Christopher Nolan Reveals Two Films That Inspired The Odyssey

Christopher Nolan's new film The Odyssey brings Homer's epic to the screen, following Odysseus' 10-year journey back to Ithaca after the Trojan War. The movie debuts in theaters on Jul. 17, 2026. Nolan said two films influenced his work: Andrei Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev (1966) and Akira Kurosawa's Ran (1985).

He praised Rublev, noting, "Tarkovsky's 'Andrei Rublev' made quite an impression on everybody; the textures are pretty remarkable." On Ran he added, "One of the films I screened as a bit of a flier, like I didn't really know whether it would be relevant, was Kurosawa's 'Ran.' It's shot very differently, but there's this relationship between the environment and the wind.

Now that I look at [our] finished film, I think it was a huge influence." Andrei Rublev tells the story of the 15th-century Russian icon painter and explores his struggle to maintain his faith and creative integrity amid war, religious turmoil, and human suffering.

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