Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ echoes his most underrated film, ‘Batman Begins’

Christopher Nolan’s latest epic, The Odyssey, is dominating the box office and drawing inevitable comparisons to his previous film, Oppenheimer. While both films share a thematic thread of a man grappling with wartime choices, a closer look reveals that The Odyssey owes its narrative structure to a far more overlooked entry in Nolan’s filmography: Batman Begins.

Released in 2005, Batman Begins tells the origin story of Bruce Wayne, from his parents’ murder to his training with the League of Shadows and his return to Gotham City. The film is often overshadowed by its sequel, The Dark Knight, but it pioneered two key storytelling techniques that Nolan now refines in The Odyssey: non-linear storytelling and vignette-style scenes.

In Batman Begins, Nolan uses a fragmented narrative for the first 35 minutes, cutting between Bruce’s childhood and his young adult training. Scenes are often presented as tight vignettes, focusing only on the essential moments. For example, the murder of Bruce’s parents unfolds in under 80 seconds, emphasizing the suddenness of the tragedy and keeping the story moving.

Nolan employs the same techniques in The Odyssey, but with different proportions. The film jumps between present-day Ithaca, Odysseus’s time with Calypso, and flashbacks to his journey after Troy. Most scenes are brief and to the point, especially those involving Telemachus and Penelope. The Trojan Horse sequence is told in fragments across multiple timelines, only fully revealing its meaning when Odysseus reunites with Penelope.

This approach is not new to cinema. Citizen Kane and Nolan’s own Memento and Inception use similar non-linear structures. But in The Odyssey, Nolan uses these tools to convey the epic scale of a legendary hero, much like he did with Batman. Both characters have been told in countless stories before, but Nolan’s method gives them a sweeping, grand narrative that feels fresh and immersive.

Batman Begins is available to stream on HBO Max, and The Odyssey is in theaters now.