An Odyssey in the making: A look at the epic poem and the new movie

Homer’s Odyssey, a 12,000-line, nearly 3,000-year-old epic poem, is one of the foundational texts of Western literature. (It’s also one of the oldest surviving sequels!) It has inspired a list of movies as varied as Stanley Kubrick‘s 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Coen brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. But there haven’t been very many straight screen adaptations of its full story. Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is just the second full-length feature film adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey ever made. It is 173 minutes long. It reportedly cost $250 million to make. And it is currently the No. 1 movie in the world, having grossed $666.7 million in just 12 days in theaters. This hour, rock star classicist and translator Emily Wilson joins us to talk Homer, Nolan, and everything in between. Plus: We impanel a full Nose to parse and dissect the movie as only the Nose can. GUESTS: James Hanley: Co-founder of Cinestudio at Trinity College Shawn Murray: A stand-up comedian, writer, and the host of the Fantasy Filmball podcast Irene Papoulis: Taught writing for a long time at Trinity College Emily Wilson: A classicist who has published verse translations of Homer, Seneca, Sophocles, and Euripides; her new book, Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea: Journeys Through Ancient Literature, is out in September, 2026, in the United States Bill Yousman: Professor of media studies at Sacred Heart University Music featured (in order): Disco Ulysses – Vulfpeck Tales of Brave Ulysses – Cream Take the Long Way Home – Supertramp Zeus’s Law – Ludwig Göransson Ithaca – Ludwig Göransson When I’m Home – James Blake, Travis Scott, Ludwig Göransson Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.