The music in Nolan’s Odyssey is as well-crafted – and bloodlessly forgettable – as the film itself

Ludwig Göransson’s meticulous score uses instruments of the era to create an earthy, raw and bleak soundscape, but it merely supports the portrayal of an uncomplicated hero A few weeks ago I came across a video of Professor Armand D’Angour, associate professor of classics at Oxford university. He explained how, through groundbreaking research involving fragments of melody and rhythms found on papyrus and stone and the reconstruction of ancient instruments, it is now possible to hear for the first time in 2,000 years what ancient Greek music would have sounded like. Given Ludwig Göransson’s beautiful theme for the aulos (an ancient double-barrelled flute) in Christopher Nolan’s latest blockbuster, The Odyssey, and his reputation for dedicated research into his subject matter, it seems very likely that he too has heard these calls from the ancient past. Over time, a successful film score becomes synonymous with its film, but before its creation, the potential for its direction is endless. “None at all is better than the wrong music,” Alfred Hitchcock famously said. In The White Ribbon Michael Haneke opts for none at all with the exception of music from diegetic sources

Jul 23, 2026 → Aug 1, 2026