23 most shocking and devastating character deaths in 2023

12) Jean Tatlock in Oppenheimer

Jean Tatlock's departure from the Earthly realm in Oppenheimer is one of those moments that just grabs your heart and squeezes it tight. When Oppenheimer finds out she's gone, and how she died, it's a complete punch in the gut. Despite the fact he was constantly cheating on his wife with her, part of you does feel bad for him. It's not just about the shock, though that's certainly there. It's about how her story intertwines with Oppenheimer's — this brilliant, complicated guy who's juggling the weight of the atomic bomb on his shoulders and an extraordinary woman who was just as complicated.

Played perfectly by the absolutely stunning and talented Florence Pugh, Jean is like this beacon of light in his life, you know? She's very smart, she's pretty passionate about life and politics, and there's this deep, fiery, forbidden, kind of turbulent love between them. So when it's revealed that she took her own life, it's not just a personal loss for Oppenheimer — it's like a piece of his soul gets ripped away, and we can totally see that in the way Cillian Murphy plays it all out. And the way her death gets revealed, so sudden and unexpected, just leaves you sitting there, feeling a mix of sadness and a bit of anger, like, why did it have to go down this way?

It's heartbreaking, really, in the truest sense of the word.