The reviews are in for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, and critics are calling it “a filmmaking feast”. Clocking in at almost three hours, the latest movie from the Oscar-winning Oppenheimer director is by all accounts an epic in every sense of the word, boasting a star-studded cast, a $250 million budget and the sort of sprawling scale that can only be captured in glorious IMAX.
As Nolan revealed to The Independent earlier this week, he’s wanted to make a grand movie in the swords-and-sandals tradition for over two decades, since he was briefly attached to direct Brad Pitt in Troy. Since then, of course, Nolan has been on something of an odyssey himself, conquering Hollywood with his acclaimed Batman trilogy and exploring science fiction in films such as Inception and Interstellar.
Still, there’s a reason why, after all that success, Nolan has made his way back to ancient Greece. The rich mythology passed down from ancient dramatists like Homer forms the foundation of the Western storytelling tradition, and the gods and heroes depicted in stories like the Iliad and the Odyssey are responsible for giving us many of the tropes, narratives and archetypal characters that remain popular to this day. No wonder they call them the classics.
While The Odyssey may be the latest and perhaps even greatest adaptation of Greek mythology on screen, it’s certainly not the first time that Hollywood has returned to the source in search of inspiration. There have been dozens of films inspired by Greek myths over the years, ranging from straightforward historical retellings to more experimental adaptations that use the stories as an imaginative jumping-off point.
So whether you’re a longtime lover of these dense ancient texts, or you’ve only recently found out that Homer isn’t just some guy who loves donuts, here are six of the best films inspired by Greek mythology:
6. The Return (2024)
A couple of years before Nolan committed to adapting the entirety of The Odyssey for the screen, Italian filmmaker Uberto Pasolini chose to focus on just the second half of the epic tale for his 2024 movie The Return. The film stars Ralph Fiennes as Odysseus and Juliette Binoche as his wife Penelope, and earned praise for its realistic examination of trauma and the ravages of war.
There are no gods or monsters in Pasolini’s version, but some critics did feel he threw the baby out with the mythological bathwater. In a two-star review for The Independent, critic Clarisse Loughrey opined that “not only does The Return root out any and all mentions of the supernatural, but it does away with the emotions that power what is one of the most influential yet sparingly adapted stories in existence.”
5. Troy (2004)
Much like The Return, 2004’s Troy chose to rework one of Homer’s epic tales but without the involvement of the meddling Olympian gods. In this case, the film is a loose adaptation of the Iliad, telling the story of the siege of Troy during the Trojan War but choosing to condense all the action down to a few weeks instead of a decade.
The film was developed by Das Boot director Wolfgang Petersen, who left the project to work on a planned Batman vs Superman film. It was then that Nolan was briefly attached, and the film was also offered to Terry Gilliam, who questioned the wisdom of adapting the Iliad without the gods.
In the end, Petersen returned to oversee the production, which starred Brad Pitt as the great Greek warrior Achilles and Eric Bana as his mortal enemy Hector, crown prince of Troy. The film was a box office hit despite dividing critics, and it’s well worth revisiting if just for some stand-out supporting performances by the likes of Brian Cox as the Greek King Agamemnon, Brendan Gleeson as Menelaus, King of Sparta, and the legendary Peter O’Toole as Priam, King of Troy.
4. Black Orpheus (1959)
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The legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, first recorded by the Roman poets Virgil and Ovid, is one of the most frequently retold Greek myths. It concerns a pair of tragic lovers: Orpheus, who could produce bewitching music with his lyre, and Eurydice, who is dragged to the underworld from which her paramour attempts to rescue her.
That myth was brilliantly updated by the French filmmaker Marcel Camus in Black Orpheus, which relocates the story to a 1950s Rio de Janeiro favela during Carnival. The film is a feast for the senses, capturing the vibrant music and spirit of Brazil. The soundtrack, which features the likes of Antônio Carlos Jobim and Vinícius de Moraes, helped popularize bossa nova around the world.
Black Orpheus won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film and has been cited as a favorite by everyone from the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat to Parasite director Bong Joon Ho.
3. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
Before there was Nolan’sThe Odyssey, there was... O Brother, Where Art Thou? The Coen Brothers’ musical is a very loose reimagining of Homer’s Odyssey, with the action transposed onto the story of three escaped convicts in 1930s Mississippi. George Clooney stars as a character named Ulysses (the Roman name for Odysseus) who embarks on an epic journey to reunite with his wife, Penny (Holly Hunter).
Along the way, his various encounters correspond to plot points in the Odyssey, including a trio of singing Sirens, a cyclops (a one-eyed Bible salesman played by John Goodman), and a blind prophet. While the film goes so far as to open with a few lines of Homer, the Coen Brothers admitted around the time the film was released that they’d never actually read the whole thing. “Between the cast and us,” Ethan Coen told The Guardian, “Tim Nelson is the only one who’s actually read the Odyssey."
2. Hercules (1997)
Admittedly, Disney’s Hercules isn’t going to win any prizes in the “faithful adaptation” stakes, but what it lacks in historical accuracy it more than makes up for in sheer enthusiasm for its subject matter. One could make the argument that playing fast and loose with the old myths is in fact more in keeping with the tradition anyway: the many stories of Hercules (or Heracles, as he was known in the original Greek) don’t come from a single piece of literature but from a rich oral tradition that was changed, reworked and passed on by generations of poets.
The “12 Labours of Hercules” that the muscle-bound hero is most famous for come from an epic work attributed to the Ancient Greek poet Peisander, but the text itself has long since been lost to history. Rather than worry about that, Disney’s Hercules is an exuberant mash-up of various Greek myths, suitably sanitized for a young audience and tied together with a killer soundtrack. And unlike in the original myths, this time Hercules gets a happy ending.
1. Jason and the Argonauts (1963)
He doesn’t have quite the same name recognition as Homer, but the 3rd-century poet Apollonius of Rhodes can take credit for inspiring one of the greatest swords-and-sandals movies of them all. It was his epic poem, the Argonautica, that was adapted for the beloved 1963 film Jason and the Argonauts.
Jason and the Argonauts follows the adventures of Jason (Todd Armstrong) and his quest for the Golden Fleece, the hide of a magical winged ram. While the film was directed by Don Chaffey, it is best known for its groundbreaking special effects work by Ray Harryhausen. The memorable sequences he created for the film include Talos, a towering 100-foot bronze giant statue that comes to life, and a battle with a stop-motion skeleton army.
The film has been referenced as a key touchstone for Nolan’s The Odyssey, with Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright noting on social media after a recent screening that he “felt the influence of the Ray Harryhausen films of my youth. I absolutely loved Jason and the Argonauts and all of the Sinbad films, and Chris pays homage to them in a grounded, contemporary and, at times, genuinely terrifying way.”
While the movie struggled at the box office when it was originally released, it has gone on to be considered a classic of the genre. While presenting an honorary Oscar to Harryhausen in 1992, Tom Hanks went so far as to declare: “Some people say Casablanca or Citizen Kane. I say Jason and the Argonauts is the greatest film ever made.”
