Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey hit theaters on July 17 and immediately became the movie of the summer, raking in huge numbers at the box office and stirring up plenty of discourse. And now, the adaptation of Homer’s epic poem is inspiring fans to check out another epic: Troy, director Wolfgang Petersen’s 2004 loose adaptation of The Iliad, which features the Trojan War.
Despite being released more than 20 years ago, Troy, as of July 23, is sitting at #7 on IMDb’s list of most popular movies, and is #13 on film-logging app Letterboxd, with The Odyssey at the top of both lists. Over on Reddit, fans have been encouraging The Odyssey viewers to revisit Troy, with some people even calling it the better movie. (Critics disagree, with Troy sitting at 53% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes compared to The Odyssey‘s 94% fresh rating.) Others on Reddit are comparing some of the films’ overlapping moments and asking which movie did it better.
“I would argue that any emotional scene in Troy is overshadowed by all the action involved with the movie, while on the other hand, The Odyssey was very much a story being told that involved so much of the human nature,” one redditor wrote. “Odysseus’s retelling of his emotions as the city was sacked was so thought-provoking. His answer to Eurylochus when asked about the Sirens’ song made me ache for him.”
Brad Pitt in Troy.
(Warner Brothers/Everett Collection)Another noted, “Both films have very different purposes, but when it comes to fight scenes, Troy did it all much better. By now we all know that Nolan is not very good at filming fight scenes, it never was his focus anyway. He compensates by doubling down on the ‘intensity’ (heavy music, heavy sound design, IMAX cameras making it hyper real) but that’s a trick.”
The Iliad is Homer’s story of the Trojan War, from which Odysseus is returning in The Odyssey. Unlike The Odyssey, which weaves in mythical creatures like the Cyclops and the gods of Olympus, Troy tells a grounded version of the tale, focusing instead on the mortal battles between the Achaeans of Greece and the Trojans.
Like The Odyssey, which stars Matt Damon as Odysseus, Zendaya as Athena, Tom Holland as Telemachus, Anne Hathaway as Penelope, Robert Pattinson as Antinous, and Lupita Nyong’o as Helen, Troy also boasts a cast of A-listers. That includes Brad Pitt as Achilles, Eric Bana as Hector, Orlando Bloom as Paris, Diane Kruger as Helen, and Brian Cox as Agamemnon. Game of Thrones alum Sean Bean plays Odysseus, who has a smaller role in the movie than the character does in Nolan’s The Odyssey.
Though Petersen ultimately directed Troy, Nolan was actually initially hired by Warner Bros. to lead the project, he said in a 2025 interview with Empire, according to World of Reel.
Brad Pitt in Troy.
“Wolfgang [Petersen] had developed it, and so when the studio decided not to proceed with his superhero movie [Batman Vs Superman], he wanted it back,” Nolan said. “At the end of the day, it was a world that I was very interested to explore. So it’s been at the back of my mind for a very long time. Certain images, particularly. How I wanted to handle the Trojan horse, things like that.”
Ironically, instead of Troy, Nolan would go on to helm a superhero project: 2005’s Batman Begins, the beginning of one of the most successful and critically acclaimed Batman franchises of all time.
But, much like Odysseus returning home to Ithaca, Nolan’s The Odyssey was the completion of a journey two decades in the making.
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