Odyssey Historian Doubles-Down on Nolan Film Criticism & Slams His Understanding of the Trojan Horse

August 5, 2026, 4:37pm

Christopher Nolan has been thinking about the Trojan Horse for a long time. Years before he adapted Homer’s The Odyssey, Nolan was attached to direct Troy, and he has since revealed that one image from that unrealized project never left him. The towering wooden Horse, and the way he envisioned presenting it on screen, stayed with him for years until he finally had the opportunity to bring it to life in The Odyssey. The result has become one of the film’s most talked-about sequences, with audiences embracing Nolan’s monumental depiction of Odysseus’ greatest act of strategy and deception. But while fans have celebrated seeing one of mythology’s most iconic moments realized on an IMAX scale, not everyone believes Nolan captured what the Trojan Horse is really meant to symbolize. One of the very scholars whose work inspired the film is now arguing he got one of Greek mythology’s defining images fundamentally wrong.

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Emily Wilson, the acclaimed translator whose English edition of Homer’s The Odyssey Nolan cited as an inspiration, first made headlines last week with a blistering review that called the film’s writing “abysmal” and argued it lacked the emotional, political, and ethical depth of the original epic. Her latest criticism builds directly on that earlier takedown. Wilson has now published a second essay in The Atlantic, this time focusing specifically on Nolan’s depiction of the Trojan Horse and the moral framework surrounding it. She argues the film does not spend enough time establishing the decade-long siege of Troy, leaving audiences without the context she believes is essential.

“The film does not explain what ‘hospitality’ has to do with a narrative situation in which the Greeks have been besieging Troy for 10 years already,” Wilson writes, adding that the Trojans “are not their hosts but their enemies in war.” She also questions the film’s emphasis on the Horse as the story’s defining motif, writing, “If the war is bad, it is nonsensical to suggest that the most important turning point is the use of the horse rather than Agamemnon’s choice to invade Troy in the first place and Odysseus’s choice to yield to the empire’s demands.”

Wilson and Nolan Are Reading Homer Differently

Wilson’s latest essay builds directly on the criticism she raised in her original review, where she argued Nolan’s adaptation lacked the emotional, political, and ethical depth that makes Homer’s poem endure. Her broader body of work consistently emphasizes the humanity, ambiguity, and moral consequences surrounding the Trojan War, and her latest essay continues that interpretation by arguing the Horse should be understood less as a triumph of military brilliance than as the culmination of a devastating conflict whose victims are too often overlooked.

That perspective, however, also reflects a different storytelling priority than the one Nolan appears to have embraced. Wilson’s argument depends heavily on the larger context of the Trojan War, including Agamemnon’s decision to invade Troy and the decade-long siege that preceded the deception. Nolan, however, wasn’t adapting The Iliad; he was adapting The Odyssey. In Homer’s epic, the Trojan Horse primarily exists as part of Odysseus’ legend, establishing the reputation for intelligence, ingenuity, and deception that follows him throughout his long journey home. Many modern interpretations and retellings likewise frame the Horse as the defining example of Odysseus’ strategic brilliance while still acknowledging the horrific consequences that followed. Nolan’s interpretation falls comfortably within that tradition, making Wilson’s latest essay less a correction than a competing interpretation of what Homer’s epic should emphasize.

A 3,000-Year-Old Debate Isn’t Ending Anytime Soon

Whether audiences ultimately agree with Wilson or Nolan has almost become secondary to the larger conversation. Few blockbuster adaptations inspire sustained public criticism from the very scholar whose work helped inspire the filmmaker, and fewer still send readers back to a poem written nearly 3,000 years ago to compare competing interpretations. Wilson herself acknowledged as much in her original review, praising Nolan for encouraging audiences to return to Homer and noting that translations of The Odyssey, including her own, have seen renewed interest since the film’s release.

That’s ultimately what makes this debate so fascinating. Homer wrote the original epic nearly three millennia ago, but every generation has found something different within it. Wilson has shared her vision through her celebrated modern translations of The Odyssey. Nolan has now shared his through one of the biggest films of the decade. Neither replaces Homer. Instead, they demonstrate why the poem continues to inspire new translations, new adaptations, and new disagreements thousands of years after it was first composed. Now if only someone could find an actual ancient Greek military genius clever enough to bring this latest war of words to an end.