1 July 2026, 11:00
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Getty / Universal
Christopher Nolan’s ancient Greek epic will be his third collaboration with Ludwig Göransson. Here’s everything we know about the music so far…
What do you get when you combine one of modern cinema’s most visionary directors, and one of the most in-demand and agile film composers of the 21st century?
If their previous collaborations of Tenet (2020) and Oppenheimer (2023) are anything to go by, Christopher Nolan and Ludwig Göransson’s The Odyssey is likely to be a feast for the eyes and ears, on its release in July 2026.
But with Göransson confirming that Nolan effectively banned him from composing a purely orchestral score, what can we expect to hear instead?
THE ODYSSEY Official Trailer (2026)
What instruments will feature in The Odyssey soundtrack?
Early reports that Christopher Nolan had ‘banned’ composer Ludwig Göransson from using an orchestra in his score for The Odyssey were confirmed in a feature by Time magazine in May 2026.
One theory is that this decision, like many of Nolan’s, was taken to shake up the audience’s existing ideas of a sword-and-sandals film. Nolan and Göransson may also want to avoid comparison to Hans Zimmer’s Gladiator, which has been streamed more than half a billion times since its release in 2000.
Göransson suggests that this is also a period-appropriate decision, telling Time: “It’s not like the orchestra existed back then.”
Instead, the Sinners composer turned to instruments that would better represent the film’s setting in ancient Greece.
He hired 35 bronze gongs ranging in size, layering them with some less-contemporaneous synthesisers to create the stacked musical texture Göransson is fast becoming known for.
Read more: Gladiator II composer Harry Gregson-Williams on the ‘pretty rude sound’ that made it into the score
The Odyssey | In Studio with Ludwig Göransson Odyssey Featurette
In a featurette on the soundtrack, the film’s producer Emma Thomas describes how Göransson did deep research into instruments that may have been familiar to the ancient Greeks.
“I knew that in order to create this completely original world, I also had to get out of my comfort zone and find sounds that I haven’t worked with before,” the composer said.
“Chris [Nolan] had mentioned early that he was interested in aulos. He was interested in lyre. The aulos is an ancient Greek instrument. It was the most popular rockstar instrument for 1000 years.”
The aulos is a type of double-pipe reed instrument, depicted in many carvings, pottery pieces, and artworks from ancient Rome and Greece. A lyre is a harp-like string instrument, which Nolan suggested could be used to represent the pluck of Odysseus’ bow.
Read more: This instrument is powered by water and was invented by the Ancient Greeks
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Getty
Callum Armstrong, who plays the aulos on The Odyssey’s soundtrack, explained: “The original [instrument] dates from between the 6th and the 5th century BC.
“We don’t have any surviving reeds, so I worked with two other people and we spent a while trying to work out and figure out how this bit worked at the top. We had to read lots of ancient source material and work out how they did it.”
The featurette also shows a few moments of the score being recorded, including musicologist and performer Rosa Fragorapti playing the lyre. She described the process of playing in a historically accurate way: “To be able to play it in a philological way, we have to do research between iconography, philological sources, and personal experience as a musician.”
Göransson’s score is also likely to be heavily percussive. In addition to the 35 gongs, the composer described how he recorded himself ‘hitting things’ to find new and interesting sounds.
“Another thing that Chris mentioned too, early on in our conversations, was to use bronze. You know, this is the Bronze Age, so gongs for example, made of bronze. You can make these instruments sound in a way that you’ve never heard them before.
“[I] started to experiment with a lot of other stuff. Hitting walls, hitting railings, hitting any kind of things you could find outside, like scrap metal or air conditioning units.”
Picture:
Universal
Vocals will also play a key part in Göransson’s score. A moment from the featurette shows singer-songwriter James Blake contributing his voice to the soundtrack in a recording session, which Göransson says serves to add ‘emotional pacing’ to the score.
Rapper Travis Scott is also cast in the film, playing a bard. Nolan explained: “I cast him because I wanted to nod towards the idea that this story has been handed down as oral poetry, which is analogous to rap.”
Scott’s character has a monologue to deliver in the film, but whether or not this will be delivered as rap or speech remains to be seen.
