The poster for “Oppenheiner.”

“Try not to blow up the world,” Matt Damon says to Cillian Murphy in a tension-filled scene in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, where they play Lt. Gen. Leslie Groves and J. Robert Oppenheimer, respectively. This is moments before the test of the atomic bomb called “Trinity,” which took place in New Mexico on July 16,1945. Oppenheimer and his team of scientists believed the test would go well, but there was a minute chance that a chain reaction could grow out of control and blow up the entire atmosphere, killing all mankind.

Murphy gives an otherworldly performance as Oppenheimer, a Jewish (but completely secular) scientist, who is a womanizer, a falsely accused communist, and someone with absolutely no management experience. Yet Groves still selects him to be the father of the atomic bomb, though it is difficult to get him a security clearance due to many people close to him being communists.

Murphy’s eyes show the demeanor of a man happy to do his job, but guilt-ridden over the realization that he has had a direct hand in killing a large number of people. Robert Downey Jr. is jaw dropping as Admiral Lewis Strauss, a more religious Jew, who feels insulted and belittled by Oppenheimer and works to humiliate him and make sure he will no longer have security clearance. Strauss, the villain of the film, thinks Oppenheimer is naïve to have been against the creation of the hydrogen bomb, and believes that Oppenheimer has turned Albert Einstein against him. Downey Jr. should win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. You can book it.

Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of Robert J. Oppenheimer,” we see Oppenheimer cheat on his wife Kitty (Emily Blunt) with Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh), as he is worried about her psychological problems. Overall, the film is largely accurate, but it does take dramatic license at times.

Blunt does a fine job as a woman who is forgiving and wants her husband to be stronger, and Pugh is excellent as a confused woman who is deeply troubled.

When Groves approaches Oppenheimer with the task of building the bomb, the physicist laments that the Nazis may be 18 months ahead of them. But Oppenheimer tells Groves: “We’ve got one hope. Antisemitism. Hitler called quantum physics Jewish science…”

Tom Conti dutifully plays Einstein in a number of key scenes. He advises Oppenheimer, who is under investigation in 1954, to tell the government to go to hell. Their scene at the end of the film is one of the movie’s most powerful moments.

We see Oppenheimer try to defend himself as Strauss thinks he’s going to take a naïve Oppenheimer down, saying of him: “How could this man who saw so much be so blind?”

When they first meet, Strauss tells Oppenheimer that he pronounces his name the Southern way, like “Straws,” and Oppenheimer says no matter how his own name is pronounced, people know he is Jewish. Strauss would head the Atomic Energy Commission, and the film shows controversy surrounding his effort to join the cabinet of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Damon gives a spirited performance as Groves, but two actors with smaller roles that really make their presence count are Benny Safdie and David Krumholtz. Safdie is marvelous as Edward Teller, a Hungarian-Jewish scientist who clashes with many, as he wants to build the Hydrogen bomb. Krumholtz is masterful as Isidor Rabi, a scientist and friend of Oppenheimer who says the man was loyal, and doesn’t deserve to be smeared years after he was a hero.

When Hitler is dead, there is a lack of morale and some other scientists, including Jewish scientist Leo Szilard, think it is unnecessary to drop the bomb on Japan, a country thought to be near surrender.

Gary Oldman, who was outstanding as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in The Darkest Hour, plays President Harry Truman, who refers to Oppenheimer as a crybaby for complaining he has blood on his hands. It’s unclear how accurate that scene is.

Nolan has outdone himself here, and this is one of the top 20 films I’ve ever seen. That being said, there are two significant flaws. At minimum, he could have shown Oppenheimer seeing slides of what happened to the Japanese people. Instead, we only see his upset eyes. The second problem is that viewers may have the impression that Tatlock was merely a sex object. That’s not true, and Pugh deserved more screen time to show that Oppenheimer was almost engaged to her at an earlier point.

Murphy delivers the performance of his life and it’s Oscar-worthy, though he likely will have competition from Joaquin Phoenix, who stars as the French leader in Napoleon that comes out in the fall.

Yes, the film could have been 10 minutes shorter. But those complaining about the length are an example of how spoiled people in our society can be, and have come to regard America’s complicated history as something to be glossed over or not considered very seriously. Oppenheimer should win the Oscar because it expertly condenses a huge amount of information into a riveting and superbly acted extravaganza, and does warn about the dangers of nuclear war.

The author is a writer based in New York.