July 17, 2026
by Abi Mason
As excitement builds around the premiere of Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” AIA Programs Coordinator Abi takes a closer look at the film, exploring where it shines most, where it takes creative liberties, and how it brings Homer’s epic journey to the big screen.
Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” is a new take on the Homeric epic that balances authenticity with understandability and a core message of the trauma war causes on both soldiers and communities. The movie gets many things right, including the core scenes in Bronze Age palaces and the sea voyages of Odysseus’ crew, but in other areas, familiarity, ease of access, and visuals win out.
This is the case with the armor, which bounces between a classical Corinthian style and the Batman villian-esque armor being worn by Agamemnon, and the art, which draws primarily from the Greek Archaic period (some 300 years later) with typical Archaic Kore statues being used for depictions of Athena.
But for many die-hard realists, the biggest negative may be the continued references to the Sea Peoples, an old theory of Bronze Age collapse that was so heavily disproven as to be nonsense.
Despite these things, the movie is still a cinematic masterpiece—the three hours in the theater flew by. The characters are engaging, the narrative is captivating, and the references to Ancient Greek culture work well everywhere they are implemented. Because, like the Homeric epic, the core of the story remains two concepts: xenia (Zeus’ law of hospitality) and nostos (a journey home). Anyone who expected a faithful, historically accurate yet fantastical retelling of Homer’s Odyssey will be disappointed, but Nolan’s The Odyssey takes the story and adapts it into a form understandable to modern viewers and reminds us that the real story is about the consequences of our actions.
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