members to leave the London premiere of the film last week (July 13) as a Hollywood actors’ strike was called.

According to Nolan, the actors left the premiere as the strike began (via BBC), after the event was brought forward by an hour so the cast could walk the red carpet.

Elsewhere, Matt Damon has revealed that he was planning to take a break from acting when he got a call from Nolan for Oppenheimer.

Damon revealed that he had negotiated with his wife to take a break from acting unless Nolan called him up for a role.

“This is going to sound made up, but it’s actually true,” Damon said to his cast mates. “I had — not to get too personal — negotiated extensively with my wife that I was taking time off. I had been in Interstellar and then Chris put me on ice for a couple of movies, so I wasn’t in the rotation, but I actually negotiated in couples therapy ­— this is a true story — the one caveat to my taking time off was if Chris Nolan called.”

Damon continued: “This is without knowing whether or not he was working on anything, because he never tells you. He just calls you out of the blue. And so, it was a moment in my household.”

In Oppenheimer, Damon plays the role of Leslie Groves, who was the director of the Manhattan Project. Groves personally recruited J. Robert Oppenheimer (played in the film by Cillian Murphy) to lead the project at Los Alamos.

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