Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’ Is Three Hours Long

Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer will mark several firsts in the director’s long career. For one thing, It’s his first R-rated movie in decades. (His last R-rated film was Insomnia, from 2002. Everything he’s made since, including all three Batman films and Dunkirk, were rated PG-13.)

Maybe more notably for folks who get antsy at long movies: Oppenheimer, a biopic of the scientist who spearheaded America’s efforts to build the first nuclear bomb during World War II, clocks in right at three hours, according to Fandango’s Erik Davis. That makes it the longest film of Nolan’s career to date.

Here are all of the runtimes of all of Nolan’s movies so far. If you graphed it, the result would pretty much look like a straight line sloping upward, with the notable exception of Dunkirk. That one was only about an hour and 45 minutes long.

• Following: 70 minutes
• Memento: 113 minutes
• Insomnia: 118 minutes
• Batman Begins: 140 minutes
• The Prestige: 130 minutes
• The Dark Knight: 152 minutes
• Inception: 148 minutes
• The Dark Knight Rises: 165 minutes
• Interstellar: 169 minutes
• Dunkirk: 106 minutes
• Tenet: 150 minutes

READ MORE: Every Christopher Nolan Film, Ranked From Worst to Best

While Nolan’s been a mainstay of summer movie season for quite a long time now, Oppenheimer will definitely be an unusual summer blockbuster. Forget the fact that it is an R-rated, three-hour movie. It’s also a serious biography of a physicist, chronicling the creation of the first atomic bomb. I mean, summer movies love blowing stuff up, but this is not quite the same thing.

Oppenheimer does at least have the sort of star power you associate with a blockbuster, including Cillian Murphy, Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Rami Malek, and Robert Downey Jr. Oppenheimer is scheduled to open in theaters on July 21.