Christopher Nolan, who wrote and directed The Odyssey, at its New York premiere on July 14, 2026. Photo PhilipRomano, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. No free image from the film itself exists.
The Odyssey (2026 film)
What it took directly
- documentedThe film's sinking Trojan Horse took from Nolan's talks to direct Troy (2004), based on the Iliad, where he first imagined it"He dreamed up this fallen horse not for his adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey but for another film entirely. Nolan was in talks to direct 2004’s Troy based on Homer’s other epic, The Iliad." Eliana Dockterman, TIME, May 12, 2026
- documentedThe film's sinking Trojan Horse took from the Statue of Liberty in Planet of the Apes"he came up with an arresting image for the Trojan horse, “listing over in the sand” in a way that intentionally echoes the Statue of Liberty in “Planet of the Apes.”" Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times, July 7, 2026
- documentedPolyphemus, the film's Cyclops took from Francisco Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son, referenced again and again by Nolan and production designer Ruth De Jong"That connection is Francisco Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son, a painting repeatedly referenced by both Nolan and production designer Ruth De Jong." Jonathan Wells, Little White Lies, 23 Jul 2026 (Nolan, quoted in the Los Angeles Times: “That was very much the inspiration”)
- documentedPolyphemus, the film's Cyclops took from actor Bill Irwin, who gave it both his voice and his likeness"Irwin provided both the voice and likeness of Polyphemus." Jonathan Wells, Little White Lies, 23 Jul 2026
- documentedSinon, a warrior in the film took from Virgil's Aeneid (he is not in Homer's Odyssey)"one bold borrowing from Virgil’s telling of the Trojan-horse story—Sinon (Elliot Page), a warrior who appears in the Aeneid but not in the Odyssey" Justin Chang, The New Yorker, July 17, 2026
- documentedThe Odyssey (2026 film) took from Emily Wilson's 2017 translation, chiefly, among several versions Nolan studied"The film, Nolan has noted in interviews, emerged from an exhaustive study of the work in multiple versions, chiefly Emily Wilson’s celebrated translation, from 2017." Justin Chang, The New Yorker, July 17, 2026, summarising Nolan's interviews
What it learned to do
- statedChristopher Nolan (making the film's monsters) learned from Guillermo del Toro: a monster is a character"What I learned from him is that a monster is not a monster. You have to approach them the way you approach any other character." Christopher Nolan to Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times, July 7, 2026
- statedThe Odyssey (2026 film) learned from cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema's long push, film after film, to shoot a whole feature on IMAX"Every production we look at each other and we say, ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we do this entirely on IMAX?’" Hoyte van Hoytema to Eliana Dockterman, TIME, May 12, 2026
The tradition it sits in
- statedThe Odyssey (2026 film) answered Ray Harryhausen's mythological films, made on a shoestring"That world felt like it hadn’t been addressed. Ray Harryhausen did it working on a shoestring, but the opportunity to take this on — on a big scale — was there, and it hadn’t been there before." Christopher Nolan to Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times, July 7, 2026
- statedThe Odyssey (2026 film) comes from David Lean's way of making epics, without a green screen"Movies like this are not getting made anymore. To do this without a green screen, the way that David Lean would have done it" Matt Damon, who plays Odysseus, to Eliana Dockterman, TIME, May 12, 2026 (his comparison, not Nolan's)
- statedThe film's boats and weapons comes from the oldest depictions of Homeric characters, which show people of Homer's own time"The oldest depictions of Homeric characters tend to be depicted in the manner of people living in Homer’s time" Christopher Nolan to Eliana Dockterman, TIME, May 12, 2026
- inferredCirce's island sequence comes from Spirited Away (2002), where a greedy couple are turned into boars"What befalls them on Circe’s island smacks of a similar punishment from the animated fantasy “Spirited Away” (2002), in which a greedy couple are turned into boars after gorging themselves in an enchanted food court." inferred — critic Justin Chang (The New Yorker, 2026) says the scene “smacks of” Spirited Away; Nolan is not quoted naming it
- inferredThe Odyssey (2026 film) comes from Nolan's own earlier films: Dunkirk, Interstellar, Batman Begins"it’s hard not to notice that Odysseus’ journey has haunted all of the movies he’s written and directed" inferred — Eliana Dockterman (TIME, 2026) reads Odysseus's journey into all of Nolan's films, and The New Yorker calls the film a palimpsest of them; Nolan does not say so himself
Where the whole form comes from
- documentedChristopher Nolan's IMAX filmmaking comes from the IMAX documentaries he fell for as a child at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry"fell in love with IMAX watching documentaries in the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry’s five-story wrap-around movie theater." Eliana Dockterman, TIME, May 12, 2026
- statedThe Odyssey (2026 film) comes from Homer's Odyssey, which Nolan saw had never had a full-scale Hollywood telling"And what had never really been done is a cinematic telling of The Odyssey with all of the capacity of a large-scale Hollywood studio production. It’s an odd gap in movie history." Christopher Nolan to Eliana Dockterman, TIME, May 12, 2026
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