28 Days Later (2002)

The series got a threequel this year, so I thought I'd finally give the original a go. Had I known that Danny Boyle was directing, I'd've braced for more grossness, but whew, there's no excrement scene herein.

Animal rights zealots release a chimp from a lab, ignoring a warning that it's "infected with rage." After the titular period, courier Jim (Cillian Murphy, younger than I'd ever seen before) awakens from a coma induced by a bicycle accident to find that the hospital and, indeed, London are almost completely abandoned. The first people he meets have the rage plague, but holdouts Selena (Naomie Harris) and Mark (Noah Huntley) rescue him. Later connections include Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and his teen daughter, Hannah (Megan Burns), who relay a report of a military outpost. It exists, but whether it's the salvation they need is another question.

Oppenheimer (2023)

I knew my dad and I would have to see this while it was still in theaters. Not only is it popular, but it loses something on a smaller screen. Not that nuclear explosions, "real" or imagined, make up much of the three hours.

The story covers the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) from his doctoral student days in 1926 to his receipt of the Enrico Fermi Award in '63. His key work on the Manhattan Project and reactions to its aftermath tend to dominate the focus, but there's more to it than that. He hangs out with communists too much for the comfort of authorities, and two party members, eventual wife Kitty Puening (Emily Blunt) and codependent Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh), become his love interests.

Dunkirk (2017)

Wow, Christopher Nolan writes, directs, and co-produces the depiction of a real event for a change. Well, to a point. The individual characters involved are fictitious. But given his usual penchant for sci-fi and mindscrew mystery, it was bound to be unusually realistic for him. Perhaps he wants more of a shot at the next Academy Awards than he had with Inception.

Unlike any other war film I've seen, this one divides itself into three perspectives corresponding roughly to land (designated "The Mole," an architectural term I didn't know), sea, and air. On land, in the course of a week, Allied soldiers at Dunkirk are in the process of retreating, but German forces don't make it easy with all the ship bombing. At sea, in the course of a day, Captain Dawson (Mark Rylance) takes his yacht to join the rescue effort with his young adult son, along with an unexpected rash teenage assistant. They soon pick up a lone survivor of a bombed ship (Nolan mainstay Cillian Murphy), who exhibits PTSD and reeeeally doesn't want to return to Dunkirk. In the air, in the course of an hour, three members of the Royal Air Force (one of them played by Tom Hardy) face off with German fighters in the vicinity.

The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006)

Many movies and shows stop streaming on Netflix on January 1. This one stops on December 31 for some reason, so I gave it priority. At least I won't take as long to decide what to watch for the next week or so.

Set in Ireland in the early '20s, the plot moves from one war (of independence) to another (civil) so swiftly that I didn't immediately realize there was more than one. For the first, brothers Damien and Teddy become inclined to fight the British when some Black and Tans kill their friend for little reason. For the second, they are on opposites sides regarding whether to accept the compromise of the peace treaty until a better time to push for more rights. I might as well tell you now: It does not end well for them.