First Trailer for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey Puts Human Drama First

Although it dates back to the 8th century BC, The Odyssey has long been a monumental part of the Western literary canon, and with good reason. The story of Odysseus’ decade-long return from the Trojan War to his home Ithaca is filled with high adventure and incredible monsters. Gods such as Athena and Poseidon, nymphs and sirens, and cannibal giants all appear in Homer’s incredible adventure.

But very little of that shows up in the first trailer for Christopher Nolan‘s take on The Odyssey. Instead, the trailer emphasizes the basic human drama of Odysseus (Matt Damon) struggling to get home and realizing that he shares some guilt for keeping his men away. Throughout the trailer, we get glimpses of some of the other human players in that drama, including Anne Hathaway and Tom Holland as Odysseus’s wife Penelope and son Telemachus, and Benny Safdie as Agamemnon, the Greek king who forced Odysseus into serving in the Trojan War. By focusing on these human beings, Nolan promises an epic grounded in real emotions.

For some, the lack of gods and monsters in The Odyssey trailer highlights a problem with Christopher Nolan’s approach. While the filmmaker often makes high concept movies about dream heists, time capers, and Batman, Nolan tries to ground them as much as possible. Batman Begins famously provided a real-world reason for every part of the Caped Crusader’s mythos. Even Oppenheimer was less about the atomic bomb itself and more about J. Robert Oppenheimer’s doomed relationships.

To that end, some have criticized Nolan’s visual style, especially in relationship to The Odyssey. Beyond even the complaints about historical accuracy, which have been brewing ever since Damon was seen wearing a Hollywood-style push broom helmet instead of those worn by actual ancient Greeks, is the issue of his stylization. Nolan tends to take a brutalist approach, using muted grays and browns and emphasizing scale. He does not have an expansive color palette.

Yet, the trailer is not without its mythic elements. Most obviously, there’s the imposing design of Agamemnon. With his black armor, highlighted by gold insignias and a spinal column adorning the back of his helmet, Agamemnon feels larger than life, even before we see Odysseus kneel before him. There’s a golden hour shot of Odysseus’s men pulling the Trojan Horse from water. There’s an undead army rising from the ground and the briefest glimpse of the Cyclops emerging from the cave.

As those elements demonstrate, Nolan is certainly embracing the mythical parts of The Odyssey. He’s not going to cheat by making, say, a large man with one eye missing stand in as the “real” version of what becomes Homer’s monster. The sirens likely won’t be beautiful women with whom Odysseyus’s men had a very bad drunken night in port.

But the trailer also shows that Christopher Nolan remains Christopher Nolan, and he’s always going to be most interested in the basic human drama. Fundamentally for him, The Odyssey is the story of a man who wants to get back home to his family, making Odysseus a hero not unlike Cobb from Inception or Coop from Interstellar. While that familiarity may disappoint hardcore mythology nuts, it will certainly help modern audiences connect with a story from several centuries ago.

The Odyssey comes to theaters on July 17, 2026.