Before the cast and crew of The Odyssey started filming, director Christopher Nolan screened three films to watch in preparation.

Nolan has long put on screenings of films ahead of shooting movies, and his adaptation of the Homer poem was no different – he told The Independent that he looked at certain films for “textures that might inspire us”, stating: “Usually, those influences are pretty indirect.”

For the filmmaker, good sources of inspiration included Andrei Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev (1966), Akira Kurosawa’s feudal epic Ran (1985) and Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1988). He called Ran “such an incredible film,” hailing its use of “landscape and wind, in particular”.

open image in gallery

“We watched the film and thought, ‘Yeah, the banners flapping in the wind and everything – that’s an important part of what we’re doing.’”

Nolan said The Last Temptation of Christ was required viewing forThe Odyssey as it is “a fresh and accessible window into history”.

“We look at a lot of films, really …