Christopher Nolan is usually one of the few filmmakers who can release a trailer and have the internet collectively treat it like a cinematic event. But the reaction to The Odyssey has taken a dramatically different turn. The latest trailer for Nolan’s Greek epic has been flooded with negative reactions, becoming the most disliked trailer of the filmmaker’s career according to publicly available third-party dislike estimates. Since YouTube removed public dislike counts in 2021, exact numbers cannot be independently confirmed through the platform itself, but the visible response in the comment section makes one thing very clear: audiences are absolutely roasting this trailer.
And some viewers have apparently been waiting years for this moment.
“I hit the dislike button four years ago for moments like this,” one viral comment joked, referencing YouTube’s decision to hide public dislike totals.
Another viewer wrote, “I paid nothing to watch this trailer and I still want my money back.”
The comments only get more brutal from there.
“Perfect example of a director living long enough to see himself become the villain.”
“Who knew ancient Greece looked so much like Los Angeles?”
“The Odyssey ❌ The Audacity ✅”
One person even joked, “Even if I watched this movie on an airplane, I’d still walk out.”
Others attacked the trailer for simply failing to hold their attention. “Well, that’s two minutes of my life that I won’t get back,” one viewer wrote, while another delivered perhaps the ultimate insult to a movie trailer: “I’ve fallen asleep during movies, but this is the first time I fell asleep during a trailer.”
But one criticism appears repeatedly throughout the backlash. For a film adapting one of the foundational works of ancient Greek literature, many viewers feel Nolan’s version simply does not look Greek enough.
“There is more Greek in the yogurt in my fridge than in this movie,” one commenter joked.
The casting, costumes and visual presentation have all become targets of criticism, with some viewers arguing that the massive production somehow looks more like contemporary Hollywood pretending to be ancient Greece than an immersive recreation of Homer’s world.
The comment section has even drawn comparisons to another infamous YouTube pile-on.
“This comment section reminds me of the Snow White trailer,” one person observed.
That comparison says almost everything. Disney’s Snow White became one of the internet’s favourite punching bags long before audiences could actually watch the finished movie. Now, somehow, a Christopher Nolan film starring Matt Damon, Zendaya, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson and Charlize Theron is experiencing its own version of the same phenomenon.
Of course, YouTube comments do not decide whether a movie is good. Nolan remains one of Hollywood’s biggest filmmakers, and The Odyssey could still silence every critic once audiences see the finished film.
But for now, the internet has spoken.
Christopher Nolan made The Odyssey.
YouTube made The Audacity.