Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer" is a biopic, but if the early buzz is anything to go by, it's also about as taut a thriller as you're ever likely to see. As Emily Blunt, who stars as the titular scientist's wife, told TotalFilm, the "pulse-racing" three-hour epic is "almost like [Nolan has] Trojan-Horsed a biopic into a thriller." Which, considering its dramatic subject matter and the global socio-political tension that characterized that period in history, isn't too surprising.

Aside from recreating a nuclear explosion without using CGI to mimic 1945's infamous Trinity nuclear test, "Oppenheimer" has, by its own director's admission, a bit of a horror element. Although Nolan claims his film "fights against" this "darkness" which emerged during the editing process, that darkness is nonetheless there. And it's not difficult to imagine why.

"Oppenheimer" might be about the father of the atomic bomb, but it's also about the very real existential dread...