“A simple man”. This is how Emily Wilson, the first woman to publish a complete translation of the Odyssey in English, defines the protagonist of Christopher Nolan's film. The philologist has railed against the film in an essay published in the London Review of Books under the title An uncomplicated man, referring to the first words Wilson used in her 2017 version to define Odysseus as a “complicated man”. During the promotion of the Odyssey (2026), Nolan cited Emily Wilson's translation on several occasions as one of his main sources of inspiration. Even so, the expert in classical literature and professor at the University of Pennsylvania has not been satisfied with the result.

Elon Musk continues to be upset about Christopher Nolan's version of The Odyssey. For months, he and his supporters have been campaigning on social media to question the casting of the new blockbuster of the ancient epic, particularly the choice of black actress Lupita Nyong'o for the role of Helen of Troy and transgender actor Elliot Page as the warrior Sinó. Now that the film has been released, some conservatives have admitted that there is nothing particularly woke in Nolan's tale of sacrifice and male honor. He takes liberties with the original material, like any Hollywood version, but one of its main divergences is a more Christian than pagan moral framework, which should not offend most of the conservative sector.

Christopher Nolan's Odyssey lasts 2 hours and 53 minutes. Almost three hours of epic footage to narrate Ulysses' adventures for ten years, from when he leaves the shores of Troy until he finally returns to Ithaca. The film covers practically all the essential episodes and themes of Homer's poem, the foundational work of the journey myth, created from oral tradition about 2,800 years ago. But, like any adaptation (or reinterpretation), it is by no means exact: the filmmaker alters the order of some passages, summarizes others, and eliminates important scenes that, in the original text, add nuances and help to understand the protagonist's psychological depth. These are the most significant.

Christopher Nolan's new movie, The Odyssey, has arrived in theaters with a Trojan horse: its cinematic format. A feature that has sparked a heated debate about the aspect ratio in which the film is projected in different exhibition formats, to the point that the critic and communicator Alejandro G. Calvo has loaded against the display system of The Odyssey, which he describes as "demonic" and "a lack of respect for cinematic language", because "you can only see the film as Nolan shot it in a handful of cinemas, and in the rest you see 75% of the frame, or 73%."

In the prologue of the recent translation ofThe Odyssey published by Bernat Metge Universal, Roger Aluja recalls how Ulysses differs from Achilles, the triumphant warrior of the Iliad, in that his glory culminates not in victory in battle but in his subsequent return home. In his appropriation of Homer's classic, Christopher Nolan takes good note of this. As a new example of cinema understood as an immense audiovisual spectacle, the grandeur of The Odyssey lies not in the epic of combat but in the overwhelming weight of external circumstances that a human like Ulysses cannot control. In his darkest film (not at all Mediterranean), Nolan empties the journey of its most joyful adventurous dimension and approaches terror in some of the best passages: the capture in Polyphemus's cave, the disturbing transformation of the sailors into pigs by Circe, the unsettling descent into Hades... Ludwig Göransson envelops it all with a tactile soundtrack that immerses us in Poseidon's oceanic wrath.

While the dispute is ongoing the battle between Netflix and Paramount to control Warner —responsible for some $3.7 billion in global box office revenue in 2025, no small feat—, the film industry is preparing to recapture a post-pandemic box office that continues to struggle. In 2026, Hollywood will pull out all the stops with releases designed to attract a wide audience and revitalize the theatrical experience. There will also be, as always, films seeking artistic acclaim. And new works from directors such as Albert Serra, Greta Gerwig, Pedro Almodóvar, Christopher Nolan, and Steven Spielberg.

British director Christopher Nolan has received criticism for having filmed part of his next movie,The Odyssey, in the city of Dakhla, located in Western Sahara, a disputed territory largely occupied by Morocco. Specifically, it has been denounced by the International Film Festival of Western Sahara (FiSahara), which is held in the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria. In one release, the organization states: "Dakhla is not just a beautiful place with cinematic sand dunes. Above all, it is an occupied and militarized city, and its indigenous Sahrawi population is subject to brutal repression by the Moroccan occupation forces. Nolan and his team must stop filming Dakhla."

Who is the best director of the 21st century so far? According to the list published by the newspaper The New York Times, Christopher Nolan, at least because he is the most represented, with five titles, among the 100 best movies released since 2020 (the American newspaper considers that the 21st century begins in 2000 instead of 2001). The five Nolan films they have chosen occupy positions 28, 53, 62, 65 and 89. If the position in the ranking is prioritized, perhaps more valuable are the four films that appear by Paul Thomas Anderson (3, 25, 42 and 56), the brothers Ethan and Joel Coen (6, 36, 76 and 83) and Alfonso Cuarón (13, 18, 46 and 97). However, none of these filmmakers tops the list drawn up with the votes of more than 500 personalities from the film world. Number 1 goes to Parasites, by South Korean Bong Joon-ho, of whom there is another title in the ranking: Memories of Murder (Chronicle of a Serial Killer).