Fat Man and Little Boy (1989)

Director Roland Joffé's FAT MAN AND LITTLE BOY is a historical drama about the lives of the participants in the Manhattan Project--the making and perfecting of the atomic bomb that took place in New Mexico during World War II. Paul Newman stars as General Leslie Groves, a hardened and cynical soldier who oversees the project while working with its leading scientist, the brilliant J. Robert Oppenheimer (Dwight Schultz). As the scientists come closer to controlling the awesome force of nuclear power, lives are torn apart and families destroyed by the fear and tension created by the ethical and moral dilemma surrounding the project. This exhilarating and harrowing drama depicts a strange dichotomy between the brilliant but naive scientists who created the bomb and the power-hungry government, who had only an archaic understanding of the way their actions would change the nature of war.