USF School of Art & Art History Alum Richard King ’80 is sound designer for Christopher Nolan’s latest blockbuster film Oppenheimer

Richard King, USF’s 2020 Distinguished Alumnus, has teamed up once again with director Christopher Nolan as the sound designer and supervising sound editor for the newly released epic biographical thriller film, Oppenheimer. The film is based on the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist who played a major role in developing the first nuclear weapons for the Manhattan Project.

King has a long history of working with the industry’s leading directors such as M. Night Shyamalan, Steven Spielberg, Patty Jenkins, Robert Altman, Peter Weir, Paul Thomas Anderson, Jeymes Samuel, and William Friedkin. He holds a record four Academy Awards for sound editing, the most achieved by anyone in that category. He won Oscars for Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003); The Dark Knight (2008); Inception (2010); and Dunkirk (2017). He was also nominated for his work on War of the Worlds (2005) and Interstellar (2014). In addition, King is the recipient of three BAFTA Awards and four MPSE awards for Best Sound Editing as well as the MPSE Career Achievement Award.

King, who has nearly 100 film credits for sound editing, grew up in Tampa making Super 8 and 16mm movies with his friends. He was studying painting at USF’s College of The Arts when he got involved in film projects at the school and discovered “painting with sound.”