Profile of Robert Oppenheimer, controversial father of the atomic bomb.

J. Robert Oppenheimer was a national hero, the brilliant scientist who during WWII led the scientific team that created the atomic bomb. But after the bomb brought the war to an end, in spite of his renown and his enormous achievement, America turned on him - humiliated and cast him aside. The question the film asks is, "Why?"—Anonymous

The words spoken in the courtroom in this documentary are taken directly from the transcript of the hearing in the matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer. The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer features interviews with the scientist's former colleagues and eminent scholars to present a complex and revealing portrait of one of the most important and controversial scientists of the twentieth century. The two-hour film traces the course of Oppenheimer's life: his rarefied childhood, his troubled adolescence, his emergence as one of America's leading nuclear physicists, his leadership of the Los Alamos laboratory, and his tragic humiliation.