Early reactions for The Odyssey have hailed the epic as a crowning achievement for director Christopher Nolan. These reactions should always be taken with a grain of salt, but it’s difficult to imagine Nolan making a clunker. The filmmaker is coming off a Best Picture win for Oppenheimer, which also earned him his first Best Director honor at the Oscars. Many believed that Nolan should have been honored sooner, but he only received his first nomination in the category for Dunkirk, which was released in 2017. He was entirely overlooked for his work on critically acclaimed hits such as The Dark Knight and Inception.
However, a movie that Nolan’s fans consider to be his most overlooked title is currently streaming in the United States on Peacock, but not for much longer. Nolan directed the film between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, reuniting with Christian Baleand Michael Caine, and working for the first time with Hugh Jackman, Scarlett Johansson, and Rebecca Hall. The film bore all his trademarks: intricate plotting, existential themes, and tortured male protagonists. While the film received excellent reviews and did solid business at the box office, it wasn’t immediately clear that it would one day be widely hailed as one of the finest films of the 2000s.
Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Personality Quiz Which Sci-Fi Hero Are You Most Like? Paul Atreides · Captain Kirk · Princess Leia · Ellen Ripley · Max Rockatansky
Five iconic heroes. Five completely different ways of facing an impossible universe. One of them shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of refusing to back down. Eight questions will tell you which one.
🏜️Paul Atreides
🖖Capt. Kirk
✊Princess Leia
🔦Ellen Ripley
🔥Max Rockatansky
01
How do you lead when the stakes couldn’t be higher? The way you lead under pressure is the most honest thing about you.
02
What is your greatest strength in a crisis? The quality that keeps you alive when everything else fails.
03
What is the thing you’d sacrifice everything else for? Your deepest motivation is your truest compass.
04
How do you relate to the people around you? Who you are to others under pressure is who you really are.
05
You’re facing a threat that no one else believes is real. What do you do? How you respond when you’re the only one who sees it defines everything.
06
What has your heroism cost you personally? Every hero pays. The question is what — and whether they’d pay it again.
07
How do you feel about the rules of the world you’re in? Every hero has a relationship with the system. What’s yours?
08
When everything is on the line, what keeps you going? The answer is the most honest thing about you.
Your Hero Has Been Identified Your Sci-Fi Hero Is…
Your answers point to the iconic sci-fi hero who shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of facing the impossible.
Arrakis · Dune
Paul Atreides
You carry a weight most people would crumble under — the knowledge of what you’re capable of, and the burden of what you might have to become.
You see further ahead than others and you plan accordingly, even when the vision frightens you.
You are driven by loyalty to your people and a sense of destiny you didn’t ask for but can’t escape.
Paul Atreides is not simply a hero — he is someone who understands the cost of power and chooses to bear it anyway.
That gravity, that willingness to carry what others won’t, is exactly you.
USS Enterprise · Star Trek
Captain Kirk
You lead with instinct, warmth, and an absolute refusal to accept a no-win scenario — because you’ve always believed there’s a third option nobody else has thought of yet.
You take the mission seriously without ever taking yourself too seriously.
Your crew would follow you anywhere, not because you demand it, but because you’ve earned it.
Kirk’s genius isn’t tactical — it’s human. He reads people, bends rules with purpose, and wills outcomes into existence through sheer conviction.
That combination of warmth, audacity, and relentless optimism is unmistakably yours.
The Rebellion · Star Wars
Princess Leia
You are the kind of person who holds the line when everyone else is losing faith — not because you’re fearless, but because giving up simply isn’t something you’re capable of.
You lead through conviction. Your voice carries because your belief is unshakeable.
You gave up everything ordinary the moment you chose the cause, and you’ve never looked back.
Leia is not a supporting character in her own story — she is the moral centre of the entire rebellion.
That same fierce, principled, unbreakable core is what defines you.
The Nostromo · Alien
Ellen Ripley
You are not reckless, not grandiose, and not particularly interested in being anyone’s hero — you just refuse to stop when it matters.
You see threats clearly, you document the truth even when no one listens, and when the time comes you handle it yourself.
Ripley’s heroism is earned, not performed. She doesn’t have a speech — she has a flamethrower and a plan.
You share her composure under the worst possible pressure, and her refusal to pretend the monster isn’t there.
When it counts, you don’t flinch. That’s everything.
The Wasteland · Mad Max
Max Rockatansky
You have been through fire that would break most people — and what came out the other side is something the world underestimates at its peril.
You don’t ask for help, don’t need validation, and don’t wait for anyone to tell you the rules no longer apply.
Your loyalty, when it finally arrives, is absolute — but it’s earned in silence and tested in action, not in words.
Max is not a nihilist. He is someone who lost everything and found, against his will, that he still has something worth protecting.
That bruised, stubborn, ultimately human core is exactly yours.
Watch Christopher Nolan’s Underrated Sci-Fi Movie on Peacock Soon
We’re talking, of course, about The Prestige. Released in 2006, the film followed two magicians in Victorian England, on a quest to perform the most elaborate magic trick ever. Produced on a reported budget of $40 million, The Prestige grossed around $110 million at the worldwide box office. Interestingly, this happens to be a lower haul than that of Nolan’s first studio movie, Insomnia, which made $113 million globally. Insomnia also holds a higher Rotten Tomatoes score, 92%, compared to the 77% that The Prestige is sitting at. However, The Prestige is now considered far superior, and is now ranked 42 on IMDb’s list of the top 250 movies of all time.
The Prestige will return for a special 20th-anniversary theatrical re-release this year, but you have until August 1 to watch the movie on Peacock. The Odyssey debuts in theaters worldwide a day earlier. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
