Some movies aren’t made to be simply watched; they’re made to be experienced, and the Christopher Nolan epic Oppenheimer is certainly one of those films.
Nominated for dozens of awards, the biographical epic scooped up Best Film at the British Academy Film Awards, Best Motion Picture – Drama at the Golden Globes, and Best Ensemble at the SAG Awards, among other wins. It picked up a large amount of Oscars, too, including Best Director, Best Actor, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, and Best Picture. (Sorry, Barbie.)
If you’ve already enjoyed this stunning achievement in cinematography and are looking for your next movie experience, look no further! Below you’ll find ten excellent flicks in the same studious yet enthralling category as Oppenheimer. All you need to worry about is which one to view first.
Interstellar (2014)
Interstellar is a science-fiction film co-written, directed, and produced by Christopher Nolan. The action takes place in the future, 2067 to be exact, when humanity is struggling to survive a global famine caused by … humans being human. Matthew McConaughey stars as Joseph Cooper, a former NASA pilot-turned-farmer who gets recruited by Professor John Brand (Michael Caine) to travel through a wormhole near Saturn in search of a new planet to call home. The mission is perilous and raises more questions than it answers, but the award-winning cast (Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain co-star) make figuring out the science of it all a challenge rather than a frustration.
Interstellar is currently streaming on Prime Video and Paramount+.
A Beautiful Mind (2001)
A Beautiful Mind is one of those films that make you question reality. The movie tells the true story of John Nash (played by Russell Crowe), a brilliant mathematician who was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1994. Behind the scenes of his career, Nash suffered from unchecked schizophrenia for decades. He doesn’t realize that the people he was working with at the Pentagon were all in his head until his wife (Jennifer Connelly, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for this role) gets him help. Eventually, Nash opts not to take medication for his mental illness and learns to simply ignore the imaginary people rather than engage with them.
The film won four Oscars including Connelly’s: Best Director for Ron Howard, Best Picture, and Best Adapted Screenplay (Akiva Goldsman adapted the film from the 1998 biography by Sylvia Nasar). A Beautiful Mind is available to stream on the Starz Apple TV channel.
The Theory of Everything (2014)
Jane Hawking’s book, Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen, was the source material for Anthony McCarten’s biographical romance about the life of renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking. Eddie Redmayne stars as Stephen and Felicity Jones as Jane. The film begins during their student years at University of Cambridge, with Stephen already showing curiosity about black holes and the universe.
The couple falls in love just before Stephen finds out he has ALS, a motor neuron disease that eventually removes his ability to walk, talk, swallow, and breathe. Jane stays by his side through it all as he slowly loses control of his body yet continues to produce incredible, mind-blowing work in his field. Over time, Stephen and Jane both fall in love with other people and amicably separate, but their love and respect for one another never ceases.
The Theory of Everything earned five Oscar nominations, and Redmayne won Best Actor for his performance. You can watch it on Prime Video.
Hidden Figures (2016)
Katherine Goble Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) were three African American women who worked at NASA in 1961 at the height of the United States’ “Space Race” with the Soviet Union. Their job was to solve math calculations before computers took over that work, and Katherine was so skilled that she was asked to join a space task force led by the arrogant supervisor Al Harrison (Kevin Costner). As the first Black woman on the team, Katherine faces sexism and racism on a daily basis, but eventually her intelligence earns the respect she deserves.
Mary and Dorothy also butt heads with authority while trying to pursue a career in science, and Mary even takes the school system to court so she can take night classes at an all-white high school. She later goes on to earn an engineering degree and become NASA’s first Black female engineer. Office worker Dorothy became NASA’s first Black supervisor, and Katherine went on to calculate the trajectories for the Apollo 11 and Space Shuttle missions. You can watch Hidden Figures on Disney+.
The Aviator (2004)
Martin Scorsese directed this biographical drama written by John Logan, based on a 1993 book by Charles Higham called Howard Hughes: The Secret Life. The movie follows Howard Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio) between 1927 and 1947, a time when Hughes was producing movies while pioneering the art of aviation on the side. What many people don’t know is that Hughes suffered from extreme obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a condition that made him anxious and paranoid. Cate Blanchette is perfectly cast as Hughes’ friend and paramour Katherine Hepburn, and Kate Beckinsale stuns as Hollywood legend Ava Gardner. The Aviator is streaming on Prime Video and Tubi.
The Martian (2015)
It’s not everyday that you watch a film that can make you laugh while also keeping you on the edge of your seat! The Martian is the rare science-fiction film that successfully uses humor to keep even the most science-averse viewer hooked, and that’s largely due to the movie’s leading man. Matt Damon stars as Mark Watney, an astronaut who is accidentally left behind on Mars during a NASA mission. Stranded on the foreign planet, Watney must “science the s**t” out of things in order to survive, and boy does he ever! You can watch The Martian on Apple TV.
JFK (1991)
Oliver Stone wrote and directed this epic political thriller about Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner), a district attorney in New Orleans who asserted that Lee Harvey Oswald had an accomplice in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Garrison started the conspiracy theory that still circulates to this day, and this film explores the many players and political posturing that made the truth so very murky. JFK was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It won two: Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing. You can watch JFK on Apple TV and Prime Video.
Tenet (2020)
After thinking about the concept for over ten years, Christopher Nolan spent five more years penning the original screenplay for Tenet. It’s about a former CIA agent known only as The Protagonist (John David Washington) who gets recruited into a top secret time traveling organization and then plunged into a world of espionage and intrigue. Things get confusing when The Protagonist moves backward through time and discovers more about the people he thought recruited him. While at times frustratingly mind-bending, Tenet has all of the goods we’ve come to expect from a Nolan epic: an amazing cast, excellent writing, and some truly “whoa” moments. You can check Tenet out on Apple TV.
The Imitation Game (2014)
Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) was a cryptanalyst who helped Britain crack Nazi codes while working at Bletchley Park during World War II. His 1950 paper “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” gained him international notoriety for his work, yet he suffered incredible injustice in his personal life simply because he was homosexual. He was convicted of gross indecency in 1952 and subjected to barbaric chemical castration that led to mental decline. Queen Elizabeth II eventually granted him a posthumous Royal Pardon in 2013, but it was much too late—a sad ending for the man whose work was the springboard for the modern computers we now use everyday. Watch The Imitation Game on Netflix.
The Man Who Knew Infinity (2015)
Srinivasa Ramanujan (Dev Patel) was an Indian mathematician from Madras who pioneered modern mathematical theories alongside his mentor, G.H. Hardy (Jeremy Irons). In order to study at Cambridge University, Ramanujan had to leave his wife and family behind in India, a personal choice that took a toll on his mental and physical health. Hardy fought hard to get Ramanujan the respect he deserves in academia, but it was an uphill battle due to racial prejudice. By the time Ramanujan finally gets back to his family, his work is a success, but his health is ruined, leaving viewers to wonder if success is worth the cost. You can stream The Man Who Knew Infinity on AMC+.
These ten films are sure to make us think while giving us a glimpse into the world of science, math, and academia. They might not all have a happy ending, but then again, neither does life! We find happiness where we make it.
(featured image: Universal Pictures)
