The List: Movies About the Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Movie #5 – The Day After Trinity

Year – 1980

If you were looking for a version of Fat Man and Little Boy that was, you know…good then you should check out The Day After Trinity. The film tells the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist who led the effort to build the first atomic bomb. “Trinity” was the code name for the first detonation of a nuclear device and is generally regarded to be the beginning of the “Atomic Age”.

The storytelling might seem “flat” by today’s standards. It’s mostly a collection of static, headshot interviews augmented with archival footage. But the story told is so compelling and the footage so dramatic/horrific that it manages to enthrall nevertheless.

The film’s title is derived from an interview with Oppenheimer in which he’s asked about then Senator Robert Kennedy’s efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. “It’s 20 years too late,” he replies. “It should have been done the day after trinity.”