Published Nov 10, 2026, 4:00 AM EST

Director Takashi Yamazaki made his new Godzilla movie in direct response to Christopher Nolan's film

Oppenheimer walked so Godzilla Minus Zero could roar

Image: Melinda Sue Gordon/Paramount/Everett Collection

In 2023, two Oscar-winning blockbuster movies tackled the topic of nuclear weapons and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in very different ways. Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer told the story of the atomic bomb through the eyes of its creator, J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), while Takashi Yamazaki's Godzilla Minus One continued the 70-year cinematic tradition of using a giant radioactive monster as a metaphor for nuclear warfare.

Notably, neither movie actually depicted those nuclear explosions or their immediate aftermath onscreen, but three years later, one of those directors has done exactly that — and it's not Nolan.

Light spoilers ahead for the plot of Godzilla Minus Zero .

While Nolan followed up Oppenheimer with The Odyssey , which in many…