Tomorrow, we will know the full scale of reactions and the full review scores for “The Odyssey,” and whether they validate the initial social reactions and Oscar predictions. But even if those turn out somewhat misleading, there’s still a solid chance that with enough box office and raves about its gigantic IMAX-powered scale, “The Odyssey” will be deemed a safe Best Picture nominee if not a win-competitive one. And in that scenario, Christopher Nolan will have already bumped up his place in history.
If “The Odyssey” is the third out of his last four films to get a Best Picture nomination, and his fourth overall, it will put him in even more rarified air in this era. Of course, actually winning Best Picture and/or Best Director for the second time would put him amongst the most rarified air in Hollywood history, but perhaps it’s best to take it one step at a time.
The expanded era of Best Picture nominations has had deep ties to Nolan from the beginning, since the controversial snubbing of “The Dark Knight” from 2008’s Best Picture field of five is often credited, whether there’s truth in it or not, as the reason the Academy expanded beyond five slots the very next year and beyond. In the 17 years since that expansion, only a select class of directors have kept making Best Picture nominees over and over, including Nolan himself – but getting another one in “The Odyssey” would bump him up near the very top of the list.
Since 2009, the directors with the most Best Picture nominations in the expanded era are Steven Spielberg, with six so far and hopes for “Disclosure Day” to be the seventh, and Martin Scorsese, with four of his own. Behind them, Nolan is one of 10 directors who have made three nominated films in that period, including Denis Villeneuve, Quentin Tarantino, Greta Gerwig, Yorgos Lanthimos, Paul Thomas Anderson, Guillermo del Toro, Adam McKay, Alexander Payne, and David O. Russell.
But if “The Odyssey” does the bare minimum of getting nominated, Nolan will escape that log jam and jump into the class of Spielberg and Scorsese in this era. Ironically enough, Villeneuve could join him up there soon enough as well, if rival 2026 blockbuster “Dune: Part Three” matches “The Odyssey” in raves, spectacle, and box office this winter. Yet since Villeneuve would then have nominations for three “Dune” movies, with only “Arrival” as a nominee outside that franchise, Nolan and his four nominations for four separate stories would likely be held in higher regard. Unless “Dune: Part Three” is deemed Villeneuve’s “Oppenheimer” and finally gets him all the way.
Spielberg and Scorsese still have some asterisks to all their post-2009 nominations, too, since, unlike Nolan, none of their nominees won Best Picture or got them Best Director. Though, since Spielberg and Scorsese already won those Oscars in the pre-expanded ballot era, and had their own overdue coronation years well before Nolan’s, circumstances were already different for them. No matter what they have made and what they have gotten nominated for since, they’ve already found out that once a director has made a Best Picture winner, the Academy rarely wants to give them a second – and now it is Nolan’s turn to test that theory.
“The Odyssey” is the No. 1 film on most preseason Best Picture charts, including Next Best Picture’s, and may not budge anytime soon if those first social media reactions and box office predictions are validated. On the off chance it really does stay competitive for the long haul, “The Odyssey” would flirt with not only making Nolan the only two-time Best Picture winning director of the expanded era, but the first to ever do it since Clint Eastwood for 1992’s “Unforgiven” and 2004’s “Million Dollar Baby.” Beyond that, only the likes of Milos Forman, David Lean, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Wise, Vincente Minnelli, William Wyler, Elia Kazan, Frank Capra, and Frank Lloyd have ever done it twice in Oscar history.
If another Best Picture winds up out of reach for Nolan, Best Director could still be another matter, given that Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu already set the standard in this era and in most others by winning back-to-back for “Birdman” and “The Revenant” in 2014 and 2015. Then again, Iñárritu himself has designs on blocking Nolan this year for a third Best Director Oscar and a second Best Picture win of his own, assuming that “Digger” isn’t just a Tom Cruise coronation.
If Nolan only gets nominated for Best Director this time, that alone would still bump him up to another level. It would mark his third Best Director nomination in the expanded era after “Dunkirk” and “Oppenheimer,” which would tie him for second most in that period with Spielberg, Russell, and Paul Thomas Anderson, and only trail Scorsese’s four. However, Nolan would join Anderson as the only one in that group who has won Best Picture and Best Director since 2009, whether or not he wins either a second time, unless Iñárritu and his wins also join in with a third Best Director nomination for “Digger” too.
Nolan also has an edge since he writes his own movies too, and a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination for “The Odyssey” would be his third for writing in this era after “Inception” and “Oppenheimer.” Scorsese has had no such nominations since 2009, while Spielberg has only one for “The Fabelmans.” Iñárritu has the one where he won for co-writing “Birdman.” Russell has two, and Anderson has three nominations and one win for “One Battle After Another.” But while Anderson swept Best Adapted Screenplay last year, it is hard to imagine Nolan matching that even if “The Odyssey” is a juggernaut, especially since Best Adapted Screenplay was the only Oscar he personally lost for “Oppenheimer” in 2023.
Nonetheless, history would be made for Nolan just by the nomination, much like another nomination for Best Director and Best Picture. There are several points to support any argument that Nolan has defined the last 18 years, if not this entire century, more than any other director. Yet racking up nominations for “The Odyssey” that would separate him from almost every other director of this time might become the most solid point yet, to say nothing of whether he wins any of them again.
The very bare minimum “The Odyssey” can do this week is keep Nolan and the movie safe as projected nominees, regardless of whether they stay frontrunners. Do that for the next few weeks and next several months after that, and Nolan will already be assured of moving another rung up in history this season, even if no repeat wins come as a bonus and additional tiebreaker.
The expanded ballot has had Nolan’s shadow and influence on it since the very beginning, so it only makes sense for him to be vaulted up among its most honored beneficiaries. “Oppenheimer” got him up one level with its wins, yet all “The Odyssey” has to do is cement itself as a nominee to get him into the very top level – though winning again might put him above even that.
Are you excited to see “The Odyssey?” When are you seeing it? Which Oscar nominations do you think it will receive? Please let us know in the comments section below and on Next Best Picture’s X account.
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