BBC’s classic ‘Oppenheimer’ series is now streaming!

The BBC have made their classic Oppenheimer drama available to stream in the UK.

With Christopher Nolan’s epic new movie currently playing in cinemas around the world, it’s the perfect time to take a look back at the BBC’s classic mini-series.

Also titled simply Oppenheimer, the seven-part biographical drama originally aired on BBC One in 1980.

It was later shown in the US in 1988 as part of PBS’s American Playhouse strand.

While the critically-acclaimed new film has Peaky Blinders star Cillian Murphy playing J. Robert Oppenheimer, the BBC’s version starred American actor Sam Waterston as the brilliant, conflicted physicist.

Here’s the trailer for the new movie:

“Waterson plays the titular scientist as he leads the weapons laboratory of the Manhattan Project, all the while under constant surveillance by the FBI because of his left wing politics and association with communists,” the official synopsis reveals.

“Oppenheimer follows his role in developing the world’s first nuclear weapons, his rivalry with Edward Teller, through to being stripped of his security clearance by the US Atomic Energy Commission in the 1950s.”

Best known for his role in 1974’s The Great Gatsby adaptation, in more recent years Sam Waterston has been in Law & Order, HBO’s The Newsroom, and Netflix’s Godless.

All seven episodes of Oppenheimer are available to watch now on BBC iPlayer.

The series will also be airing weekly on Saturday nights on BBC Four from 12 August.

Find out more about the famous Trinity Test here:

The BBC’s Oppenheimer was nominated for seven BAFTA Television Awards back in the ’80s, winning two.

It was also nominated for two Emmys, taking home the awards for Outstanding Limited Series and for Outstanding Writing in a Limited Series or a Special.

Sam Waterston’s performance as J. Robert Oppenheimer earned him a Golden Globe nomination too!

The cast also includes a young David Suchet from Poirot as Hungarian-American theoretical physicist Edward Teller.

Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer screenplay is available on Amazon.