OPPENHEIMER

Christopher Nolan's latest history-themed blockbuster is an artistic triumph

- Martyn Conterio

Certificate: 15 Director: Christopher Nolan Cast: Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon Released: Out now

"Genius is no guarantee of wisdom." If there's a single line of dialogue in Christopher Nolan's biopic about the life of J Robert Oppenheimer that hits the bullseye, it is this one. Oppenheimer, that American Prometheus who led the scientists at Los Alamos into shepherding in the age of the atom bomb was a genius undoubtedly, but our potential for self-annihilation weighs heavily on the film, lending it a profound sense of dread, a painful awareness that the culmination of three centuries' worth of pioneering physics turned out to be all about horror and destruction (talk about a pyrrhic victory).