The story behind Cillian Murphy’s 'Oppenheimer' watches (tick, tick... boom)

DIRECTOR Christopher Nolan is revered for his exacting approach to the costumes and props, something that also extends to his character’s watches. And far beyond just style, watches are often pivotal to storytelling in his films.

A field watch plays a pivotal role in 2014’s Interstellar – a model that felt like a retro piece but was designed for the film with Nolan’s input, amalgamating details from watches in the back catalogue of its makers, Hamilton. 

In 2020’s Tenet John David Washington’s character wears a Hamilton Jazzmaster Seaview Chrono, it’s multiple sub-dials perhaps symbolic of that movie’s secretive organisation that issues briefings on bullets using ‘inverted entropy’ that moves backwards through time.

And time – or at least a big countdown – is key to the plot of Nolan’s new film Oppenheimer.. Set in the 1940s and released this week, when it comes to watches, the film is as stylishly period-correct as you’d expect. 

For anyone tiring of the magenta-pink Ken-ergy we are currently consumed by, former Esquire cover star Cillian Murphy in the lead role as Robert J Oppenheimer could be the antidote. 

The watches worn in Oppenheimer – by Murphy, as well as by his co-stars Matt Damon (playing Lieutenant General Leslie Groves) and Emily Blunt (Kitty Oppenheimer) – are also by Hamilton, the Swiss company that has its origins in 1890s Pennsylvania, USA.

Even given all that history, to get the watches just-so Hamilton apparently found its own museum stock wanting.

Instead it tapped instead into its ‘network of enthusiasts and collectors’ to source ‘six vintage references, leveraging period-specific timepieces from the 1930s and 1940s’. 

It was, it says, ‘no easy feat’.

Below, see the trio of watches Murphy’s Robert J Oppenheimer wears in the film.

A gold-plated 1930s Cushion B model, named for its pillow-shaped chase, and measuring just 26.7mm x 26.7mm with a white cream dial on a brown lizard skin strap. 

A 29mm Lexington, one of three models introduced in 1941 and aimed at men in service, with a gold and silver-plated case and a black dial on a green calf leather strap.

And a 27.8mm 1940s Endicott, a classic round watch with sub second register at 6 o’clock and a champagne dial, on a brown calf leather strap.

Matt Damon’s character, Lieutenant General Leslie Groves, also wears two Hamilton models as seen below.

A 30mm Piping Rock from the 1920s – once known as ‘the quintessential American wristwatch’ – with a champagne dial on a black calf leather strap.

And a 32mm 1940s army-issue Military Ordinance with a black dial on a green nylon strap.

The watches are all tiny by today’s standards. Hamilton says it has no plans to reissue any of them, even upscaled. That’s a shame – though, unlike Barbie, the company hasn’t always been so quick to leverage the marketing opportunities of a movie tie-in.

The ‘Interstellar watch’, the 42mm Khaki Field Auto Automatic, nicknamed ‘the Murph’ after Mackenzie Foy’s character Murphy Cooper, eventually went into production in 2019 – a whole five years after the film came out.

After solid petitioning from fans, a smaller version – more befitting the field watch genre – was released in 2022. The so-called ‘Smurf’ measured 38mm and was one of our favourite watches of last year.

Meanwhile Hamilton recently scored another high-profile movie placement, with Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny. 

That watch, the Hamilton American Classic Boulton Quartz, is available to buy now.

Hamilton has a deep history of collaborating with Hollywood, dating back to 1932. Its credits include 1973’s Live And Let Die (a digital Pulsar model), George Clooney’s Hamilton Viewmatic in 2002’s Ocean’s Eleven and Elvis Presley’s triangular Hamilton Ventura in 1961’s Blue Hawaii.

Thirty-seven years after it appeared in 2001: A Space Odyssey Hamiltonmade its X-01 Odyssey, a prop watch commissioned by Stanley Kubrick, commercially available. It came in a limited edition of 2,001.

This article originally appeared on Esquire US.

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