Great Music: The Oppenheimer Soundtrack

By: Andrew Hanna

To me, Christopher Nolan's sprawling Oppenheimer was a bit of a mixed bag. Its production values, direction, and acting were excellent, but I felt it tackled so many topics that it lost its emotional resonance. I left the theatre staggered (Nolan knows how to put on a good show) but cooled within an hour.

That said, I was deeply impressed by Ludwig Göransson's soundtrack. When I first learned Göransson would be scoring Oppenheimer instead of Hans Zimmer, I was disappointed. Zimmer's collaborations with Nolan on Interstellar and The Dark Knight were spectacular– and he did solid work on Dunkirk, Inception, and Batman Begins​ too.

My doubts flew out the window when I watched Oppenheimer. Göransson won an Oscar for Black Panther in 2018, and I'll be surprised if he doesn't get another this year. The score has a kind of vastness to it. Over the course of single tracks, Göransson jumps from menacing strings to swelling crescendoes to steady, pulsing synthesizers. It's cacophonous in the best sense of the word.

​Another thing I appreciate about the score is its originality. Göransson could have created a powerful score with regular pacing and instruments– or simply imitated Hans Zimmer. Instead, he took a more creative approach. He used microtonal changes, plucked strings ("col legno"), and modulating synthesizers. 

The soundtrack also uses traditional instruments to great effect. According to Oppenheimer's Wikipedia page, Nolan asked Göransson to build his score around the violin because, "There's a tension to the sound in a way I think fits the highly-strung intellect and emotions of Robert Oppenheimer very well. Göransson's wife, Serena, is a violinist, so they were able to work together to make the sometimes capricious, sometimes "frenzied," frequently "horrifying" heartbeat of the soundtrack.

The result is a soul-shaking wall of sound. Over the course of the three-hour film, the tone steadily darkens as the nuclear bomb evolves from a pre-war theory to a potential "Destroyer of Worlds." It's a harrowing experience that shouldn't be missed.

Standout Tracks

– "Can You Hear the Music"

– "Destroyer of Worlds"

– "Oppenheimer"

– "Manhattan Project"
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– "Fission"