“Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan’s staggering film about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the man known as “the father of the atomic bomb,” condenses a titanic shift in consciousness into three haunted hours. The movie is based on “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer,” the authoritative 2005 biography by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. The atomic bomb and what it wrought define Oppenheimer’s legacy and also shape this film. “Oppenheimer” is a great achievement in formal and conceptual terms, and fully absorbing, but Nolan’s filmmaking is, crucially, in service to the history that it relates. The story tracks Oppenheimer — played with feverish intensity by Cillian Murphy — across decades, starting in the 1920s with him as a young adult and continuing until his hair grays.

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Persons: “ Oppenheimer, ” Christopher Nolan’s, Robert Oppenheimer, J, Kai Bird, Martin J, Sherwin ., Nolan, Oppenheimer, Oppenheimer —, Cillian Murphy —, Jean Tatlock, Florence Pugh, boozer, Kitty Harrison, Emily Blunt Organizations: Manhattan Engineer District, Manhattan Locations: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Los Alamos, New Mexico, Pacific