‘That was very gratifying to hear’: King Charles has finally broken his silence and told us if he prefers ‘Barbie’ to ‘Oppenheimer

You wouldn’t think of King Charles as the kind of guy to be a movie buff, and yet it seems the U.K. monarch still manages to find time during his busy schedule to sit down and watch some spectacular kino. Perhaps it’s his way of escaping all the royal drama that’s constantly going on.

Director Christopher Nolan and his wife, film producer, Emma Thomas, both recently received a knighthood and a damehood from the king for their contributions to film, joining other honorees like Sam Mendes (American Beauty, 1917), Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave, Blitz), and Stephen Frears (The Queen, Victoria & Abdul).

Not only did the pair get the chance to meet and have a conversation with Charles, but he also confirmed that he had indeed seen Nolan’s latest film, Oppenheimer, and that he very much enjoyed it. Speaking on the matter, Thomas said, “He’d seen Oppenheimer, and he liked it, so that was very gratifying to hear.” Clearly, Charles is a fan of Nolan and Thomas’ work – sorry to disappoint the Barbie fans out there.

Like most, Charles was a big fan of Oppenheimer

The 3-hour-long biopic starring Cillian Murphy recounts the life story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American theoretical physicist responsible for the creation of the nuclear bomb. It makes sense that the king would like it, considering the film received near universal praise upon its release last year.

Oppenheimer was nominated for 13 Oscars and took home seven, including the big one — Best Picture — as well as statuettes for Nolan, Thomas, their leading man, and Robert Downey Jr. in the Supporting Actor category. It’s arguably one of Nolan’s most successful movies to date, and half of one of the biggest cultural phenomenons of the 2020s.

Revealing more about their discussion with Charles, Nolan commented on how it felt knowing the king had seen their movies.

It was very nice that he knew our work and was aware of it, and, yes, he was hoping that I would take this as encouragement to do more of it.”

Now I want to know if Charles has seen the rest of Nolan’s filmography. It’s hard to imagine him sitting down and watching The Dark Knight trilogy. Was he able to wrap his head around Inception? What did he think of Tenet? Has he seen Memento? All questions that need answering.

Anyway, there you have it, King Charles is an Oppenheimer boy, his words of praise towards Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas reveal which side of the camp he’s on in regard to the Barbenheimer debate. However, it’s not actually been confirmed whether or not he’s even seen the Barbie movie. It doesn’t really seem like his sort of thing, but then again we can’t judge a book by its cover, maybe he did see Barbie, and maybe he really liked it too.

Despite Oppenheimer generally receiving a more positive reception than the competition, let’s not forget that Barbie did incredibly well too, receiving a ton of positive attention. On top of that, Greta Gerwig’s movie about the world’s most famous doll was commercially more successful than Nolan’s magnum opus, making $1.45 billion worldwide.