Oppenheimer Locations: How George RR Martin and Secrecy Boosted Christopher Nolan’s New Mexico Masterpiece

By Tim Molloy
Reprinted with permission of MovieMaker Magazine
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Writer-director-producer Christopher Nolan surveying the New Mexico landscape for Oppenheimer locations. Photo by Melinda Sue Gordon, Courtesy of Universal Pictures.

When Cillian Murphy and Matt Damon crossed the New Mexico desert in Oppenheimer, they did it by Dragon.  That’s the nickname of a locomotive — part of the Sky Railway co-owned by Game of Thrones mastermind George R.R. Martin and New Mexico entrepreneur Bill Banowsky — that thrust Murphy’s Robert J. Oppenheimer and Damon’s Colonel Leslie Groves to their destinies and became one of the key Oppenheimer locations.
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It was one of countless resources that Christopher Nolan’s Oscar-magnet origin story of the atomic bomb found on location in New Mexico, dubbed the Land of Enchantment. Enchanting is exactly what the state proved to be for a production that took advantage of its sweep and history, giving the historical biopic the immediacy of a speeding train. 

“We’re blessed out here these days. Production after production after production — it’s a great place to be,” says David Manzanares, who helped find key locations for Oppenheimer. He spoke to us phone by phone recently from another New Mexico set, for a project he couldn’t disclose just yet. 

Oppenheimer is largely the story of how Groves and Oppenheimer developed the A-bomb in total secrecy. But these days, New Mexico is where filmmakers go to build hit movies and shows — with at least a little secrecy. A wide array of locations are at their disposal, from twinned natural wonders to anonymous offices to trains named for mythical beasts. 
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Our own research bears out filmmakers’ sense of awe: On our latest list of the Best Places to Live and Work as a Moviemaker, Santa Fe is at the top of smaller cities, and Albuquerque is second among big cities.

1940s period cars at Ghost Ranch. Courtesy of David Manzanares.

Manzanares remembers the day in 2021 when his friend Todd Christensen, the former head of the New Mexico Film Office, first reached out to him about a 1940s-set New Mexico project. Christensen couldn’t reveal much more than that — “we respect each other’s NDAs,” jokes Manzanares — but he soon thought of a perfect place. 

It turned out to be one of the most stunning Oppenheimer locations.

New Mexico, Manzanares explains, is in his blood. Growing up, he always thought of himself as simply Spanish. But when his son Maximiño came home from college, asking about his background, they began to investigate their Indigenous roots, and found that their connection to the land was “as old as the dust.”

“This is where they’ll bury me,” says Manzanares, who has also worked on New Mexico locations for films including Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Magnificent Seven, and Hostiles. “It’s a really cool feeling to have — a sense of connection.”

One crucial section of Oppenheimer required an empty, panoramic shot of the future site of Los Alamos, where the physicist and his team would build the bomb. But on the same day, Manzanares recalls, the filmmakers also needed to film the completed town, against a nearly identical backdrop.

David Manzanares. Courtesy of David Manzanares

Manzanares suggested locations in Ghost Ranch, near Abiquiu, where he grew up, about an hour away from Santa Fe. He is the field producer for Ghost Ranch, which until Oppenheimer was perhaps best known as the home and frequent subject of painter Georgia O’Keeffe. 

Ghost Ranch features breathtaking vistas, streams, plains, and monolithic cliffs, with nearby mesas, red rocks and Abiquiu Lake.The film took advantage of the area’s natural beauty for scenes of horseback-riding and camping — as well as its Los Alamos set. 

Buildings that appear in the film are now available for other productions, and can be toured, by appointment, by the general public.

​Top-Secret Oppenheimer Locations

Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer in Ghost Ranch, one of the key Oppenheimer locations. Universal Pictures.

For the scenes where Oppenheimer is grilled in a small, shabby office of the Atomic Energy Commission, the film needed the opposite of wide-open spaces. The production found a nice, crowded office in downtown Santa Fe’s PERA Building — named for the Public Employee Retirement Association. 

In the film, the drab office masks the ruthless trap set by Oppenheimer’s jealous nemesis, Lewis Strauss — played by Robert Downey Jr. But in reality, the walls of the PERA Building hid from the general public a soon-to-be Best Picture winner populated by Nolan and some of the most famous actors in the world.

Soon, the trucks and trailers in a nearby parking lot drew the attention of people who inundated Santa Fe Film Commissioner Jennifer LaBar-Tapia with questions. 

When MovieMaker first named Santa Fe as the No. 1 small town on our list of the Best Places to Live and Work as a Moviemaker — a position it has held for two years running — we called LaBar-Tapia “part sheriff, part cheer captain, and all rock star.” 

She’s also a pretty good detective, it turns out, when it comes to sussing out imposters.
“I was starting to get calls from people that claimed they were from our local newspaper,” she says. “And of course, I can’t say what’s happening.” 
She knew they weren’t really reporters, she says, because they were calling her office line — and real local reporters have her cell number. 

​She’s also a pretty good detective, it turns out, when it comes to sussing out imposters.
“I was starting to get calls from people that claimed they were from our local newspaper,” she says. “And of course, I can’t say what’s happening.” 
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She knew they weren’t really reporters, she says, because they were calling her office line — and real local reporters have her cell number. 

When it comes time for a project to announce its presence in New Mexico, it’s up to the state film office — aka Film New Mexico — to handle the formal announcements. There have been a lot in the last 15 years — from Breaking Bad to Better Call Saul to the Coen brothers’ The Ballad of Buster Scruggs to the Tom Hanks Western News of the World.

Boldfaced names don’t just visit — several live in Santa Fe, where they appreciate the scenery, the 300 days of sunshine each year, the thriving art scene, and the distance from Hollywood. It is a refuge for many, including Robert Redford, Gene Hackman, and George R.R. Martin.
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But only one of the three bought a train.

The Wolf and the Dragon

The Dragon by night. Courtesy of Sky Railway.

For years, the Santa Fe Southern Railway, which runs 18 miles from Lamy to Santa Fe, had up-and-down financial fortunes. But some of its greatest moments were captured on film. 

It was featured in the 2008 Ed Harris Western Appaloosa, as well as one of the most impressive episodes of Breaking Bad, “Dead Freight,” which features a train heist of methylamine.  
In 2019, Bill Banowsky and Martin joined together with other investors to purchase the train line. They had become friends because Banowsky owns businesses in the Santa Fe Railyard, including an 11-screen movie theater, while Martin owns a single-screen theater in the rail yard.

“This was a dying railroad that was about to go out of business,” Banowsky recalls. “They approached me and they approached George about the idea of us stepping in to save the railroad.”
Banowsky was hesitant at first. But Martin, he recalls, “just lit up, like a kid — and was all about having a railroad.”
He recalls Martin saying: “This railroad that we’re buying comes with two locomotives. We’ll paint one like the head of a wolf and one like the head of a dragon. And we’ll have fire coming out of the dragon’s mouth and the wolf will howl!” 

The railroad gives even more authenticity to Oppenheimer: Lamy, a stop between Los Angeles and Chicago, was the actual arrival point for scientists coming to work at Los Alamos in the 1940s. Additionally, the sequences shot on board the train cars literally propel the dramatic exchanges between Oppenheimer and Groves.
“The trains were actually moving, and so the background that you see is the New Mexico background adjacent to our tracks,” says Banowsky. “It’s all the train moving in real time.”
And like the film’s Los Alamos set at Ghost Ranch, the trains are now open to the public. 

Banowsky and Martin rebranded their venture as the Sky Railway, refurbished the cars, hired an artist to paint them, and developed events including music performances and a Murder on the Orient Express-style experience.The once-struggling railroad has now had a financial turnaround, he happily reports. 
“It’s a live entertainment venue on rails that has become a very popular tourist stop,” Banowsky says.
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