5 Best Movies Like Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey
by Chris Evangelista · /FilmChristopher Nolan's massive epic "The Odyssey" is finally here, bringing us the biggest production of the filmmaker's blockbuster career. Adapting the classic poem by Homer, Nolan has turned "The Odyssey" into a sprawling film that stays true to its source material while also reinterpreting certain details in fascinating new ways. If you've seen "The Odyssey" and are in the mood to watch some similar films, you've come to the right place! Below I've rounded up five films that are similar to Nolan's new adaptation.
Interstellar
"The Odyssey" has themes that Christopher Nolan has covered in several other films, so in theory, I could just fill this entire list with Nolan's other movies. Instead I'll just focus on one: "Interstellar," another story about a man on a long, deadly quest to eventually get back home (bonus: like "The Odyssey," Matt Damon and Anne Hathaway are major parts of this movie, too).
These days, "Interstellar" is often regarded as one of, if not the best movie Nolan has made. I find this slightly amusing, because I distinctly remember the reaction to the film was a little mixed when it hit theaters in 2014. To be sure, people didn't outright hate the movie. But they didn't seem to love it, either. Now, it's regarded as great, and I just want to brag and say I always thought it was pretty damn good to begin with.
In "Interstellar," Matthew McConaughey heads off into space with hopes of finding a new planet for human beings to inhabit. Like poor Odysseus in "The Odyssey," things go wrong at nearly every turn for McConaughey's character, and his loved ones back home are left to wonder if he's ever coming back.
Jason and the Argonauts
Like "The Odyssey," Don Chaffey's delightful 1963 adventure film "Jason and the Argonauts" is adapted from ancient Greek myth. Young Jason (Todd Armstrong, dubbed by Tim Turner) is sent on a quest to find the fabled Golden Fleece, kind of magical bit of sheepskin. Jason sets sail with a crew that includes Hercules (!) and encounters all sorts of mythical creatures, most of which are brought to life via stop-motion animation visual effects by Ray Harryhausen.
Harryhausen's VFX work is the real star of the show here — a sequence where a giant bronze statue comes to life to try to kill Jason and the boys is a showstopper, as is the now-famous finale where Jason has to sword-fight a horde of skeletons. Honestly, more movies should have stop-motion skeletons running around.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
While Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" isn't quite as fantasy-driven as Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring," the films feel connected through their attempt to invoke a feeling of tactile reality. Part of what made Jackson's original "Lord of the Rings" trilogy so memorable is that the filmmaker used real locations and physical miniatures rather than giving in to full-blown CGI (a mistake he made with the lousy "Hobbit" trilogy).
Nolan is also a stickler for practical material, and both "The Odyssey" and "Fellowship of the Ring" have a lived-in quality — the worlds the films are creating feel genuine, even though they're inhabited by mythical creatures that have no basis in the "real" world. "The Odyssey" and "Fellowship" also both feel big in terms of scope and scale in ways so many other modern blockbusters fail to capture.
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Before Nolan's new film, I think the case could be made that the most famous movie adaptation of "The Odyssey" came courtesy of the Coen Brothers' 2000 musical comedy "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" The Coens took the basic gist of Homer's classic and reworked it into the story of three escaped convicts (played by George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson) on a quest through the South in the 1930s.
Along the way, the trio runs afoul of all sorts of mishaps and inadvertently become folk music superstars in the process. To this day, "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" remains one of the Coen Brothers' most popular movies, and it's easy to see why. And, sure, Nolan's movie is pretty great — but do Matt Damon and his men adopt the nickname "The Soggy Bottom Boys"? No, they do not. Checkmate, Christopher Nolan.
Troy
The Trojan War and the Trojan Horse play a crucial part in "The Odyssey," but the bulk of that story is actually from another Homer epic, "The Iliad." That tale got its own film adaptation in the form of Wolfgang Petersen's "Troy," which tries to ground the events in realism by removing any fantastical details like the gods.
Truth be told, "Troy" is kind of a mixed bag. The production design is pretty strong, and the cast is sturdy, but the end results are little lackluster. What elevates the film is an alarmingly ripped Brad Pitt, who plays the legendary Achilles as a kind of bleach-blonde psychopath who gets horny over killing people. The film is worth watching for Pitt's performance (although Pitt himself has said he's not exactly fond of his work in the pic).