Oppenheimer (I) (2023)
Cillian Murphy: J. Robert Oppenheimer
Photos
Quotes
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J. Robert Oppenheimer : Albert? When I came to you with those calculations, we thought we might start a chain reaction that would destroy the entire world...
Albert Einstein : I remember it well. What of it?
J. Robert Oppenheimer : I believe we did.
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J. Robert Oppenheimer : They won't fear it until they understand it. And they won't understand it until they've used it. Theory will take you only so far.
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J. Robert Oppenheimer : Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.
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Leslie Groves : Are you saying that there's a chance that when we push that button... we destroy the world?
J. Robert Oppenheimer : The chances are near zero...
Leslie Groves : Near zero?
J. Robert Oppenheimer : What do you want from theory alone?
Leslie Groves : Zero would be nice!
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J. Robert Oppenheimer : I don't know if we can be trusted with such a weapon. But I know the Nazis can't.
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J. Robert Oppenheimer : Since when are you British?
Klaus Fuchs : Since Hitler told me I wasn't German.
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J. Robert Oppenheimer : Mr. President. I feel that I have blood on my hands.
Harry Truman : [tauntingly pulls out his pocket square and waves it in front of Oppenheimer] You think anyone in Hiroshima or Nagasaki gives a shit who built the bomb? They care who dropped it. I did. Hiroshima isn't about you.
Harry Truman : [after Oppenheimer leaves] Don't let that crybaby back in here.
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Niels Bohr : Algebra's like sheet music, the important thing isn't can you read music, it's can you hear it. Can you hear the music, Robert?
J. Robert Oppenheimer : Yes, I can.
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J. Robert Oppenheimer : They need us.
Luis Alvarez : Until they don't.
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Niels Bohr : The power you are about to reveal will forever outlive the Nazis, and the world is not prepared.
J. Robert Oppenheimer : You can't lift the stone without being ready for the snake that's revealed.
Niels Bohr : We have to make the politicians understand, this isn't a new weapon, it is a new world.
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Leslie Groves : A Nobel Prize for making a bomb?
J. Robert Oppenheimer : Alfred Nobel invented dynamite.
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J. Robert Oppenheimer : [From the first trailer] We imagine a future, and our imaginings horrify us.
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J. Robert Oppenheimer : Is anyone ever going to tell the truth about what's happening here?
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Leslie Groves : What do we call the test?
J. Robert Oppenheimer : Batter my heart, three-person'd God.
Leslie Groves : What?
J. Robert Oppenheimer : Trinity.
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J. Robert Oppenheimer : Why would they care what I do?
Ernest Lawrence : Because you're not just self-important, you're actually important.
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Haakon Chevalier : Do stars die?
J. Robert Oppenheimer : Well, if they do, they'd cool, then collapse. In fact, the bigger the star, the more violent its demise. Their gravity gets so concentrated, it swallows everything.
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J. Robert Oppenheimer : [At their first meeting] Are you married?
Kitty Oppenheimer : Not very much.
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J. Robert Oppenheimer : Well, in one hour and fifty eight minutes, we'll know!
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J. Robert Oppenheimer : Why limit yourself to one dogma?
Jean Tatlock : You're a physicist. You pick and choose rules? Or do you use the discipline to channel your energies into progress?
J. Robert Oppenheimer : I like a little wiggle room. You always toe the party line?
Jean Tatlock : I like my wiggle room, too.
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Harry Truman : I hear you're leaving Los Alamos. What should we do with it?
J. Robert Oppenheimer : Give it back to the Indians.
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Albert Einstein : [Referring to Teller's calculations that there's a possibility that a chain reaction might not stop and subsequently destroy the Earth] Well, you'll get to the truth.
J. Robert Oppenheimer : And if the truth is catastrophic?
Albert Einstein : Then you stop and you share your findings with the Nazis so neither side destroys the world.
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J. Robert Oppenheimer : I know what it means if the Nazis have a Bomb!
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Kitty Oppenheimer : Can you explain quantum mechanics to me?
J. Robert Oppenheimer : Well, this glass, this drink, this counter top, uhh.. our bodies, all of it. It's mostly empty space. Groupings of tiny energy waves bound together.
Kitty Oppenheimer : By what?
J. Robert Oppenheimer : Forces of attraction strong enough to convince us matter is solid, to stop my body passing through yours.
[gently places his palm against hers]
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J. Robert Oppenheimer : A Pillar of Fire...
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J. Robert Oppenheimer : These things are hard on your heart.
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Kenneth Bainbridge : I'm not a soldier, Oppie
J. Robert Oppenheimer : A soldier?
[Points Finger at Groves]
J. Robert Oppenheimer : He's a General. I've got all the soldier I need
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J. Robert Oppenheimer : We're selfish, awful people.
Haakon Chevalier : Selfish, awful people don't know they're selfish awful people.
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J. Robert Oppenheimer : Well, a fool or an adolescent presumes to know someone else's relationship, and you're neither, Lloyd.
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J. Robert Oppenheimer : Can't keep a good man down.
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J. Robert Oppenheimer : [to Lominitz, repeated line] You're going to be okay.
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Roger Robb : [while confronting Oppenheimer about Atomic Bomb] And wouldn't the Russians do anything to increase their strength?
J. Robert Oppenheimer : If we did it, they would have to do it! Our efforts would have only fueled their efforts just as it had with the atomic bomb!
Roger Robb : Just as it had with the atomic bomb! Exactly!
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J. Robert Oppenheimer : Is there any chance of getting Bohr out of Denmark?
Leslie Groves : Yeah, no dice. I checked with the British. Until we get Allied boots back onto the continent, there's just no way. Is he that important?
J. Robert Oppenheimer : How many people do you know proved Einstein wrong?
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J. Robert Oppenheimer : [to crowd at Los Alamos after the successful Trinity test] The world will remember this day!
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Lewis Strauss : [Speaking about Albert Einstein] You know, I've always wondered why you didn't involve him in the Manhattan Project. Greatest scientific mind of our time.
J. Robert Oppenheimer : [Sharply] Of his time.
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J. Robert Oppenheimer : [Speaking at his first visit to the Institute of Advanced Studies] Mr. Strauss, there are things in my past you'll be aware of.
Lewis Strauss : Well, as chairman of the ADC, I have access to your security file at Los Alamos.
J. Robert Oppenheimer : You're not worried?
Lewis Strauss : Why would I be worried after everything you've done for your country?
J. Robert Oppenheimer : Well, the time has changed, Mr. Strauss.
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[first lines]
Gordon Gray : Dr. Oppenheimer? Dr. Oppenheimer? As we begin, I believe you have a statement to read for the record.
J. Robert Oppenheimer : Yes, your Honor.
Ward Evans : We are not judges, doctor.
J. Robert Oppenheimer : No. Of course. Members of the Security Court, the so-called interrogatory information in your indictment of me cannot be fairly understood except in the context of my life and my work.
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Luis Alvarez : [Reproducing splitting the atom, verifying nuclear fission and pointing at the oscilloscope] Look. These fission pulses, they're massive. I've seen 30 of these in the past 10 minutes.
Ernest Lawrence : Theory will take you only so far.
J. Robert Oppenheimer : During the process, extra neutrons boil off. Which be used to split other uranium atoms...
Ernest Lawrence : A chain reaction. You're thinking what I'm thinking.
J. Robert Oppenheimer : You, me and every physicist around the world who's seen the news.
Luis Alvarez : [Baffled] What? What are we all thinking?
J. Robert Oppenheimer : A bomb, Alvarez. A bomb.
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J. Robert Oppenheimer : I tried to poison my tutor.
Jean Tatlock : Did you hate him?
J. Robert Oppenheimer : I liked him very much.
Jean Tatlock : You just needed to get laid.
J. Robert Oppenheimer : Took my analyst two years, and I don't think they ever put it that succinctly.
Jean Tatlock : You have everyone convinced you're more complicated than you actually are.
J. Robert Oppenheimer : We're all simple souls, I guess.
Jean Tatlock : I'm not.
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Kitty Oppenheimer : My husband offered both our futures to stop one fascist bullet from embedding itself in a mudbank. That's the definition of nothing.
J. Robert Oppenheimer : Seems a little reductive.
Kitty Oppenheimer : Pragmatic.
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J. Robert Oppenheimer : We're building this bomb to end the war, all wars. Once they see what we've done, they'll never fight again.
Edward Teller : And what if they don't? What if they build a bigger bomb, an even more devastating weapon?
J. Robert Oppenheimer : That's a risk we have to take. The alternative is letting them win this war, and that's a price we cannot afford.
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Niels Bohr : Heisenberg sought me out in Copenhagen. It was chilling, my old student working for the Nazis. He told me some things to draw me out. Sustained fission reactions in uranium.
Richard Tolman : That sounds more like a reactor than a bomb.
Edward Teller : Did he mention gaseous diffusion?
Niels Bohr : He seemed more focused on heavy water.
Edward Teller : As a moderator?
Niels Bohr : Yes, instead of graphite.
[the others celebrate]
Niels Bohr : What?
J. Robert Oppenheimer : He took a wrong turn! We're ahead.
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Hans Bethe : [On his first visit to Los Alamos] Barbed wire, guns, Oppie?
J. Robert Oppenheimer : We're at war, Hans.
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Edward Teller : A British physicist is saying the atomic bombings were not the last act of World War II, but the first act of this cold war with Russia.
J. Robert Oppenheimer : Which physicist?
Edward Teller : I think you knew him. Patrick Blackett.
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Ernest Lawrence : [after Lawrence breaks up a meeting of the F.A.E.C.T. in the lab] They won't let me bring you onto the project because of this shit. They won't even let me tell you what the project is.
J. Robert Oppenheimer : Oh, I know what the project is.
Ernest Lawrence : Oh, really?
J. Robert Oppenheimer : We've all heard about Einstein and Szilard's letter to Roosevelt warning him that Germans could make a bomb. And I know what it means for the Nazis to have a bomb.
Ernest Lawrence : And I don't?
J. Robert Oppenheimer : It's not your people they're herding into camps. It's mine.
Ernest Lawrence : You think that I tell them about your politics. The next time you're coming home from a meeting, why don't you take a look in the rear view mirror, listen to the sounds on your phone line and stop being so goddam naïve.
J. Robert Oppenheimer : Why would they care what I do?
Ernest Lawrence : Because you're not just self-important. You're actually important.
J. Robert Oppenheimer : Okay, I get it.
Ernest Lawrence : If you could just be a little more...
J. Robert Oppenheimer : Pragmatic. I'll talk to Lomanitz, I'll talk to the others, you don't have to worry. It's done.
Ernest Lawrence : Then welcome to the war.
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Jean Tatlock : You knocked her up. Fast work.
J. Robert Oppenheimer : Can't keep a good man down.
Jean Tatlock : I meant her.
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J. Robert Oppenheimer : You're talking about turning theory into a practical weapon system faster than the Nazis.
Leslie Groves : Who have a twelve month head start.
J. Robert Oppenheimer : Eighteen.
Leslie Groves : How could you possibly know that?
J. Robert Oppenheimer : Our fast-neutron research took six months, the man they've undoubtedly put in charge will have made that leap instantly.
Leslie Groves : Who do you think they put in charge?
J. Robert Oppenheimer : Werner Heisenberg. He has the most intuitive understanding of atomic structure I have ever seen.
Leslie Groves : You know his work?
J. Robert Oppenheimer : I know him. Just like I know Walther Bothe, von Weizsäcker, Diebner, in a straight race the Germans win. We've got one hope.
Leslie Groves : Which is?
J. Robert Oppenheimer : Antisemitism.
Leslie Groves : What?
J. Robert Oppenheimer : Hitler called quantum physics 'Jewish science', said it right to Einstein's face. Our one hope is that Hitler is so, so blinded by hate that he's denied Heisenberg proper resources, because it will take vast resources. Our nation's best scientists working together, right now they're scattered.
Leslie Groves : Which gives us compartmentalization.
J. Robert Oppenheimer : All minds have to see the whole task to contribute efficiently. Poor security may cost us the race, inefficiency will. The Germans know more than us anyway.
Leslie Groves : The Russians don't.
J. Robert Oppenheimer : Remind me, who are we at war with?
Leslie Groves : Somebody with your past doesn't want to be seen downplaying the importance of security from our communist allies.
J. Robert Oppenheimer : Point taken but, no.
Leslie Groves : You don't get to say no to me.
J. Robert Oppenheimer : My job is to say no to you when you're wrong.
Leslie Groves : So you have the job now?
J. Robert Oppenheimer : Hmm, I'm considering it.
Leslie Groves : [pauses] I'm starting to see where you got your reputation. My favourite response; 'Oppenheimer couldn't run a hamburger stand'.
J. Robert Oppenheimer : [Smiles] I couldn't. But I can run the Manhattan Project.
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J. Robert Oppenheimer : The world will remember this day.
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J. Robert Oppenheimer : You're happy, I'm happy.
Frank Oppenheimer : So then I'm happy you're happy that I'm happy.