'Oppenheimer' with Sam Waterston in the title role and with David Suchet as Evard Teller is an example of the docudrama at its very finest. Well written, well acted by actors who bear a believable resemblance to their historical characters, highly informative, and very entertaining. The set designs and costumes capture the feel of the US during World War 2, and the plotting and dialog make the viewer feel as if he were really present at Los Alamos and caught up in the excitement of the Manhattan Project. The only downside is that this is a British production, and some of the actors lack skill in affecting a convincing American accent. (The skill of current day Australian & Irish actors taking on non-native dialects is amazing.) The storyline is fully consistent with Richard Rhodes' definitive history of the development of the atomic bomb. Sadly, the mini-series was shown only a couple of times on PBS at the beginning of the 1980s and then apparently vanished into oblivion.
'Oppenheimer' compares favorably to the more recent 'Fat Man & Little Boy' feature film with Paul Newman as Leslie Groves (the chronically overweight and rather homely General would be thoroughly flattered) and Dwight Schultz (alumnus of TV's 'A-Team') as Oppenheimer. As a mini-series, 'Oppenheimer' is around 4x as long as the Newman feature, but uses the all of the additional time completely to its advantage.
'Oppenheimer' compares favorably to the more recent 'Fat Man & Little Boy' feature film with Paul Newman as Leslie Groves (the chronically overweight and rather homely General would be thoroughly flattered) and Dwight Schultz (alumnus of TV's 'A-Team') as Oppenheimer. As a mini-series, 'Oppenheimer' is around 4x as long as the Newman feature, but uses the all of the additional time completely to its advantage.