“Barbenheimer” is the term that has been used to suggest a double feature of the two blockbuster movies that released on the same day a few weeks ago, on July 21st, those movies being Greta Gerwig’s Barbie starring actress Margot Robbie, and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer starring Cillian Murphy. These were arguably the two most anticipated movies of the summer, and as someone who has seen both movies twice already, they do not disappoint. For this article I’m going to focus on Oppenheimer, but just know Barbie has made me cry multiple times, so I still love her.

I knew going into my first watch of Oppenheimer that it would be a long movie—it’s exactly 180 minutes or three hours. What I didn’t know until a couple days later, though, was that the format I had watched it in was not its true intended viewing format. During filming, Christopher Nolan chose to only use IMAX 70mm film cameras to give it more sharpness, depth, and clarity. While this was a time-consuming and expensive choice for sure, many of those involved with the process agree that it is worth it. One of those reasons is that with the extreme success of the movie, there will probably be theaters in the future that have one-off showings or include the film as part of a Nolan retrospective, and they’ll be able to use the original prints they received in 2023 for these showings. This is because IMAX 70mm film lasts ten times longer, on average, than regular film in either 35 mm or 70 mm. Oppenheimer has also just made enough money for that stylistic choice to not matter in the long run. As of the time of writing this, Oppenheimer has grossed over $550 million globally, and IMAX theaters have accounted for $114.2 million, or 22%, of that global total. The film has also broken some records with this box-office success: it is the fastest R-rated film made by Universal to reach $200 million domestically, and it has set the record for the highest grossing film that is set in World War II. Those numbers aren’t just because the cinematography of the film is stellar; they’re also evidence of the content of the film as well.

I’m not enough of a movie guru to go watch a movie again just to see it in a really cool format, so it must be a great movie if I want to see it a second time regardless. That was definitely the case with Oppenheimer. After my first watch of this film, I was blown away and already planning to see it again in theaters before I learned about the IMAX 70mm of it all. I still didn’t know if I would be able to see the movie in the IMAX 70mm format anyway, because there are not many theaters that are equipped for it. I saw somewhere that there were only thirty in the world. There wasn’t one near me when I had checked a certain list online, so I was just going to see it at a regular theater again. Then, I found out that SciPort was showing it in their IMAX theater. For those of you who don’t know, SciPort Discovery Center is a local museum that mainly has exhibits for kids, but all ages are welcome. Most of the exhibits are based around science and mechanical things, but they also have an IMAX theater with a dome screen. The screen is lit with laser projection, and it has a very good sound system as well. Usually, the theater has screenings of documentaries or other educational movies, but sometimes, like with Oppenheimer, it will show current movies too. Since the screen is a dome, it is not the most comfortable setting for everyone, especially for a three hour movie, but if you sit at the very top, most of the discomfort can be avoided. There were also concessions available for purchase, which is always nice. I don’t think I’m qualified enough to say whether this viewing was better than the other one, but this movie was so good with content alone that I don’t care, I was just happy to see it another time.

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