5 Best Performances In Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, Ranked

Contains spoilers for "The Odyssey."

Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" stars ... basically everyone, it feels like. This critically acclaimed masterpiece, based on the epic poem by Homer, has an enormous cast with plenty of brief yet memorable roles popping up over its nearly 3-hour runtime. All these actors are talented, and there's not a single bad performance in the whole movie, but who stands out the most? 

Before ranking our choices for the top 5 performances in "The Odyssey," we have to shout out some honorable mentions: Tom Holland and Jon Bernthal's natural interplay as Telemachus and Menelaus only has us more excited to see the two actors together again in "Spider-Man: Brand New Day." Lupita Nyong'o makes a strong impression in her double roles of Helen and Clytemnestra despite very limited screentime. Elliot Page's appearance is also brief but less limited than Nyong'o's, and his soldier Sinon gets a standout monologue from beyond the grave. And Anne Hathaway wrings plenty of convincing big emotions out of Odysseus' long-waiting wife Penelope. That these performances don't even make our top 5 is a testament to the cast's strength as a whole.

Eurylochus, Odysseus' (Matt Damon) second-in-command, is usually framed as unlikable and incompetent. It's understandable why: he frequently antagonizes his boss and his decision to slaughter the cattle of Helios ultimately dooms his men. Christopher Nolan's adaptation and Himesh Patel's performance do something different with Eurylochus: Here he's the reasonable straight man rightfully challenging Odysseus' hubris and bluster.

Because Odysseus is, by design, a complicated, often unlikable hero, having Eurylochus along as a voice of conscience makes him an invaluable presence. Since the other soldiers on their voyage are anonymous monster fodder, he's the one who stands up when Odysseus puts them at risk. Even Eurolychus' bad decision in the end is understandable — if you've lost faith that the gods will let you live, why wouldn't you choose a quicker, more comfortable death?

Patel also reminds us that Nolan does in fact have a sense of humor. The scene where he announces "We're Greeks" in English to the one guy in the movie speaking Greek is the perfect rejoinder to the various "authenticity" complainers to come along and suspend disbelief.

Eumaeus, the blind servant who remains faithful to Odysseus during his 20-year absence from Ithaca, might be the most unambiguously likable character in the whole story (well, aside from Odysseus' dog Argos, the all-time good boy who makes everyone cry). He acts as a father figure to Telemachus in Odysseus' absence. His sense of familial love for the heroes evokes Alfred in "The Dark Knight" trilogy, and you could imagine Christopher Nolan casting Michael Caine in this role were the actor not retired and an AI sell-out.

Instead we have John Leguizamo, an unexpected choice that works incredibly well. This is where the decision to perform the film in American dialects pays off the strongest; Leguizamo's natural voice is so warm and effective here. The actor worked with his blind friend Gina Velasquez to depict the character's disability as accurately as possible. In this year's Oscar race, expect to see Leguizamo in a similar place to Delroy Lindo in "Sinners" last year — an actor who's been great for decades finally getting some awards love as a blockbuster ensemble standout.

If Eumaeus is "The Odyssey" character everyone loves, Antinous is the one everyone loves to hate. From "The Lighthouse" to "Mickey 17" to his voice work in "The Boy and the Heron," Robert Pattinson continues to be one of modern cinema's great weirdo hams, and his performance as the nastiest and most pathetic of Penelope's many awful suitors is just delicious. He's going full Disney villain, basically playing Scar in "The Lion King" if he were straight (or bisexual, this is Ancient Greece after all ... ).

Even from the trailers, everyone could tell Pattinson was perfect for this part, so his excellence comes as no surprise. Christopher Nolan's take on "The Odyssey" tends towards moral complexity — the heroes have committed horrible sins, even the monsters we feel a little bad for — yet its modern ambivalence goes away when it comes to Odysseus taking down Antinous and company. The audiences wants to see this man destroyed, and this destruction is glorious.

In a movie where the leading men are ripped like superheroes and most of the women resemble supermodels, Samantha Morton's Circe initially stands out for just how normal-looking she comes across in comparison. But Circe's not a normal person — she's a witch who turns men into pigs. Her sequence in "The Odyssey" is the strangest and most terrifying part of the movie, like "Spirited Away" crossed with "An American Werewolf in London."

The thing that sticks in one's gut about Circe is that she's terrifying but not exactly wrong. These men are pigs, and Morton's performance gives the strong impression she's dealt with men like them many times before. Her methods provide a feminist horror Rorschach test where throwing up and going "Honestly, slay" are equally valid responses.

In a movie with many one-scene wonder performances, Morton's singularly sticks with you for the rest of the journey. It's no wonder that the film's crew gave her a standing ovation on set — an occurrence that hasn't happened for any actor in a Christopher Nolan movie since Heath Ledger in "The Dark Knight."

No matter how many brilliant character actors filled out its ensemble, "The Odyssey" simply wouldn't work if Matt Damon's performance as Odysseus was anything less than perfect. Damon's great at playing characters who are intelligent and hyper-competent yet troubled and even foolish, making him a natural fit for Odysseus' cunning and ego.

However, what makes this performance an exceptional feat beyond being well-cast is the weight of grief and regret Damon digs into. Many have pointed out thematic parallels between "The Odyssey" and "Oppenheimer," with Damon's Odysseus displaying a similar well of "what have I done?" horror as Cillian Murphy did to play J. Robert Oppenheimer. The nonlinear framing makes this a performance that could become even more stunning on repeat viewings, once the viewer knows the extent of his loss and responsibility.

To single out one particularly stunning moment from Damon, look to the sequence where Odysseus listens to the sirens' song. In pure hubris, he endures the fatal melody with his body restrained, but in his face, we see every destructive effect the song has on him — and in his poetic voiceover recounting the experience, we understand the forces that would make men self-destruct.