Historian Tom Holland praises Nolan’s Odyssey amid online backlash

Tom Holland, the U.K.-based historian with more than 372,000 followers on X, posted that Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is an “amazing film” and said missing it because it is seen as “woke” is a mistake. Holland, who built his public profile on books and broadcasts about the ancient world, including the Graeco-Persian wars and Roman history, said he has now watched the movie twice and considers it the best cinematic adaptation of a Greek myth he has seen.

The intervention landed in the middle of a fierce online fight over the film’s casting, especially Lupita Nyong’o’s roles as Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra. Critics on the right have attacked the production over casting choices and what they call historical inaccuracies, with Elliot Page among the other names pulled into the dispute. Elon Musk has repeatedly joined in, and in May 2026 he drew backlash after publicly endorsing a racially charged post aimed at Nyong’o’s casting.

Nolan’s film, his first since Oppenheimer, premiered in London on July 6 and will open in cinemas on July 17. Matt Damon stars as Odysseus, while the cast also includes Tom Holland, the actor, as Telemachus, along with Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson and Zendaya. The rivalry over the film has moved well beyond ordinary fan debate, turning a major studio release into a test of how much influence online personalities can exert over the public reading of a classic text.

The commercial demand has been as intense as the argument. IMAX 70mm tickets went on sale a year early in July 2025 and sold out almost immediately, with resale listings rising to more than $200. When wider ticket sales opened in June 2026, some ticketing sites crashed under the rush, reinforcing the scale of anticipation around a story that has already become one of the year’s most closely watched cultural flashpoints.