House of R - 'The Odyssey' Mailbag and Nolan Movie Rankings

Episode Date: August 6, 2026

Mal and Jo answer all of your questions about 'The Odyssey'! They discuss everything from Emily Wilson's criticisms of the movie to what Nolan-verse regulars should have been cast! Later, they each give their current rankings of Nolan's filmography.(00:00:00) Intro(00:02:26) The Odyssey Inspired Mailbag(00:59:26) The Official Nolan RankingsHosts: Joanna Robinson and Mallory RubinProducers: Carlos Chiriboga and Scott LeeStudio Production: Jacob CornettSocial: Jomi AdeniranAdditional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, welcome to House of our. I'm Joanna Robinson. Joining me today, it's the beautiful, voluminous Mallory Rubin. Hello, Mallory, how you doing? Hello, my darling. I am delighted to be back on the open waters, talking Nolan, talking Odyssey. I was told that the entire pod would be about Argos, and it seems that's not the case, and so I'll process that on my own. Honestly, you can make it about Argos if you want to. I think you can do whatever you want to do. We are here to do Odyssey Mailbag questions and our complete Nolan ranking right after this. Your summer travels deserve an upgrade.

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The season melted away. Wild. By the time you listen to this, this is the last episode we're going to do before our Talk to Thrones finale that will come right after. The finale,

we have hopefully a special episode that will sort of be nestled in between there. We don't like to announce it until it is done. And then the Deep Dive. That's right. The Last House of the Dragon Deep dive,

sad. It is sad. Very sad. If you are in Los Angeles or in the surrounding area, we are doing a screening of Labyrinth as part of American Cinema Tech's friend of the

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Do it. Subscribe to the pod. We like all of those things from you all. And then, spoiler today is for The Odyssey. Yeah. All of Greek mythology. Any Nolan movie ever? Yeah.

That's the vibe. We're just going to answer some of the questions that you all sent in to hobbits and dragons at gmail.com. Yes. And then in a very timely faction, do our Nolan rankings. That is the plan today. That's right. All right. We're going to start with the subject matter that we got the most emails about, understandably so. And this is about Emily Wilson, who is one of the translators of the Odyssey, whose translation we referenced a lot in our episode, who wrote an article in the London Review of books critiquing the film.

Yes. in some senses quite sensibly and in other senses a little scathingly. And it has become a bit of sort of an online uproar. So I'm just going to hit you with a couple choice quotations. But there are other quotations to visit, I think, from her piece. No question. But she says, unlike some of other, some of Nolan's other films, The Odyssey is not boring, thanks to the source material, which is impossible to mess up entirely.

Incredibly rude. Then she says, it lacks psychological, emotional, political, and ethical depth. Its narrative structure is gimmicky. The writing is abysmal. None of the characters has convincing motivations for their actions or words. There are no sex scenes, which we talked about. And we agree, honestly. I agree anyway.

And all the food looks horrible. That's not something I had noticed, but something to think about next time I watch it. Mallory Rubin, what are your initial reactions to this? What do you want to say about this? Boy, I... This is so weird to me. Is it? Yeah.

I think, like, I find the robust discussion and debate about the rendering of the text on screen, interesting. And I think what better time when everybody is talking about this film and this adaptation to talk about the soul and heft of the text and how to render it. That part makes sense to me. I also, to be clear, do not think, and I think that this reaction to Emily Wilson's piece, feels like an overcorrection. I don't think that Emily Wilson needs to be like fawning and worshipping at Chris Nolan's feet because this movie brought a lot of new attention to and purchases of her translation. Just because that is happening.

She doesn't owe him anything. Yeah, exactly. So I don't think that that, like the, I think there is a little bit of a response to this, like, how dare you, like, not be more grateful, which I don't think is appropriate. That's not, that's not. The vibe to me. I do think that there is a difference, a couple things. One, I think that there is a difference between, we've talked about this over the years and other contexts,

between critiquing the work, which is valid, especially for an academic, a classicist, somebody who has been spending a lifetime and a career assessing and parsing this text, to look at the way that it was rendered on screen and say, did this do this do? thing that I think is most appropriate with the story is I think completely valid. I think the tone of the London Review of Books essay

tipped into out of the realm of critiquing the thing into the realm of critiquing anybody who thinks it's interesting or smart or has something to say, which I feel is a slight a slightly unfortunate place to be.

I also just think personally some of the critiques seem like very off. Obviously, it lost me at invoking Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones like it's a bad thing. In looks, this odyssey is often reminiscent of other 21st century screen epics, not least Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings. The visit to the land of the dead

reminded me of the excursions beyond the wall in Game of Thrones. At the end of the film, a character sets out to sail beyond the sunset, and I almost expected everyone to break into Elvish. Is that supposed to be bad? I mean, the Tolkien Estate hates the Lord of the Rings movies. They think they're schlocky blockbusters.

You know what I mean? Again, I think there's nothing wrong with critiquing the thing. There was something tonally about this that just felt a little bit like shocking to me and sort of like a if you like this, you're a dumb dumb, which is a bummer. But mostly the thing that I'm interested in and that surprises me is that we talked about this actually quite a bit on our Odyssey pod. But I would posit that while translation and adaptation are different arts and different acts with different intention, they are both at some level intending to interpret the text and intending to render the text any moment of time through a certain context for a certain audience. So I was a little bit like, where is the room for just that this is what adaptation is inherently as an act? And that was surprising to me. she has said literally that both in this essay.

And she did a wonderful, had a wonderful conversation with Derek Thompson on Play English that came out on the 22nd of July. So, you know, well after our pod, but, you know, in advance of, I believe in advance of publication of this. And they're talking about, she and Derek were talking about. So here's my big picture thing. Yeah. I actually feel kind of defensive of her around this because I, uh, a. Oppenheimer critiquer felt how, like, lonely and shitty it can feel to have a contrary take to a big popular Nolan movie. Sure.

And Emily Wilson, you know, specifically has weathered for years, sort of the worst that the Internet has to offer. Yeah. And it's interesting because if you listen to or watch the conversations she had with Derek about the film, it's the tone is different from this London review of books. And so I don't really want to psychoanalyze as someone that I don't know, but I have to almost wonder if she felt, and I've felt this way before, sort of backed into a corner with a gentle slightly contrary take into like an even more contrary take. Do you know what I mean? Like that's an understandable human response that I can see. I don't agree with it. I don't agree with her assessment here. But I feel kind of protective of her right to, you know, say these things. I know you're not saying that. But so it was funny, in the Derek Thompson conversation on plain English, they're talking about Alexander Pope's translation of Homer. And she says, he's reading lines and she's just like laughing and she's delighted. And she's like, what does that have to do with Homer?

He made most of that up. It's wonderful. So much of the content is Pope's own idea of the Odyssey and what's it about inside the norms of his own culture. So she's talking about like adaptation and how much Pope added to the, Alexander Pope added to the Odyssey that had to do with like the time that's he was writing in, which is so much of what we've talked about Nolan adding to his version of the Odyssey. And then in this London review of books piece, she says, adaptations need and shouldn't follow the original with anything like exactitude of a translation. Some of the best radically transform or resist the source material, providing what Harold Bloom called, quote, strong misreadings

of their ancestors, the most memorable creative response to the Odyssey, such as Euripides Helen, Virgil's Aeneid, Milton's Paradise Lost, Joyce's Ulysses, Walthc, Eulisies, Walcott's Omerus, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. She mentions Madeline Miller, Searcy. Reconsider the poems that structure, narrative, and values. So, like, she's not opposed to that. And then she also said on plain English, it was a big of seeing the Nolan movie. She said it's a big spectacle, fun time at the movies.

My teenagers loved it, and it was fun to go with my teenagers. Yeah, I would say that's 0.4% of the commentary and the written essay compared to the other stuff. Well, actually, I mean, I actually don't think her, I think her. the snitist quotes are what are being pulled and resirculated. I think there is a more considered and balanced take, but some of her very sharp words when she says abysmal and stuff like that. Like there's no mistake in that as sort of balanced and considered that she's sniping there. And, you know, and I don't know why she is because elsewhere she hasn't. I don't know if she just like woke up that day, just feeling spicy or whatever. And again, it's just sort of like,

Sean was asking me about this when we were at Spider-Man. He's like, what do you think of this. And I was like, I don't agree with it. I will defend her right to the death to say it. She can say whatever she wants, you know? Yeah. I think there was just, again, something almost like surprising about the level of heat in it. You know, I think like a line, this is to me emblematic of what's interesting about different interpretations of the text or interpretations of the text. Like, we are not, this quote from the London Review of Books essay, we are not shown that war or killing are bad, only that good men sometimes feel bad about it, a very different point. That's really interesting because that is specifically assessing a portion of

and an intention of the film that we and I think many viewers really responded to strongly, right? It's almost like Nolan's core thesis is to say what level of culpability and guilt and shame do you carry with you for a choice that you make? And that is going to be the center of the frame, right, and what we assess. Because the idea of being able to identify a carry with you, learn from and consider your mistakes and misgivings was Nolan's core text, right? So I think Emily Wilson's saying that's either not the cortex as I see it or in only focusing on Odysseus's guilt and not as much the harm inflicted upon the people who suffered, you're diluting maybe the potency of that argument.

I think that's completely... Which was a critique of Oppenheimer. Completely valid. I would be ashamed to have written any part of this script. It's just like there's a diminishment in that that I think makes the other, again, completely valid critiques of the film from somebody who has spent so much time considering it in full. I think just, like, it makes it harder for other people to basically even sit with them because it's like, boy, there's so much spicy. I'm not defending, I'm not defending the language there. What I think is interesting is like there is, this article crashed the London Review of Books website because so many people were reading it.

Yes. Because she used sharp language that permeate. I don't think if she had written a very, and I'm not defending, this is like clickbait sensationalist, whatever. Like I'm not saying that she's doing that. But I'm saying like I think way more people read this, read this than if she had done the very measured critique. And I'm not saying that's why she did it. And I'm not saying she should have. but I think it's interesting that it is just like introduced what I think is an interesting conversation.

There are a lot of classicists who have taken exception with this interpretation of Odysseus. You know, in talking to Derek Thompson, something that she was talking about a lot was like the idea of the anti-hero. Like the flattening of Odysseus inside of this or sort of, she's like, he's like Jason Bourne with PTSD. He's just an action hero who feels bad about being an action hero. I don't think that's wholly inaccurate. I think in terms of presenting us with a more complicated to use that sort of very famous line from her translation version of this character,

I think Oppenheimer is a more successfully complicated figure than Odysseus is inside of this telling of Odysseus. And something she, you know, she and Derek both were talking about Matt Damon's performance as Ripley and what a complicated, like, character that was. But what I would say is that Ripley's not a hero inside of that movie.

And she also cited, she and Derek both cited the era of the anti-heroes in television, the sopranos, Breaking Bad, etc., etc., Mad Men. That's a archetype that's much more successful inside of television storytelling where you have a lot more time to spend with that character

than three hours to deliver this. So, like, I agree with a lot of the classicists who say this is sort of like a flattening of Odysseus, but I loved this movie. Yeah. And I love what it's done to not, I mean, not boost Emily Wilson's sales, but just sort of like increase desire to read The Odyssey. This is a section from an SFGate article that my sister sent me. She said the San Francisco Public Library at the time of the publication of this article had a wait list of 758 people for the ebook of the Odyssey, of which it has 124 copies, plus 232 people who put a hold on the 87 physical copies of the book.

And so just sort of like the massive, the way in which this is, operates as sort of a welcome to people to come explore the more nuanced, longer form version of the Odyssey. Here's a palat. And this is what Nolan has always done. Here is a palatal popcorn friendly version of this story. Yeah. Come into this world. If you saw Memento and you thought Memento is great, there's a whole world of noir waiting for you that you can enjoy. But you're hitting on the thing that rubbed me the wrong way about this.

I think that the movie does that and this response shuts the door on that. It's like you are not invited or welcome to engage with this in this way, only in this way. And I think she does it in that article and I don't think she's done it elsewhere. So I just feel like this day she wrote up and she woke up and she chose violence and other days she hasn't. You know what I mean? Which I think is interesting. Maybe so. Yeah.

I mean, again, I think the debate around the interpretation is not. completely valid and appropriate, but quite interesting. So it's really about the degree and the calibration of the spice. And they're like, I think, and then we can move on after this. But an emblematic line to me, this is actually like I did have to chuckle reading this. As they say at the awards show, I was humbled to learn that Nolan has read at least the first line of my translation of The Odyssey, meaning the complicated man line. At least the first line of my translation is like such a dumb.

No, it's really funny. And like, the last thing I want to say is like, I think there's... Complicated and then I made a movie. That was where I stopped. Well, I think there's been a misconception that Noel, that her translation is the primary source for this movie. And if I, you know, helped that misinterpretation by how much I talked about her translation on our episode, I apologize.

But, like, though he has cited her translation, he has also cited Fitzgerald and Fagel's and Cope and all these other ones. And he has never said that, like, you know, He has spoken of her translation with, like, respect, but he has never, which she didn't offer him, but, but he has never said, I base this, you know. If he had done so, he would have had to pay her, which he did not do. And so, like, you know, he's sort of, like, drawing from all these other versions. Also, he, like, cited, like, a filmed version he saw when he was younger and all these other things like that. So it's just sort of, like, the archetype of the Odyssey.

And this is why Greek myths are so interesting. Yeah, exactly. The adaptationsations of Greek myths are so interesting and mutable and I think should reflect the time. There's this great interview that a lot of people have sent to me and tagged me in with Zongshu, who is a political philosophy lecturer, doctoral student in Beijing. She interviewed Nolan for about 20 minutes. One of the best interviews I've ever seen about the Odyssey, ever seen in the last couple weeks about the Odyssey. But she was talking to him about how Homer wrote the Odyssey in a time of great flourishing for Greek culture

and that Nolan is making the Odyssey in this time of like crumble and decline and what he views is crumble and decline of Western civilization. So like, you know, and she also talked about, you mentioned this idea of atonement. She also talked about how like atonement is not an idea that really exists in Greek myth and writing. and that is like, she's like, it's like a Christian lens. And he sort of pushed back on that.

But anyway, the point is she's like, here are the lenses through which you've written this story. And she is like slightly pushing him on it. But also like, I think all of us or a lot of us are just sort of like, that's what I like about this. Yeah. What we loved about the Odyssey, his not Odyssey, is that he had something to say about a story that a lot of us were already very familiar with. Yeah, I think that was part of what was so interesting, not only about the film, but receiving the film as an audience who has watched Nolan movies for two decades at this point and is watching this specific movie in 2026.

So I think to put a bow on my feeling about this, a classicist, one of the preeminent experts, not only now but ever, on this text and this aspect of the Greek tradition and Greek myth, interrogating the validity of A interpretation is the proposition. That's like the job, right? And so, you know, to, and even if you, again, if you read Wilson's translation and the intro, there are a lot of interesting things about like specifically over time how scholars have evolved their thinking about one specific element, et cetera, et cetera, right? So that's like the part of the point of this. I think that the inherent in that, though, is also the idea that the, and let's like be clear, I'm not a classicist or a,

yet, Odyssey scholar. The idea of this oral tradition, we talked about this in the deep dive, like how many people really formed the concept and construct and identity that we consider Homer, the fact that all of the translations over time have a different,

not only specificity and presentation, but maybe that certain themes or elements are heightened or flattened, certain characters are even going to be present or not. That's like part, that's what makes it interesting to me, actually. So I think that there are, the idea that there is a way to challenge, critique, interrogate, while also making room for kind of the core pursuit.

That would, that would be a balance that I would hope we could all collect. I would agree. I would agree. That would be preferable. I think the idea of this being an ambassador for a story, a welcoming introduction for people to examine the story, as you said. I guess, I guess I just always think it's kind of funny. when people get this salty. Like, it's funny for me when Christopher Tolkien calls Peter Jackson's Lord of the Onion Rings.

Like, I just think that's funny. And I don't think, like, I understand if people feel like, hey, man, don't, like, don't make me feel embarrassed or like I'm not intellectual or like. Yeah. I feel so confident in our intellectual reading of this. And also, like, listening to Emily Wilson talking to Derek Thompson about this, she not like got things wrong, but she interpreted things just wildly differently from me. Like she was talking about how she thought... About the film. Yeah.

Yeah. She was talking about how she thought, you know, the masking of the Trojans meant like the film was an interest... Everyone was a puppet except for Odysseus. Whereas you and I had thought had a really fruitful and long conversation about the way in which the film chooses when to reveal the humanity and the identity of those characters. You know what I mean? So she was just sort of like, that's a negative. And I'm like, oh, I actually think that's a positive. And, you know, and I think that's fine.

And I don't like... I don't know. Anyway, we can just stop talking about this. I think it's fascinating. I think it's interesting. I love that we got so many questions about it. Yeah, it is. I love that people are talking about it. And that's that. Okay. Our listener Donovan wrote in asking on the sirens front, what artist or music, other than the vampire was that could get us to claw the wax out of our ears in order to listen, insist on listening. Lash me to the mast. I must hear this song. Who would be that for you? And then you could disqual the wax. I would be that for you. And then you could describe it in beautiful prose. And then there would be an essay about how the scripting of that prose was abysmal. Abysmal. And then we could respond to questions about it.

Okay, so I guess there are two ways to think about this. There's, like, which artist would I most be interested in hearing capture the spirit of that beautiful passage that we love so much in the movie, right? What you most want is what you most can't have. And what you most can't have is what you already had and lost that told me I didn't want to go. home idea. So for me, obviously and unsurprisingly, the artist who I would most want to hear capture that sentiment and presented to me is Bob Dylan my goat. But, but, but, that would be heard to guess. Because I feel like the Dylan Siren song would basically be a mashup of, if you see her say hello in Mississippi, two of my favorite songs of all time. So I would really be interested in

that. Yeah. However, I have seen Bob Dylan live in concert multiple times. And so if part of the question was. What if it's like younger, like more prime Bob Dylan? The freewheeling brought Bob Dylan, like we're pre-electric, we're going acoustic out on the rocks. I mean, that would be great. I would really love that. If it was like supposed to be a little bit more in an artist, I couldn't resist getting to see live for the first time and I hadn't previously, then I might have to consider CCR or maybe Simon and Garfunkel. That would be great. Like the Homeward Bound remixed as a siren song, sign me up. That would be great. I also think Tom Waits from do really well on the siren song rock.

Yeah. So I'm going with Dylan, obviously, but those are my runners-up and other contenders. Since you could not pick Lestat. I wouldn't pick Lestat. Who are you picking? With love and respect to Lestat, there's a lot of people that I would rate above him.

I think it has to be, what it would have to be is, if we're passing the rocks and I look up and I see four lads from Liverpool in like, yeah, considered this as well. And it's specifically

like the 1969 rooftop Apple, let it be concert on the rocks. I'm listening. How could you not? The Beatles. How could you not?

Of course. Yeah. So that's what I would say. The Beatles knowing it's like them knowing it's their last time together. Is there any rope strong enough to keep you on the mast in that scenario though?

You can't keep me from George. You can't even try. It's not happening. All right. So that is that a question. Next on the list, Mal. Yes. From Lauren and Nicholas and maybe a few other people. Did the honesty mean more penis, peon eye? Do you agree with Amanda that the Trojan horse is missing a big penis? Do you think the Cyclops has a penis? Is it as big as the rest of him? Oh, should Nolan release the dong cut? I mean, Emily Wilson certainly thinks so. I mean. And is not wrong. We agree. Is not wrong. Like the fact. Like the fact that he was just chastely holding hands with Charlize's was pretty silly. Yeah.

This is an Achilles heel to keep it on the theme for Nolan. I think that's the thing. Should Nolan release, he's bad at it? Sex, he's bad at it. He's bad at it. He's bad at it. I don't know. Has he ever had sex in a moment?

I'm unclear. I'll write it in the London Review books. Get on it. I will. I think they've upped their bandwidth for, you know, they've got to new servers. I will crash the website to be like, sex. Has Nolan had it? unclear.

God. That's, you know, at the end of the day, should Nolan release a don cut? He doesn't have the don cut. There's no don cut of the Odyssey or any Nolan movie, lamentably. We would love the release of the don't cut. There is no don cut. I didn't really spend a lot of time thinking about the Trojan horse dung, though there's just, if we're going to really think about this.

Kind of a practical element. How many more people could you have hit it? in the dung. At least one. If it's proportional, well, think about that horse. More than one. It really looked like that only like 15 people were in there, right? How many people were in that Trojan horse? In the piss and the shit.

It's my best. You know what? It was actually really good. I didn't say what a good, sarcastically say what a good impression? Because that was actually a pretty good one. I was impressed. So yeah, I think there would have just been a practical element to putting the dung on the Trojan horse. But obviously this is, this is about polyphemous. This is about the Cyclops more than more than anything. Or though, again, if you just want the don't cut of Odysseus story, once again,

I refer you to the return where Ray finds, have I mentioned this on every Odyssey discussion? Will I continue to on every future Odyssey discussion? Shows his dick and is in very little clothing for the entire film. He still looks fucking great. He's shredded. He's doing just amazing things as a performer as always. So check that out if you're interested. I did find, and it was, you know, because I kind of can only be me, the first glimpse in the first trailer that we got of the Cyclops.

Genuinely, I'm like, I guess I should be more embarrassed to admit this than I am, but my first thought was, we're going to see Cyclops' Tong? Like, immediately. And of course we didn't. Carefully plays Langla. And I think that that's a shame and pretty silly,

because Polyphemus is living in a cave with a bunch of sheep making cheese and tending his flock. And I think that at some point, Odysseus and all of his men who are on the ground looking up at this hulking figure would see some dick and bowls. You know, I think they would. I think they might have some commentary on overall like hygiene for the Cyclops in this cave. You know, though obviously the open seas are right there for a little dip. Yeah. Which he avails himself of at the end. So yeah, I think we should have seen Cyclops Dick. That's my formal take on the matter.

Do you have an opinion on this? I don't care too much about the Cyclops dick or the Trojan Horse stick. But I do think in vain of Emily Wilson saying, let's complicate this guy a bit. Yeah. He should have had the canonical sex that he has in the book. You know? No question. Okay.

That's you talking about penises, one of your, I guess, passions, if you prefer. I love Dix, yeah. We got a lot of emails about one of my passions, which is musicals. Great. Great. Generally, a lot of emails from people about the musical Hades Town. Yes.

Which is an adaptation of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. And there's a film version of this current. There's a pro shot that's in theaters that you can go see. Hadesown, colon, the musical exclamation point. Correct. Yes. How do you feel about that exclamation mark? Good.

Okay. Yeah, good. The musical. Good. So here's what I'll say about this. Yeah. I love Hadesown. I saw it in Bragg.

2018, the National Theater in London with the original cast. And it opened on Broadway in 2019, I believe. Okay. And so here, but here's the bind I found myself in. So the original Broadway cast, which is who is in the pro shot that's currently in theaters. And here's the thing about pro shots of Broadway musicals. I love that they exist. Yeah.

You know, the Hamilton one, etc. Like, release them all in the interest of democratizing the theater. Release them all. I like the idea of releasing them several years after the, you know, I do not want them to eat into the tickets that one can sell to keep the live theater alive. But I do think that eventually everyone should be able to see these shows. That is, like, very important to me. Yeah. So, yeah.

I love that this exists. in 2018, I saw the show in London. The Broadway cast recording didn't exist yet because they had not yet gone to Broadway. There are several recordings of Hadesown because it was originally a concept album that Anice Mitchell did with Bonne Verre. And then there was like this workshop version that they did that was released as a cast recording in 2017. So we come back from London, obsessed with this show. Yeah. There is no Broadway cast recording.

So I listened to the 2017 sort of like, this was their off-Broadway, give us money sort of cast recording that they did. Okay. The lyrics are different. Okay. And that's the version that I sort of imprinted on. And Epic 3, which is this big song that Orpheus sings to convince Hades to let him take Eurida see home with him. Yeah. This big sort of like Orpheus is the songwriter of all songwriters, the storytellers of all storytellers.

She dramatically changed that. And actually, I will say, and Emily Will say. in style, abysmal. Dumbed it down. Abysmal. You'd be ashamed to have written it. I'm going to, and the food didn't look good. I need to rewatch the food.

It looked disgusting. I have a question. Okay. I'm going to read you the lyrics. Please. Of Epic 3 from the version that I imprinted on. That was at the top of my Spotify wrapped for like actually several years. It's one of my most played versions.

Okay. And this is, this is, Orpheus singing about Hades falling in love with Bersephanephani, right? Heavy and hard is the heart of the king, king of iron, king of steel. The heart of the king loves everything like the hammer loves the nail. But the heart of a man is a simple one, small and soft, flesh and blood, and all that it loves is a woman. A woman is all that it loves. And Haiti is king of the scythe and the sword. He covers the world in the color of rust.

He scrapes the sky and scars the earth, and he comes down heavy and hard. on us. But even that hardest of hearts unhardened. That's one of the best lyrics of all time. Wow. Even that hardest of hearts unhardened, suddenly when he saw her there, Persephone in her mother's garden, the sun on her shoulders, wind in her hair, the smell of the flower she held in her hand, the pollen that fell from her fingertips, and suddenly Hades was only a man with a taste of nectar upon his lips. Like, it's just one of the most beautiful, like, lyrical, gorgeous. poetic songs ever. I'm just going to read you part of the Broadway,

the other version that she wrote that became canonical. King of Shadows, King of Shades, Hades is king of the underworld, but he fell in love with a beautiful lady who walked up above in her mother's green field. He fell in love with Persephone, who was gathering flowers in the light of the sun. And I know how it was because he was like me,

a man in love with a woman. That sucks. That's abysmal. A bismol. She'd be ashamed to write it at the field. That's like, shit. Compared to the other version. And I would also say,

Reeve Carney, who was the Hades that I saw in London, is the Hades on the pro shot. I don't think in, and you might know him from Penny Dreadful. He was in Penny Dreadful. I do not think his voice is as good as Damon Dana, who voiced him in this other recording I saw it. So I'm like sort of have these like, I love Hades Town, but I'm also kind of anti that version of it to a certain degree.

Despite Patrick Page, who plays Haiti, Andre De Shield, who plays Hermes, he's a legend, Amber Gray, Persephone, even Oblizada, who plays Euritacy, amazing. I will say, this is the last I'll say about it, if there are a pro-shot version of Jack Wolf, who has been playing Hades recently, who is incredible,

or Donald Finn, who I love, who is in the other Bennett sister and Young Sherlock, who was amazing, or even Jordan Fisher, I would go see that. But I have been disinclined to go see the Reeve-Carty version because it's just like not, despite being the one I saw in London, not my Orcus. So that's my Hades down day. But I'm glad, I'm really glad it exists. I'm glad that people love it.

Is not my Orpheus a hashtag? Hashtag not my Orpheus. The Orpheus and Eurytesey sort of era that we found ourselves in is really interesting because like it was showing up in like portrait of a woman on fire. Rob and I talked about a lot when we talked about Severin, season two. You know, like the Orphys Ritacy had, I would say, up until

this Odyssey moment, had become sort of like the Greek story of our time. I don't know why I haven't watched this because I do love that one. Let's watch Hadesda. I will watch it with you. Great.

You want to go see a musical with me? I would love to. Absolutely. I would love to. Where are you on whether Nolan should make a musical, by the way? 100%. Obviously.

Unless he's abysmal, then he shouldn't. Would you be ashamed? I would be ashamed to have seen it. Anyway, so those are my complicated Hadesown thoughts. I'm going to check it out. But I would definitely go see it. I will say, I don't really want to see this pro shot, but I would definitely go see it with you if I could. And listen to that.

If you haven't yet, please go listen to that off-Broadway 2017 recording. It's on Spotify. So is the concept album with BoniVe-Veer, which is also amazing. The thing with Orpheus, if you think about the way that Boni-Veer sings, He has to sing in this high falsetto. And Reeve, I don't know. He's lovely. And he married his Eurydice.

Those actors fell in love. And I think they're currently playing Gatsby and Daisy on the West End and the Great Gatsby musical. So they're like sort of the Tom Holland and Zendaya Broadway. And I love their love story. And I think that's lovely. He's just hashtag delightful. Not my orpheus. Okay.

Okay. Tough but fair. From Maki. Who would have been your dream cast for The Odyssey? We're just doing this from the Nolanverse is what we decided. Yes. Yeah. If we could recap, we agree. We would not really want to touch a single hair on the head of anything inside of this movie.

We think it's, we love the Odyssey. Right, just hairs on other body parts so that we could see them. No hairs on the heads. That's you. That's your desire. And I support you in that. Show us the Cyclops tongue. You think nearly removing hair would have gotten?

No, you have to move the whole loincloth, my friend. This is the intellectual exercise we've posed for ourselves. Yeah. You have to recast three roles in the honesty. Okay. Any three roles you like with three Nolan verse, let's say regulars. Regulars. Okay.

I have. Okay. I think I'm prepared for this. Okay. What do you have? I don't, but I would like to, even though you literally just said it, repeat out of an abundance of caution, the caveat that this does not mean we believe these roles should have been recast. But I think there's a real contender for one of them that I'm like, I'm not saying

that Damon shouldn't have been Odysseus, but I am. I do think Christian Bale would have been fucking dynamite. I say Guy Pearce. Guy Pearce is a Dicea. Interesting. I mean, that would be great. Yeah. That would be great. I mean, I guess I don't know. Are we using our regular as in been in Molest? Let's just say they've been in Nolan movie. Because then I can use Guy. Okay. So then that's, that's, okay. Yeah. Yeah. So that not necessarily regulars. But we know he wanted him back and very various suits wouldn't let them, as we talked about in the Memento Pod. That was a weird one. And I think, you know, Killian Murphy would have been a fantastic in some role.

A lot of his leading men would have been, like, great candidates for some role. Not for Odysseus, but some role in the movie. I mean, his whole, like, you know, a number of people would have made sense to return here. I think Bell would have been great as Odysseus. I think he obviously has a little bit less of the, we're kind of inherently, inclined to like root for him and forgive him that we bring to our relationship with Matt Damon. Though as we've talked about, as we talked about with Humann and Interstellar, for example,

that's part of like weaponizing that as part of what's fun about putting Damon in a more complicated man role. But I just think bail would have been able to capture all of the elements, the introspection, the grief, the remorse, the complicated choices. the physicality, the idea that people would want to follow him, what would kind of spring up in his absence? I mean, basically describing his Batman and his brain. I think there's more...

Ripley and, I guess, Will Hunting aside, I think there's more interiority to a bail or a Pierce performance than there usually is to a Damon performance. So, like, I liked Damon in this role. I mean, much better than I was worried he would be. but I do think a Pierce or a bail, especially in those moments of silence when you're just having to convey so much with a look. Guy Pearce on Calypso's Beach would have been. Yeah.

Think of the resplendent beard situation that would have been. But I love it. Yeah. Yeah. The beard would have been great. Yeah. Okay. So we're both opening by recasting Matt Damon. Tough one. This is what a mailbag is all about, folks. Matt McDaniels was great. Yeah. Can we stay on the beach for a minute? Stay on Calypso's Beach? Oh, you're recasting Charlize.

I am. Who are you picking? Let's bring Marion back in. Okay. What do you think about this? Because I think that it leans directly, perhaps too directly, but even more directly into the Let's Make the Inception Beach stuff, a clear comp here. And also, I think there's a little bit more of a insidious quality there with. And you, well, Emily Wilson would approve it would complicate the story a bit to make Calypso less like, sorry.

We were here for so many years, but I'm just trying to help you remember your family now. You should go home. I think a slightly more sinister. Intract. I kept you here as my sex prisoner. Yeah. And I liked it. Would have worked here.

And our girl, Marion, unlike dying like this in a seat, could have done that well. I would have done Marion. This is not one of my picks, by the way, because I think Samantha Morton is perfect. But, like, Marion Circe is interesting. I considered that but decided I simply could not even put into the universe, the idea of recasting Samantha Morton. Impossible. Michael Cain. How's he not in this movie?

As Eumaeus. Well, I don't think he's really working anymore because he's just a bit infirm at this point. Missed him. Yeah. I mean, it's been a minute since he's been, but I think Michael Cain, a little younger than he is now, Michael Cain is Emaeus. Great one. The loyal servant. Okay.

I don't actually think this. The Alfred of the movie, essentially. Would have been great. I'm not actually suggesting this, but this is more about the bit. Do it for the bit. Tom Hardy's too big of a performer to do this movie's version of Agamemnon, but Tom Hardy has a giant helmet and masked face would be, I think, a real amusing continuation of this era of Hardy in not only movies and stories period, but Nolan movies specifically where his face is obscured for reasons that kind of elude us. So I'll throw that out there. I did have one other contender after you say your third that I wanted to debate with, see what you thought.

Because I don't know how I feel about it, but I thought it was at least worth tossing into the ether as a consideration. And maybe it'll be what you say right now. Not to sound too much like Bill Simmons, but it counts because he's an interstellar. This is it. Timia's Ptolemachus. Oh, okay, great. Yeah. So the hardy one was kind of a bit, but that's actually my third one.

Timia is in Interstellar, so he definitely counts. Regular, I don't know. But let's toss the word regular out and just say Nullinverse. be great. Guy Pearce, Michael Kane, Timothy Shalome. Yeah, I'm about it. Fantastic. Christian Bale. If Bale is Odysseus and Timmy is Telemachus? Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yes. All right, we solved it. We did it. We solved it. We solved a movie we already like really, really loved. Great stuff for us. All right. J.C. asked about the format. Yeah. You and I have only seen this in IMAX.

We have not seen it in 70 millimeter. No. But we just wanted to take a moment, you know, sort of this listener was asking sort of to compare the formats or had any thoughts or opinions about it. But we just wanted to take a moment to talk about this, this like moment inside of big budget filmmaking. when we have Ryan Cougler step out on the stage at San Diego Comic Con to talk about the large scale format he's going to use for Black Panther 3 or when you have, you know, just like my memories of going to the packed IMAX metrion to see Doom Part 2 or sinners or whatever the case may be. And definitely Doom Part 3 when it comes out. I saw Oppenheimer at that theater. It was amazing.

So just sort of like this moment of like spectacle that is not just like, you know, and I say this compliment. We both love Spider-Man, but like not just this sort of Marvel kind of spectacle, but just sort of like almost Lawrence of Arabia kind of like magic of movie and scope kind of spectacle. What do you want to say about this moment? I'm of two minds on this because I think that like getting to, so again, haven't seen it in 70 millimeter IMAX, but I've seen it a couple times in IMAX and thought it was just absolutely astonishing. And in general, living in a city like L.A. where we have some opportunities at certain theaters to see, you know, a 35 millimeter print, a 70 millimeter print, IMAX, Dolby. We'll have infinity vision with us before long, folks. Joking about that last one. I mean, I'm not. That's about to happen.

But it's not real. Wild times. I think it's amazing to be able to sit there and see the movie in the grandest way possible. and to really get closer to the filmmaker's intended presentation and vision than we, like, would dare to believe that we could have. I think that's amazing. I do think that it's a bummer. That it, two things.

One, that it is just like, I think there's a little bit of a, unless you're, like, unless you're, like, really paying attention to this, it's hard to, we're at a point where sometimes you're like, I don't even know which of these I should pick, like a little bit of a paralysis of choice where you boot up your Fandango app and you look at the screenings and you're like, I see seven options for this movie. What am I supposed to do? And so that is a, feels like a little bit of a newly prevalent conundrum for filmgoers. Though again, I think having the choice is awesome. The real thing is like, it's just too hard to see the movie the way the filmmaker wants you to see it.

And that's, I think, a bummer. So for the, for the majority of people. Yeah. Like if you're in L.A. or New York or London. Sevent Francisco? San Francisco, a major city that has a really robust cinema infrastructure, you at least have the opportunity to, like, fight your fellow man for a ticket and refresh your app constantly. And maybe if you want, like, pay more on the secondhand market. But the fact that that's where we are, that people are reselling Odyssey 70 millimeter IMAX tickets on eBay. It goes back to my sort of like pro shot thing, the fact that like for some people, it's an impossibility. You know what I mean? Like to your point. Like, I feel the same way where I just think I think it's incredibly cool. I think it's really exciting. I think it sucks for people who have no access to an IMAX theater, you know, or 70-millimeter option. If we think back to last year to one battle, that was an even more extreme.

This feels more extreme because the interest is so significant and so many people want to go to a 70-millimeter IMAX screening and, like, can't. Yeah. But if we think about the, okay, there are four, during one battle, there are four, like, projectors in the world that can allow you to see this movie exactly the way the PTA wanted you to see it. It was the same percenters. It was the same percenters. That's, like, tough, right? I'm in San Francisco. There you go.

So you're thriving. Everyone else is fucked. So yeah, I don't know. I just do not personally, I really rely on, you know, you and our pals at the big pick to give me like some sort of industry insight into this. Because I don't have a good enough feel for the economics of the theater business to understand why there aren't more. I do understand at the most basic level. Didn't we have a conversation about this that they can't build more IMAX projectors? But like then they're refurbishing them.

It's like, can they literally, can they not? Is it cost prohibitive? How do they not? How can they not just like open them? Look at the innards. 3D prints and replacements. I don't understand. There's got to be a way.

But I'm not a, you know, a technician. I'm not an engineer. It just seems impossible to me that these things exist. Yes. And there's no way to replicate them. And then if it becomes a matter of less an actual genuine impossibility and more a cost prohibitive conundrum, then it's like, well, if there's enough. clear, palpable interest from the consumer, from the movie going public, to buy that ticket, to line up and go to those formats, to those screenings, then give people more opportunity to do that. So when does the supply demand tip into, like, clearly we need more screens that can show movies this way?

The thing about the large format sort of IMAX 70 millimeter situation is it, you know, it creates this fervor inside of this sort of these... hotbeds of people who talk about film, let's say. Not everyone who talks about film lives in New York and L.A. Right. And Chicago and San Francisco, et cetera, et cetera. But a lot of them do, you know, in the U.S., let's say. And so if you can create this sort of like, and that sort of like scarcity idea, you know, makes the, you have to see it. And you, if you see it opening, if you got tickets to see it opening weekend, you won something, you know. And so then it creates this like online chatter and conversation. which means that people who don't have those formats are still like, but I want to see the Odyssey opening weekend because it's this big sort of exciting prize that one can win if one goes to see it.

And so like they kind of get the benefit of it without having to build those theaters. But I think they should build those theaters everywhere. And I also think there should be bookstores everywhere. Like I think these like physical media mechas should exist everywhere and be accessible to everyone. And I think pro shots of live shows should exist so that everyone can see them. That's what I think. And Christopher Nolan should make a musical. And we should see some Cyclops Dick.

Last one at least, I will say we got an email from Christina, who said with the Odyssey and Heated rivalry, both becoming big hits this year. I have to wonder how long until Hollywood Adepts Song of Achilles into a movie. So I brought some books. Well, so because I just love talking about books. As do you. I wanted to ask before we talked about this, because I know you haven't read Song of Achilles yet, though I know you will eventually. It's on the list, but I've not read it.

I know you will. Before we get into this, I'm just curious because I don't think I know. Do you have a favorite Greek myth that either has or hasn't that you would love to see adapted? I don't know if I can pick just one. I feel like part of what I like about the Greek myths is getting so many versions of them. Like something that was so fun about finally reading Percy a few years ago is, you know, the list and total volume of Greek myth that is incorporated in some capacity into one or many of those books is like really joyful. I mean, I've always been a, you know, Prometheus head. I love Prometheus.

That's one of my favorites. And I would probably say that Orpheus is like a top three for me. So it does make not having seen Hadesown, colon, the musical exclamation point. slightly puzzling, given that that's on offer. I mean, something like Daedalus and Icarus, obviously. I really enjoy Amethesius head, you know, like the minotar. Yeah. Yeah.

So I think, you know, to your point about like with Orpheus, about how that felt like it kind of broke contain and became one of the myths of a generation. You know, obviously I feel like it's impossible to think back on our lives without seeing something like, you know, flew too close to the sun as just a common part of people's like speech and how they talk about things. So, you know, same with Prometheus and the fire. I think, like, something about the myth in general and is the way that it is incorporated into how we parse and assess human behavior, even if we're not thinking about the full story behind it. You know, something like, like, Schipathias making its way into the MCU was, like, such a thrill for us.

So whether it's, like, an active adaptation or just a point of reference or even just a way that people frame choice and consequence, you know, it's kind of inextricable, I think, from how we process culture. But yeah, I guess I would have to pick Dorpheus, probably, is number one. Probably. Not an Odyssey version. I do love Achilles, though. So it's very strange to me that I haven't read Song of Achilles, given how you and a number

of people in my life really love that book and Circe as well, which I've also not read, but I know people love. Song of Achilles and Circe, both incredible, incredible interpretations of these stories. And Song of Achilles specifically is about Achilles and Patrick who is either his cousin, his friend, his roommate, or his boyfriend, if you prefer, and sort of, you know, how Patrickliss and Achilles and their relationship impacts the war. Odysseus is a significant character in both of these stories, actually. So just to be clear, you think that this book is a better telling of that than the movie Troy? With respect to Garrett Headland, I do.

I want to, years ago, I read a couple passages from this for you on one of our Valentine's Day. Very sexy, I recall. I recall. I want to read you a couple, just a couple that are not tremendously sexy, but I just like, we've already given me that gift on another pod. To like, well, one of them is the most famous and I will read it. But okay. This is a conversation between Patrick Liss and Achilles. Name one hero who was happy, I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family. Theseus lost his bride and father. Jason's children and a new wife were murdered by his old. Belarfon killed Camera but was crippled by the fall from Pegas's back. You can't. He was sitting up now leaning forward. I can't. I know they never let you be famous and happy. He lifted an eyebrow. I'll tell you a secret. Tell me. I loved it when he was like this. I'm going to be the first. He took my palm and held it to

his. Swear it. Why me? Because you're the reason. Swear it. I swear it, I said. Lost a in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes. I swear it, he echoed. We sat like that a moment, hands touching, he grinned. I feel like I could eat the world raw. One of the things about these Greek stories that we tell over and over and over again, especially the tragedies. There's a line from Hades Town that Hermes, it's a bookend of the Hadesown musical, Hermes, who's the narrator of the story, is we're going to tell you the story of Orpheus. in your road to see. Yeah. And in the reprise, he says, don't ask why, brother, don't ask how he

could have come so close. The song was written long ago, and that is how it goes. It's a sad song. It's a sad tale. It's a tragedy. It's a sad song, but we sing it anyway. Because here's the thing. To know how it ends and still begin to sing it again, as if it might turn out this time. I learned that from a friend of mine, meaning Orpheus. So just sort of this idea of like we tell these stories over and over again, even if they're like, you know, the song of, this is a tragedy. Yeah, sure. This is a heartbreaker. The best ones are.

You know what I mean? And just sort of like, you read it and you get swept up in the sort of like, here's Achilles being like, I'm going to be the one hero who's going to be famous and happy. And we know that that's not the case. And so that sort of bittersweet quality tinges the whole thing. Here's the most famous line from Song of Achilles. I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell. I would know him blind by the way his breasts came, his feet.

struck the earth, I would know him in death at the end of the world. It's an incredible book. The rights have sort of been kicking around Hollywood for a really long time. Matthew Lopez, who made the red, white, and blue Amazon movie, which I thought was aggressively, be fine, said he really tried to make it and it didn't work out. So I like to think that Madeline Miller is, however much she's involved in any of this is being particular in sort of like how the adaptation. will go or Hollywood just hasn't figured it out yet.

But what's possible is that like seeing again the success of heated rivalry and then the excess of the Odyssey, I think we are never more primed to get a song of Achilles' miniseries miniseries or should it be a movie. If it's a miniseries, it should be like four, like it should only be, it should be short. It shouldn't be like eight or ten episodes. No. I don't think so. Yeah.

Great. Yeah. Six max. That's what I say. Who's the right streamer? Where does this belong? Like an HBO BBC Copro sort of situation.

Sign me out. Sign me up. Sign me up. Sounds great. And I just want to like come through with some Bullfinches mythology. Ovid, which of course is not Greek, but Roman. This incredible Edith Hamilton mythology

version, you know, she wrote this in 1945. This is a new edition, but it's got just like incredible illustrations. And then this is the one that I grew up on. But a lot of children are the 80s. and that he's grew up on is like literally falling apart because I read it so many times. That's actually in really good shape. That's quite intact. Really?

Okay. From the outside, from the corners and the spines, it looked well preserved. No, there are sections that are just literally falling out of it. My favorite Greek myth is actually not a Greek myth. It's a Roman myth is Cupid and Psychi. Eros and Psyche, if you prefer the Greek, but it was a Roman. But what I love about Cupid and Psyche is that how it, over time, became essentially the Beauty and the Beast myth. It comes from Cupid and Psyche.

That's a retelling. That's a French retelling of this Roman iteration of this Greek story. And so just that sort of like interpolations of stories again, again, again over time. And it's like because of Cupid and Psyche, we have Disney's Beauty and the Beast among, like, like other things. And so where would we be if we not only did not have pride and prejudice and zombies, but didn't have Bridget Jones' diary as interpretations of pride and prejudice? It's something to think about.

I'll give you one of those. I only care about Bridget Jones. And it's not the zombies one. Yeah. I've actually never read the zombies one. It's not good. Yeah. But I would consider Bridget Jones my religion.

So. Bridget Jones fantastic. Clueless. Amazing. The best. You know. I used to watch Clueless every other weekend at my dad's. when I was a kid.

We went from rescuers down under and took Clueless as we got older because we would go to my dad's every other weekend shot out of divorce. And there was always a movie in the mix. Yeah. Rescuers. Then you get a little older. BlueLis.

Probably saw Clueless. 6,000 times when I was a kid. A perfect movie, honestly. That's great. I should rewatch that. It's been a minute. It was interesting. I was like digging slightly into Cupid and Psyche.

Something I hadn't dug into is like how Eros, who is like this like the hottest man alive went from a hot young man to like a cherubic little little baby. Yeah. Winged baby. Yeah. And the answer seems to be that as like Hellenic or as Athenian culture moved further away from like valuing women, the idea that eros would be, you know, basically the servant of his mother, Aphrodite.

Right. They're like, that's a little baby move. It's not really a hot young man move to just be the servant of his mother. Well, tell the Targaryans. Absolutely. And then also Christianity got involved. So they just like, they're like, wings must be an angel. Got it.

Anyway, that is our brief little mailbag. One last thing I'll say is that our listener, Katie wrote it and just wrote, I can't believe he got on another boat literally immediately after that. And I just thought that was really funny. And I wanted to read it. You got to chase the escaping sun somehow. And there are no private jets at this. this time, nor Ubers.

What's the seafaring equivalent of an Uber? I mean, it's an island. You got to get across the water somehow. In the time of the Odyssey? Yeah, exactly. I don't know, but they've got the like Vaporitos. Is that what they're called? The like Venice water taxis.

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make the 2026 trail seeker the most capable EV Subaru has ever built. Test drive it at your local Subaru dealer or visit Subaru.ca. All right, so there are 13 films directed by one Mr. Christopher Nolan. That's right. He also produced Man of Steel, but we are not counting that. Just the ones he directed. We were going to do this at the end of our series, but we genuinely all jokes aside,

don't know when we're doing the Oppenheimer Pod, so we didn't want to wait any longer. This felt like a good moment. We were going to try, you know, Sean's away, he'll be back. We were waiting for Sean, but he'll be back soon, and if we can figure out time to do it soon. We're working on it.

One day. We're working on it. So, we are going to do the 13 films, starting at the bottom. We're going to go back and forth all the way up to number one. Yes. And we are each sharing.

our personal rankings were not making a joint ranking. No. Why would it be? I would posit with love and respect to our beloved colleagues and friends who just tried to make a joint ranking. Demented. That part of what is interesting about a Nolan ranking is I think that the variance person to person is significant. And there might be like tiers and clusters. You know, oh, these five movies are probably in the middle of these.

But even that, I don't think so. I think like we're going to have some in our middle and that are high on other people's lists. It's just what the ranking is. It's just so much variance. It's like a love language. Though I recently found out that the love language idea was originated by a guy who was just trying to make excuses for why he didn't do chores around his house.

And he's like, that's not my love language and like created a whole like philosophy around it. I admire the entrepreneurial spirit. Fuck him. All right. Anyway. What's your number 13? We're going to do takeaways at the end, right?

Like after some or anything you want to say. before we start that feels important in terms of how you thought about it. Do you have anything you have said? Save it till the end, I think, because I don't know how to say it without spoiling. I'll just say I found it's incredibly challenging. Despite having just spent a year talking about Nolan's movies and thinking it might be easier to rank them at the end, I found it very, very hard, particularly in the middle. I was actually like, you know, some, okay, what's the exact order among these two or three? Yeah. But I knew what I wanted at the top. I knew what I wanted near the bottom. And then there was a lot of like, oh my God, is this movie really going to be like ninth?

That seems crazy. But I mean, that's the thing about. Here we are. That's the thing about Nolan is like his ninth are like masterpiece. This is, this is exactly. In addition to the variance person to person, which is part of the fun, this is just such a stacked loaded filmography that it is like kind of amazing how good the bottom of the list is. I don't think a single one of these, there's a movie or two. There's one movie that's not for me personally as we chronicled. But even that I admire as a film.

Yeah. And like I think that none of these movies you could say are not good or in some way interesting. This was just very, very, very – I thought this was really hard. I knew what I wanted at number one. I knew what I wanted in a couple other spots. I found this to be an act of just an absolutely torturous act outside of this. Did you find it very easy for you to slot one through 13? I just feel less stressed about it because I just feel like I can change my mind anytime.

And I did over the course of our rewatch. So this is just taking my temperature right now of like where I am. Maybe when we do the Oppenheimer Pot, it'll be different. But I was curious if my number one was going to change sort of like, What I've been sort of like feeling like my number one was, if that was going to change whether after seeing The Odyssey or after us, like, discussing everything. And it hasn't. Same. Spoiler.

It's the same. Okay. So number 13. Yeah. I am putting at number 13 a movie that I actually quite enjoy and that we had fun talking about. But that is, I think, even though it has a lot of very Nolan-y elements in it, the least this is a Christopher Nolan movie. of the whole filmography. I'm putting insomnia from 2002.

Same for the exact same reason. Exact same reason. I actually, yeah, I just... Fun movie. I don't even need the caveat of like it has a lot of... It just like is, I think, objectively, the least Nolan movie.

Yes. And I haven't slept in days and I can't trust my own mind. I can't trust my own mind. I'd be in many Nolan movies, of course, but it's not... And I think it makes sense for where we find it.

Like, coming off a memento, given the opportunity... You know, he's adapting a... You know, an international feature that he enjoyed. He's working with Al Pacino. You know, there's just like a lot going on and it's like, and it's a hit. And so after that, like, I think he comes into that a bit on the back foot in a, in a just sort of like overwhelmed by the opportunity kind of way. And then he goes into Batman and that's still overwhelmed

by the opportunity, but having like successfully landed the plane on an Al Pacino movie. Yeah. I think he's coming with like just a bit more chutzpah about his own perspective on like an archetype character and stuff like that. So yeah. Yeah. Okay. And Zambia. Number 13. had a little bit of a hard time ordering 11 and 12. Okay. I feel like we're going to have these in the opposite order, but we'll find out. Maybe. At number 12, I have a movie that was new to me that I absolutely genuinely loved, but I am putting following the first film from 98 at 12.

It's a mini film, a little bit longer than an hour. And it is, as we talked about, the skeleton key, the blueprint for, but. basically everything that follows in Nolan's filmography, I thought it was incredibly entertaining and thought-provoking and really actually quite expert for basically like this is my first movie, one degree removed from being like a student film. Kind of incredibly impressive. It was hard for me at the end of the day to put it above anything else, even a movie that I like way less than it, that I put one spot above it for reasons. I'll explain in a moment. I'll explain it because you are right that we have those flips. So my 11 is following and my 12 is

11, which is Tenet. Correct. It's just not for us. Not a fan. Just not for us. Even though, like, I think I like it much more than I did before when we sort of like went back through it and talking to Rebecca about it. And like, I do.

I do like it more than I did when we started, but I still put it at the bottom of my ranking just above insomnia. I don't like it more than when we started. Actually, which has surprised me. But despite that, I think that there's a lot. there is still so much in it that intrigues me, certainly the film, just the craft and filmmaking of it obviously amazes me. From the story perspective, there's still enough in there that I admire the ambition of

and I'm eager to reconsider over time that I'm like following, I thought was amazing. I loved it. I'm so glad that it's a part of my consideration set now for thinking about Nolan's work. I don't know that anything will change about how I consider following over time from here. Whereas, like, Tenant, I think there's still a chance that I could find more ways to appreciate over time, but it was never going to get beyond 11. It was honestly whether it was going to be 11, 12, or maybe 13, I know, on the list. And so I think having done this whole thing is the only reason it's not 13 on my list. That's what I mean by I like it more. You know what I mean? So,

you're right. It's bumped up a couple spots, you know? Okay, so we both have insomnia at 13. You have 10 and at 12 and following at 11. I have following at 12 and 10 at 11. This is where I think the real variance in our list probably begins. Okay. Number 10. I wonder if we have something from the same franchise, but a different movie. I have Batman Begins here. Okay. You have Dark Night Rises? Don't like that I have Batman Begins at 10.

There are two things on this list that feel really weird and wrong to me, and they're where I have Batman Begins at 10, and they're where I have what I have at number 9. I really like Dark Night Rises, even though it is kind of a mess for all of the reasons that we chronicled with Voss. There's stuff in it that I just absolutely love. Yeah. And so I do, I do enjoy returning to it more than I enjoy returning to Batman Begins.

So all of the Nolan Batman movies are movies that I love and am glad we have. And I kind of like, frankly, overall, one of my big, like, woes of my list is that the whole Batman trilogy is not, but individually and collectively higher. So, surprising. I love Batman Begins. I think that movie is amazing. So I'm just like, how is that a 10? But the other movies are just so undeniable to me. So, yeah, I have the Dark Night Rises number 10, and I have Batman begins at number nine.

Okay. So similar. It's kind of like, how do you get it higher on the list? You kind of can't. Yeah. You can't. And it's hard because, like, you know, especially when you're piecing out a trilogy, because the Dark Night, which is going to be higher on both of our list, is only there because, is only there because of, you know, its place in a trilogy.

I think, I think, you know, Batman begins, of course, plants the seed. that's important for the flowering of the dark night. But I think the dark night rises not being as successful. Also then, like, in retrospect, makes the dark night feel like even more of a miracle that it works. Do you know what I mean? And so all of those things are important for glorifying the dark night, which can be as higher as low as it is on your list.

We'll find out together. Yeah. I'm surprised that you didn't have Batman begins at number one just because of your guy, scarecrow. Stay tuned. Okay, so Batman begins as my 10, Dark Night Rises is your 10, Batman begins as your 9, so it's time for my 9. This was the single biggest shock of my list. I have momentum at 9, and I don't know how that happened, but I just, it's where it is.

And I, this is like, I think that when we were, I was trying to think back, because I think especially the first handful of Nolan Paz we did, I think we stopped doing this maybe midway through the series. But for like five, six, seven pods, we were doing a check-in on our top five, like a casual one, not a formal one. I think Momento is in my top five the entire time we did that. So this is really... What happened? Some of it is just, spoiler, The Odyssey is absent. Did you forget to tattoo it on your leg so you can remember? Maybe.

Some of it is just like The Odyssey is here now, so that is no surprise going to be pretty high on the list. Some of it is reconsidering Oppenheimer. a little bit more. And then some of it is, I think, probably, frankly, having miscounted in real time and just saying Memento is a top-fine movie for me. And I'm like, when I sketch out, like, was that ever true? I don't know. I love Memento.

I think it's a wonderful movie. So to me, Memento at 9 is really, maybe more than anything else on the list. Again, of a piece with Batman begins at 10. For me, like, just a testament to how strong. The depth of the filmography and how stacked Nolan's career has been. because, like, I think there are a number of contemporary filmmakers who you'd say Memento is the best movie they ever made or could hope to make. The fact that it's, like, not a top five or top three is just, like, for me is just like a testament to the craft elsewhere. But I do love, I love Memento.

So I was shocked to see it here. You have it much higher? We'll find out. So we're at eight. Interstellar for me. I have it pretty close to there, but not there. Yeah. Not much higher.

Interstellar, which, you know, I appreciate even more than I did before. You know, with our review of it, we did as part of our like space exploration series and around Project Hail Mary. We talked to Van about it. We've heard from like so many people that it's their favorite, Nolan, that it's their favorite film, that it's all these things. It's Sendea's favorite film. Like, love to love to know that about her. I think it's fantastic. I do think the sequence where McConaughey Coop is.

is sobbing over videos of his adult children is like one of the best things has ever happened on film, honestly. And for memes. You care so much more about memes than I do in general. Which is so weird because I'm on social media so much less than you. I don't know that that's true. Why do memes have such a hold on me? I'm on Instagram a lot. You're on Instagram a lot.

I just happen to be on multiple platforms. You spread your time and I am just like the brain rot of the real scroll has gripped me in full. It's daken me. Okay. Yeah. So again, to your point, this is not an insults of intercellar to put it at 8, but that's just where it is for me. It will be received as such by the... An abysmal choice, would you say?

And the food looks horrible. Again, mine is not... It didn't slot much higher for me. I have Dark Nighter Eyes. This is 8 at 8. Okay. Would I like to have it higher? Honestly, no.

This felt right. This is like, I like that movie. Yeah. I have fun revisiting it. I just absolutely love watching Bain. I love watching Anne Hathaway as Catwoman. I enjoy the movie. It's at eight.

I have Interstellar at 7, so not much higher. Yeah, one spot higher. I think that that other than maybe what I have at number one and two, might be the thing that actually moved least for me across the whole project. I feel like the whole time I was like, Interstellar is kind of middle of the pack for me on the whole filmography. because as we talked about at length when we did our pie with Van, there are things in that movie that I love and that wallop me.

And there are things in the movie that just simply don't work as well for me as they work for a lot of other people, and that's okay. The thing that I think I had a similar experience is... Is it the quantum interdimensional library of love? Among other things, yeah. I have a lot of first act and third act story notes and script notes, as you know, I think the middle act, the human stretch is just absolute dynamite. And the visual splendor of that movie is astonishing.

there are some emotional beats in it that are just gobsmacking. So there is a lot in it that I love. But when I watch it, it is like I can't, I can't, there's yet to be a time where I've watched Interstellar and I don't have the same like notes on it, even though there are things about it that really gripped me in that I love. So Seven feels right. I had this similar experience to you, though, where I think the thing that I came out of this, we both knew this and recognized that it had clocked it and actually talked about it before we did that pod. But just the Nolan project in this moment and Nolan's centrality and the culture. really, really undeniably recognizing how important this movie is to so many, like, younger people.

Younger people, but also, like, lately, I've talked to, like, a couple people who are older than me who are, like, interstellar is my favorite. And I was sort of like, okay. I will say this was one of my revelations is that my husband is a much bigger interstellar fan than I realize he's, like, astonished that I have it at seven. Astonished. I love thinking of, I love every time you report back from when you've, like, floated. your rankings by Adam and he's like, I literally position this one to him as like, I'm going to read it to you. No feedback.

No, no. So I'm like, I don't want to hear anything. He's like, interstellar at seven. It's crazy. Maybe seven's this lot for us to be unpopular because here's our I have the dark night. Whoa. Yeah. Holy shit.

When you were giving me a little side-irased eyebrow, I thought you were like, it's number one. It's still going to be in the top three for you. And how dare I am. imply otherwise. It's number seven. Whoa. Yeah. I have actually, you just shocked me.

Tell me everything. At one point on my list, it was like number three. But then I just like kept reconsidering and I was just like, but I can't, but I need this higher, but I need this higher. And I kept shuffling down and I kept being like, I'm okay with it's lower. I can't tell if the reason I'm okay with it being number seven on my list is like, I know it's at the top of so many other people's list. Sure.

So I'm just sort of like, it's fine. The dark night doesn't need you to defend it. to be championed by me. It's a, it's a, like, it's the paragon of comic books films. It is, like, a wonderful film with an absolutely incredible, undeniable, once-in-a-lifetime performance from one of our great actors who left us way too soon. Like, that forever will make it something that matters, no matter what comes and goes in terms of, like, our superhero tastes.

But when I think about what I love in a Nolan movie, it's not replacing the ones that I have above it. So maybe number seven is the slot for us to wild out and shock and upset people. You blew my mind. I'm not challenging anything you just said. I think that all is completely reasonable. Seven surprised me, but I think the overall assessment makes complete sense. I'm excited to hear your top six now. Interesting.

Okay. Wow. So you have, you do have, maybe you have memento at six. No, I think you have memento in your top five. Well, we're going to find out. Interesting. You're a mystery to me. It's nice to know I can still surprise each other, honestly.

I am the mystery box. This is being like a couple decades into a marriage and you're like, we still got it. Well, you shocked at him with where you put in her cellar, so, you know. Yeah, but not in an exciting way. You're basically like, how dare you? All right. How dare you? Wow. So we're on number six. Number six. This is where I, and I was really torn on how I ordered five and six. This is a little bit of the pattern of my list is like these, like, okay, these are definitely in these two spots. But one order was like something I had a lot of trouble with. I had very few, like, should this be two or eleven kind of conundrums? But I'm like, should this be nine or ten? Should this be six or five? I have Oppenheimer at six. Me too.

to me, this feels right in terms of my relationship to the film, which we have not yet explored on podcast. I know, but honestly, this is a huge leap up the list from where it would have been before this project for me. I would have had it lower on the list. I, like, really did not. No, but, like, I did not respond to it the way that other people responded to it. Yeah. And I think in that sort of Emily Wilson fashion, I got so, like, irritated by people being mad that I thought it was just okay. Then I started, like, backing into a corner of, like, it's not that.

good or whatever. And then, you know, I rewatched it for, because we were going to do the Oppenheimer pod and then illness got in the way. But I did all the prep for it. Yeah. Spent a lot of time with it. And I'm just sort of like, actually, this movie is fantastic. Yeah, that's great. Oops. Turns out everyone was right. And also, you're allowed to change her mind. And also, in light of The Odyssey, really has impacted my reading of Oppenheimer. So while this might seem low for people, I just want to let people know that it is way higher than it would have been if we had done this a couple months ago. And I think it's a fantastic movie. And I really enjoyed my time prepping for that podcast, which we will eventually do. Listen, here's the good news. You have Dark Night at 7.

No one's paying attention to you having Oppenheimer at 6. I can calm down. Everyone can calm down. I support you fully. I love this. I swear I also have it. And I've said before on the pods, I did not see it. I didn't do Barbenheimer in theaters. Halo is having. a surgery that weekend, so we were home with him, and then the next couple weeks with his care, and I just didn't get to it in theaters for some reason. By the time I saw it at home, my, I was like, I feel okay about having seen this at home. We have a nice television. We've got good speakers. We closed the drapes. Everything was fine. Yeah. I didn't feel like I was necessarily

completely deprived of seeing it in the way that it absolutely needed to have been seen. Right. My relationship to it is, I also have an uptick. appreciation for the reason you said, like, thinking about it as part of this tapestry and this connected focus for Nolan across his work, particularly heading into, you know, just in conjunction with the Odyssey, I find that aspect of how Nolan is exploring his kind of central, the opus across his films and, like, the themes and aspects of humanity that are most interesting to him, like really kind of amazing to consider. So that, I liked thinking about that part of it more as well. I think that the performances in Apanneb, both the first time I saw it and then

revisiting it a couple weeks ago, are amazing. I think Killian's amazing. It's like one of the best movie performances of the century, genuinely. I think Emily Blund is bad. You recently compared her. We had a... It's not her. It's the character. Not a fully formed woman in an album. I said the character could be played by a gin bottle, and I stick with it. He did say that. Yeah. Fight me. Emily Blunt? Disclosure Day? Incredible. Dynamite. Oscar nom? Maybe. Remember when I clicked in your ear?

Remember when I... Elboned me in the collarbone? Physically injured you? It was worth it. It was worth it to share that experience together. I think that my relationship to Op and I, I remember to spoil our eventual pod is that I think the visual splendor of the movie astonishing, the thematic examination, astonishing, the performances astonishing, the first two hours among my favorite stretch of Nolan filmmaking ever. Third act is just not for me. The final hour of the movie is just not for me.

And the focus of the movie around the hearing and Donnie's character is a choice that I just genuinely don't understand. So it was never going to move past, like it was never going to go to like my top four, I don't think, even though I believe the first two hours have a, the first two hours of Oppenheimer have a case for number one. Overall, the film, like this feels like appropriate

in the ranking for me, though it's the Oscar dartling. It's just really unfortunate. I also, I also just don't think Downey's very good in the movie, honestly. Like, I just think that like... Well, his, I mean, his Latvary and Victor von Doom has always been more your... Obviously. Your preference.

You know, when Alden is, like, ill-served in that movie as well. But, like, there's so much greatness in there as well. Number five. Number five. I have Dunkirk here. Okay. You have Memento? I have Memento.

Okay. Exciting. The reason that I... Because I was like, should I put Oppenheimer at five and Dunkirk at six? And here's why I didn't. I would rather watch Dunkirk. You're like, it's Jack Loud in season, baby. Yeah, it is Jack Loud in season.

Slow Horse is coming. Prime Bridges is coming. Slow horses is coming out of my birthday. What a fucking treat, I think. I think I saw September 16th. This is a date, right? Mid-September? I'm real, can't wait.

Is Dunkirk a bigger achievement than Oppenheimer? I think you could make the case in terms of some of the filmmaking. It's obviously not for every. We love it. It was so fun to talk to Chris about it. I really love the three different slices of that film and the way that they are presented to us and then come together on what we realize in real time the first time and then what we could kind of reassess and parse on a revisit. I think it's gorgeous visually. I think that the exploration of community and as CR talked about with us on that pod, like the dopedness of the scene. The sea is dope. And also

So wanting to get home, you know, it could be pretty dope too. It's just like I'm more likely to want to boot up Dunkirk and watch it again than I am Oppenheimer. And so that was a tiebreaker for me. Memento, number five. And actually I'm kind of shocked. It's as low for me. Try having it at nine. I don't understand.

Tough. I think, you know, this is just a masterpiece. Everyone knows it is. It's just an astounding first. like full-length feature. Right? Is that a full-length feature? I don't know.

Anyway. Just what a calling card for a storyteller. Yeah. The interplay between Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan inside of the story. Guy Pearce is just sort of like a consummate Nolan leading man. And just sort of like what is explored here in terms of which we talked about a lot in the Odyssey podcast being the architect of your own misfortune. the willful architect of your own misfortune. And yeah, I just, I think it's a masterpiece.

It's really great. And I think about Carrie Ann Moss spitting in that beer on the daily. Same. I have to say, I'm surprised about something you have as high as you do, clearly, based on what you haven't. I thought you would have inception lower than you have it. Okay. Interesting. My number four?

Yeah. this is where I have the Dark Night. It fell out of my top three. Odyssey pushed it out. Spoiler. My top two has not changed the entire project, so. Okay. Perhaps unsurprisingly.

I think the Dark Night is great. What I ended up, my top four, the movies were clear to me. I knew the top four, coming out of Odyssey at least. I'll spoil my list a little bit, even though we were going to reveal the individual picks and say that I ended up with two tiers. One and two are originals and three. three and four are adaptations. And that was a little, when I was really like, how do I order these four movies that I...

You have the reverse. Great. Interesting. Okay, exciting. I think that what Nolan does when he's adapting a text is like so, there's something viscerally and intellectually, and emotionally and spiritually, just astonishing about it. And I love it. What he...

Oh, actually, you know what? That's not true. two, three, and four are all adaptations. Only one is the original now that I say that. But I think that the ones that I have at three and four, let me reframe this, are adaptations of texts and stories that are very central in the culture. So it is a Nolan...

Wow, shots fired at the prestige. There will be no shots fired at the prestige. But obviously that is a text. So it certainly counts as an adaptation. But I think that's a little bit different than like, what is Nolan going to do with the Odyssey story people have been telling for 3,000 years? or what is Nolan's Gotham?

What is Nolan's Bruce? So I was surprised to not have Dark Knight in my top three, but I guess my version of what you were saying is it's more about the movies that are above it than it is like at the merit on Dark Night, a comic book superhero movie and a genre movie that I think is not only excellent, but certainly undeniable as a force and very important

for nerds like us and the stuff that we cover. What do you have it for? Is this where you have... Why are you so compelled to guess before the person says the thing? I'm trying to puzzle it out in real time. Because I know you're number one for sure. Now I think I know you're number two. So it's a question of where you have Dunkirk and Inception, which order?

What's your number four? It's Inception. Okay. My number four is Inception. And I think... I think there are versions of this list where, I would have it a little lower, but I think that, you know, what's worth celebrating in Nolan, you know, and we talked about this when we talked about the Odyssey is, again, this just sort of like something that you were like particularly frustrated with Emily Wilson about is just sort of like this welcome hand into the theater. And the way in which Inception is like, come to the theater, come to the movie theater. Have a really fucking fun time. Have a good time with movies. Enjoy your fucking self. I've crafted for you.

Yes. You know, and he talks about Tenet being sort of like his Bond movie, but I kind of think Inception is his Bond movie. And it's just sort of like, I've crafted for you just a perfect jewel of a fun, fine time at the movies. You know what I mean? With the great cast, I, you know, there's a couple of people I would recast in this movie, but like great cast, a great concept. I do think it's lacking some of the emotionality that I really, when he can achieve that, I think puts Nolan on another level for me. And so that's why it's not higher on my list. But also, as I've told you one million times in our relationship together, when you love something, it makes me love it more.

And the effect that Inception is your number one makes it more important to me than it would be otherwise. Because what you love matters to me. Same. Same. That's why I'm going to go watch Hades Town, colon the musical exclamation point. With me. With you. Okay.

The top three is here. This is exciting. I found this pretty hard. I found this easy. I found the top easy, to your point, the top was easy and the bottom is easy. And the middle is just sort of like. Knowing the four films was easy ordering them was. I knew what number one was.

I had a little bit of a hard time with two, three and four. But I put the Odyssey at three. Okay. You have it higher? I do. Yeah. I really, really considered putting it at two. And I won't be surprised if when I get to watch it again, that's where it feels like it is.

I think that my experience with The Odyssey over time will be that it moves up and not down. I thought this movie was unbelievable. You know, we've had a wonderful time talking about it and thinking about it and considering it. At the end of the day, the two movies that I have at number two

have been such a big part of my life as a film fan and a story fan for so long. I had a really hard time moving them out. Yeah, it feels like recency bias to put it higher, but I did put it higher. But like it does. Recentcy bias that will, I think, be proven valid over time. Possibly. But again, this is like my number 13 right now. You know what I mean? This is how I feel right now. And we'll see how I feel next year.

Maybe 10 and it'll be back at 13. Yeah. With distance. Number three, Dunkirk. And here's why Dunkirk is there. That thing that Chris said about like all of his movies are about trying to get home was like such a stunning like inside. I thought so great. But more than that, I think Dunkirk is, you know, when you think about Nolan as a storyteller, you know, you know, There's, we ding Nolan sometimes for the writing, and I think that's fair. We ding Nolan sometimes for lack of emotionality, and I think that's fair. But what you can never ding Nolan for is his inability to visually tell his story. And so the way in which Dunkirk could, I think, of all his movies, well, maybe following, operate as a silent film almost. Like, you could tell this story.

And oftentimes, you're just following characters silently, you know, especially in the sort Only tenant or a silent film. On the shore, you're, like, following characters around and sort of, like, silently invested in their well-being. And so, like, you know, similarly with, like, Hardy Up in the Air, it's just a lot of it is just sort of, like, the visual, the, what the score is doing, you know, and so, like, that is just something. Yeah. That only a master of visual storytelling, and that is what cinema is. You know what I mean? And like when we talk about adaptation, which we'll talk about, you know, with my number one, you're number two.

Like that's its own skill set and that is really important to us and something we love talking about. But when you talk about especially large scale storytelling, this is a visual medium. And the way in which in Dunkirk, he is able to be with absolute precision able to tell these intertwining out of step in time stories. about desperation and brotherhood. And I just, I think it's a masterpiece. It is fantastic. And what it tells you, too, about the visual element that you're citing specifically, like what that unlocks for us about thinking about, like, perspective.

You know, if you're seeing the ship because you're on the pier, or if you're seeing it from the sky, or if you're seeing it from another boat that you decided to sail forward into the abyss, or if you're seeing it from the water that you just got thrown into, like what is your relationship to that and what knowledge do you carry and what knowledge do you need to make a decision if the decision is rooted in the sense of the collective pursuit? Like, it's really just amazing.

And even though Dunkirk is an original film, like, it is an adaptation of like, you know, especially for English people, you know, people of the UK, like this is just sort of like, one of their stories. There's this great standard routine that I get served occasionally on social media this guy talking about like, you know the story of Dunkirk,

right? It's like, Pip, cheerio, we've lost the lads. The lads are stuck on the beach. We need to go get the lads. We don't have boats to get the,

we cannot dock the boats on the beach to get the lads. We borrow your little boats to go get the lads back. And it's just like, that's what that movie is. And it's just like really good. So, yeah, this is a core story of sort of like UK English history.

And this is, his, you know, artistic way of telling it. You know, and we've seen a million World War II stories. And, you know, I've been on that fucking beach before with, like, Atonement. You know what I mean? Like, I've been there before. But this is just sort of like a beautiful song, a beautiful poem, a beautiful painting of this historic event. So, yeah.

It's a great movie. Crazy to put it number one, but, you know, number three is the exact right place for it. Yeah. An abysmal choice. I would be embarrassed personally. Oh, God. Good bit. It's becoming a good bit.

Number two, you have the Odyssey here. Tell us why. I mean, I don't know. We've covered it. Guess what? The Odyssey rules. We've covered it. And the Odyssey, as the CAPA for this project, really sort of soes together.

Plus, like, an adaptation of a classic story was always really. going to work on me. And we talked about this when we talked about the Odyssey Pod. Like, in a way that a Batman adaptation would just sort of be straight to the heart of certain people. Yeah. A classic that I studied multiple times in school is going to be something that I'm just going to like. It's in the sweet spot. Yeah. And until he makes a musical. Well, let me ask you this then. Not to predict the future because how can we? But until he makes a musical. Do you think that The Odyssey has a chance to become at some point? You're number one?

No. No. I'll tell you why. Okay. My number two is your number one, the prestige. Do you want to talk about that last? And I'll talk about my number one inception, since you already talked about that one. Sure.

We can put a bow in the inception conversation and then end on prestige, which feels fitting for our pod, I think. I have inception at number one because it's my favorite Nolan movie, and that hasn't changed since the minute I saw it for the first time. I just think it's incredible. I think it's a masterpiece. And for whatever reason, some of its flaws are to move. me like endearing and part of its charm. And I think feel in a kind of meta way embedded into the text of like the godly pursuit of world building.

I think I find more, you know, I think your points about the emotionality of it compared to like certainly the movie we'll talk about next and some of the other ones. I understand. I think for me, it is such a treatise on longing and yearning and loneliness and the desperation to compensate for the things you're missing by forging things that you don't really need that I find emotionality in it in a way that I think speaks to me. And it's just like one of the more inventive and like filmically, visually, creatively rendered stories. I just will never forget like seeing the trailer for inception for the first time and watching the streets of

Paris fold and nothing about my experience to it dampened or diminished since that first second. So I love it. It's certainly, you know, actually, maybe it would be Dark Night. I was going to say it's certainly the Nolan movie I've seen the most. But I have seen all of the Batman movies quite. Frankly, it might be Dark Night Rises, which is nuts. But as I told you, I saw a movie five times in theaters, like a sociopath. Not as many times you've seen Clueless.

I don't know that I've seen any movie as many times as I've seen Clueless, including Revenge of the Sith, which I saw seven times in theaters. So, yeah, it was always going to be in Seventh. I was open to the possibility, as I said on many of the pods, that something would move past it, but it just, it held on. It held on. And that's where it'll be for forever, I think. The prestige at number two was frankly the one I had a slightly bigger, like, will something knock this out of the two spot for me? Even though I adore that movie. I just have so much admiration, appreciation for so many of the others. I wasn't sure would it move to three, would it move to four. I had it in those slots a couple times. And it like didn't feel right. It just didn't feel right for me, given how much. much I love that movie and how mesmerized I am by it every time I return to it in terms of a puzzle, in terms of the emotional heft, the performances. I honestly just couldn't move it out of the two

slot when it came down to it. I had to keep it there. I love it. Tell me why it's your number one. You know, this is really, it has been my number one, like this whole time. And I was open to that movie. But like, something that really unlocked for me recently was, again, I was, I believe was an Instagram reel of some guy talking about Nolan's, he was critiquing the Odyssey. And he was talking about Nolan's like great men. And the way in which you watch these men sort of in their quest for greatness cause a lot of damage. And, you know, that's true of Oppenheimer. It's true of Odyssey. It's true of inception. It's true of, I don't know about Interstellar who laid that at Coop. But, you know, it's true of Batman. It's true of all the, it's.

all these people. But in most cases, there is like a happy ending for those guys. Oppenheimer is a question that's, you know, that's cold salmon at a banquet and stuff like that. We can talk about Oppenheimer when we get there in more depth. But like, you know, Christian Bale in Batman gets to live happily ever after with Anne Hathaway and like, you know, Italy or something like that. Matt Damon gets to sail off into the sunset with Anne Hathaway. Seems like a pretty good ending. So does Matthew McConae gets to hang. out with Anne Hathaway in space somewhere. Notice like a theme.

You know, Nolan's like, guess what? You get Ann Hathaway, right? I would say the two exceptions. That's really funny. The two sort of greatest exceptions there are memento, where I think, you know, Leonard is going to be stuck forever in this spiral of disaster spiral. And the prestige, where these two men cause a great deal of damage in pursuit of greatness, often on each other.

And they don't wind up with. any kind of happy ending. They wind up in sort of like pain and despair in a way that I just find like compelling, you know? And so not that I need like, not there has to be a moral punishment, but I just think it's a more honest telling of the damage that greatness can cause to oneself and to others. And that pursuit of, whether it's like technological greatness or fame or whatever it is, how the foibles inside of ourselves, you know, can hoist us is what Greek myth is often about. And so the fact that Odysseus gets to go home feel really bad at what happened with the Trojan War, but ultimately, and has to leave Ithaca, but ultimately, like,

gets to hang out with Anne Hathaway in a nice boat. How bad is exile if it's with... With Anna Hathaway, you know what I mean? So like, so I just think, and I think that that emotionality that I look for in the best of the the the Jonathan Nolan that I feel inside of this movie especially as it pertains to like Rebecca Hall's character yeah um and the Christian bail the double Christian bail performance and the huge acwin performance I just think this is a masterpiece so it is yeah on unadishably so all right read your list top to bottom let's let's recap from from the number one yeah okay number one the prestige number two Odyssey Have you heard of it? Number three, Dunkirk. Number four, Inception. Number five, Memento. Number six, Oppenheimer.

His best picture-winning film. Number seven, the Dark Night. A movie that changed film history. I love this. Number eight, interstellar. Number nine, Batman Begins. Number 10, The Dark Night Rises. Number 11 following.

Number 12, Tenet. Number 13 in Somnia. Strong list. Let's hear your list. I like it. Number one, inception. Number two, the prestige. Number three, the Odyssey.

Number four, the Dark Night. Number five, Dunkirk. Number six, Oppenheimer. Number seven, interstellar. Number eight, the Dark Night Rises. Number nine, memento. Number ten, Batman begins. Eleven, tenet, twelve, following, thirteen.

Insomnia. We did it. I feel pretty good about that, honestly. That's our Nolan ranking. That was our Odyssey mailbag. Maybe when he was, He next does a movie. We'll update the list. Make the ranking a living document.

You know, check back in in five, six years. That sounds great. When he's back at it. It might be different by the time we do our Oppenheimer podcast. Who's the same? Entirely possible. Thank you to Carlos Sherba. Thank you, Carlos.

Thank you to Arjuna Rincolpale. Thank you to Jacob Cornett. Thank you to Scott Lee. Thank you to Jomea Dinerant. Squad. Thank you to Mallory Rubin. Thank you to Joanna Robinson. Thank you, Christopher Nolan.

Thank you to the Greeks and all their myths. Thanks to Emma Thomas Yeah Absolutely Thanks to Jonathan Nolan And to Lisa Joy And we'll see you for Talk the Thrones That's right

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