Oppenheimer

Christopher Nolan built his film from a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography rather than a novel, and American Prometheus rewards anyone who wants the fuller record behind the drama. Bird and Sherwin follow Oppenheimer from childhood to his funeral, giving room to the years and influences a three-hour film can only touch on. This is a long, closely detailed and scholarly work rather than a quick read, and that is its value. The screen gives you the triumph and tragedy as spectacle. The book lays out the evidence and context patiently, so you can weigh the man, the bomb and the security hearing that undid him on your own terms.

Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin's book is a cradle-to-grave life, opening with a prologue at Oppenheimer's funeral and moving through his childhood, his education, the Manhattan Project and the security hearing before closing with an epilogue. The film is framed mainly as a history of the Manhattan Project and a character study, so it compresses that broad span considerably. The two also differ in feel. One reader who compared them found the book long, detailed and scholarly, with little personal drama, which suggests the film is the more dramatic and intimate telling. Beyond that, the film keeps the book's rise-and-fall shape and its attention to Lewis Strauss working against Oppenheimer. Research on how closely it follows the book, including its ending, is limited, so as far as is known the adaptation is largely faithful.