In a historic bit of news that fans are still processing, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is rated R. The Universal Pictures movie has received the rating for “some sexuality, nudity and language”. While Variety officially confirmed the news with Universal Pictures, the rating itself was revealed earlier when eagle-eyed fans spotted it in one of the movie’s TV Spots announcing the sale of tickets. Speaking of which, tickets for the movie have gone on sale as well, including on premium IMAX formats.
The movie marks Nolan’s first R-rated venture in over 20 years. The Al Pacino and Robin Williams starrer Insomnia released in 2002 was his last R-rated film. Coincidentally, both were Nolan’s first movies under a new studio; Insomnia marked the beginning of Nolan’s illustrious partnership with Warner Bros. until it went kaput after the studio’s plan to release all of its 2021 movies day-and-date on HBO Max. While Nolan’s Tenet did not suffer that fate, having released in 2020, he was quite vocal in his criticism of the studio, calling HBO Max the “worst streaming service”.
The reasons for Oppenheimer being rated R are equally interesting, and suggest Nolan isn’t going to shy away or hold back in his depiction of his central character’s extra marital affair. At first glance, an R-rating invokes gruesome imagery and sent some fans speculating on whether Nolan is indeed going to show the most gruesome atomic bomb explosions seen on screen. But his recent declaration on the movie’s script being written in first person coupled with the reasons for the R rating sort of negate that. With the movie possibly being told from Oppenheimer’s perspective, we can probably expect to see a lot of events taking place and characters reacting in his presence.
Oppenheimer is slated for release on July 21, 2023 and has a stacked cast headlined by Cillian Murphy, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh and Rami Malek among many, many others.
