After You Watch Oppenheimer, Stream This Oscar-Nominated Documentary For Free
Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer" is finally here, providing a unique look into the mind of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb. But if Nolan's three-hour epic leaves you wanting more, here's a cool (and free) opportunity to learn some more about that period of history. The Criterion Channel has announced that from now through July 31, 2023, subscribers and non-subscribers alike will be able to watch Jon Else's 1981 documentary "The Day After Trinity" for free on the streaming service. The film, which was nominated for an Academy Award and won a Peabody Award, tells the scientist's story through archival footage and a myriad of interviews with collaborators, friends, and family members, and it's currently unavailable to stream anywhere in the United States except The Criterion Channel.
"We were fortunate enough to have made the film at a time when so many of the original Manhattan Project people were still alive and happy to talk with me on camera — Hans Bethe, I. I. Rabi, Robert Wilson, Frank Oppenheimer, Robert Serber, Dorothy McKibben, Stan Ulam, Haakon Chevalier," director Jon Else said in a statement. "It may not be IMAX, but it's the real deal."
I watched "The Day After Trinity" a few days before seeing "Oppenheimer," and since I hadn't studied anything about this event in decades, I found it immensely helpful in terms of re-establishing a foundation for which this story takes place, providing valuable cultural context for what Oppenheimer and his peers were doing at the time and placing me in the milieu of Los Alamos and the Manhattan Project. But I suspect it will work equally well as a follow-up to Nolan's movie, allowing viewers to compare and contrast his take on the material with the real-life accounts of what happened.
Watch The Day After Trinity trailer
That trailer captures the somber tone the film adopts in the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima, but the majority of the movie isn't quite as dire. It's not exactly a barrel of laughs, given the subject matter, but it's much more about the scientific community in the 1930s and '40s, how Oppenheimer was viewed by his colleagues, the immense task of setting up an entire community in Los Alamos, what it was like to live and work there, how Oppenheimer interacted with government and military personnel and basically became the de facto leader of a small town during the race to invent the world's most terrible weapon.
"'The Day After Trinity' remains the high-water mark in documentary representation of the Manhattan Project, and it is currently unavailable to stream anywhere in the US except the Criterion Channel. Millions of people will see Christopher Nolan's 'Oppenheimer' in the coming weeks, and many may want to compare Nolan's imagining of that historic moment with the documentary record," a spokesperson for the Criterion Channel said. "We felt it was important to remove any barrier to people discovering Jon Else's landmark film, so we've taken down the paywall and made it available to subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Of course, we hope some of those viewers will discover the many other treasures on the Criterion Channel and decide to subscribe, but our main goal at this moment is to help this remarkable and important film reach the largest possible audience."
"The Day After Trinity" was written by Jon Else along with David Webb Peoples and Janet Peoples, the husband and wife team that went on to write Terry Gilliam's "12 Monkeys" together; David also wrote notable films like "Blade Runner" and "Unforgiven." It's also worth noting that The Criterion Channel has a director's commentary that's also available to watch for free through July 31, so if you're fascinated by this period in history, don't miss this opportunity to dive deeper into the world of Oppenheimer.