How Many Nominations & Wins Can Christopher Nolan’s Epic Get?

The 2027 Oscars have a new frontrunner, as The Odyssey‘s release has put Christopher Nolan’s epic squarely in the mix for lots of awards. Even before the movie hit theaters worldwide on July 17, 2026, the pressure was on for it to deliver. After garnering the best reviews and Rotten Tomatoes score of Nolan’s career, The Odyssey looks to run an eight-month marathon to Oscars glory.

That’s how long we have until the 99th Academy Awards take place on Sunday, March 14, 2027. Early year blockbusters like Project Hail Mary and future ones like Dune: Part Three hope to be legitimate contenders across the board, while festival darlings like Fjord and other upcoming independent features will certainly factor into the looming awards race. But The Odyssey may be in a league of its own.

After all, Nolan dazzled Academy voters with his 2023 biographical epic, Oppenheimer. It received 13 Oscar nominations, winning seven, including the first two of Nolan’s career with Best Director and Best Picture. His movies have typically contended, but Oppenheimer became his breakthrough. Hollywood finally took the time to crown the biggest director of the 21st century and raised the bar for what his future films would need to do to achieve similar success.

Now that The Odyssey is out and widely celebrated, its Oscar future is already clear. It’s positioned as the (Trojan) horse at the front of the pack. Nominations are sure to come, and several wins are sure to follow, as long as The Odyssey can maintain its spot as one of the 2027 Oscars favorites.

The Odyssey Is Practically Assured Of Over 10 Oscar Nominations, Including Best Picture

It feels almost impossible that The Odyssey will end up with anything less than double-digit Oscar nominations at this stage. The movie is absolutely going to be among the year’s 10 Best Picture nominees. Christopher Nolan is also assured to be a nominee in Best Director, giving him a chance to be the first director to win both categories with consecutive films.

An Adapted Screenplay nomination is likely thanks to how Nolan brings Homer’s epic to the screen. Nominations for The Odyssey in Cinematography, Film Editing, Sound, Original Score, Costume Design, and Production Design are safe bets, too. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, editor Jennifer Lame, composer Ludwig Göransson, and other department heads have done excellent work that the industry is sure to recognize.

Those categories alone put The Odyssey at nine nominations. Add in the chance that voters take to the film’s seamless use of VFX, recognize the strong makeup and hair work, or the casting, and that would push The Odyssey to 10 or more. If placements in all those categories come, Nolan’s film will already be at his record Oscar nomination count.

The Odyssey’s Cast Could Push It Into Historic Territory

That level of attention will more than likely grant The Odyssey with at least one or two nominations among its loaded cast. After all, voters gave Oppenheimer three acting noms, with two ultimately winning as the 3-hour biopic became an unstoppable award-winning force.

Matt Damon is positioned to thrive here. He’s been nominated for his performances three times before — Good Will Hunting (Best Actor), Invictus (Best Supporting Actor), and The Martian (Best Actor). His familiarity and commanding lead role should prop him up in awards conversations.

Anne Hathaway very well could follow in Emily Blunt’s shoes and get a Best Supporting Actress nomination (unless Universal campaigns her in as a lead if the category proves to be more open). She’s been nominated twice before in her career, winning the supporting category 13 years ago for Les Misérables. Voters haven’t recognized her since then, but her powerful and emotional turn as Penelope could change that.

Beyond Damon and Hathaway, there are cases to be made for a variety of other The Odyssey cast members getting recognition. Robert Pattinson’s delicious villain turn could get him a Supporting Actor nod, while John Leguizamo may also crash the category thanks to his scene-stealing work as Odysseus’ blind swineherd. Samantha Morton’s horrifying turn as Circe could even put her in the Supporting Actress mix.

Depending on how these categories shake out and which ones voters really respond to (Tom Holland, Zendaya, Charlize Theron, or Himesh Patel could gain steam in the months ahead), The Odyssey could command three acting Oscar nominations. That’d give it a shot at tying Sinners‘ Oscar nominations record of 16.

Will Christopher Nolan Win His Second Best Director Oscar?

Media Punch/INSTARimages

If Nolan lands his third Best Director Oscar nomination as expected, all eyes will be on whether he wins again. There are only 21 multiple Best Director Oscar winners, with Alejandro G. Iñárritu being the last to join the list when he won back-to-back years for Birdman and The Revenant​​​​​​. Nolan could win with back-to-back films, even if three years separate them.

At this stage, Nolan does feel like the frontrunner to win. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are the only other filmmakers who could earn a spot among the movies already released this year if Project Hail Mary maintains its strong support. Nolan’s biggest competition is still to come, which could shake up his standing in the race.

Iñárritu could knock Nolan off the top spot if Digger goes over extremely well. Dune: Part Three‘s reception may propel the Academy to finally crown Denis Villeneuve after snubbing him with the previous two. International filmmakers like Cristian Mungiu (Fjord) or Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo (La Bola Negra) could unseat them all with their features.

But if The Odyssey is going to come close to getting a record Oscar nomination count, that will only add to Nolan’s case to win Best Director again. While its way too early to firmly predict the 2027 Oscars results, Nolan is the undisputed favorite in this category right now.

Is The Odyssey Definitely Going To Win Best Picture?

Credit: Everett Collection

Similarly, The Odyssey has established itself as the Best Picture frontrunner midway through 2026. This was already the position it entered the year in, but it could have been overthrown with a lesser response. The euphoric reactions have propped Nolan’s movie up as another masterpiece, perhaps the best of his career, and certainly one of the best movies of 2026.

All that points to The Odyssey being a Best Picture favorite. It does have the tough road ahead of managing a campaign for eight months to maintain that position, though. This didn’t hinder Universal and Nolan from propelling Oppenheimer to its Best Picture win, but the narrative around it and The Odyssey are very different.

One of the big pushes for Oppenheimer was that it was Nolan’s time to have a Best Picture winner as part of his filmography. Inception and Dunkirk fell short of winning after their nominations. The Dark Knight​​​​​​’s missed nomination drew so much outcry that the Academy changed its rules to increase its Best Picture slots from five to 10 the following year.

The Odyssey will have to have a completely different campaign. Nolan has a Best Picture winner now and had his crowning achievement. The Odyssey is a bigger, more epic film, the type of which Hollywood rarely makes nowadays. That could be where it gains its momentum, becoming a chance to show love to a genre with Best Picture history (Ben-Hur, Lawrence of Arabia, Titanic, etc.) but has fallen by the wayside.

If that narrative takes, and if any other major contenders falter, Best Picture may just be The Odyssey‘s to lose.

How Many Oscars The Odyssey Could Win Overall

With awards season yet to kick off in full force, The Odyssey has a long way to go to officially become an Oscar winner. At the very least, it should be a below-the-line winning machine. The volume of nominations it should receive makes it difficult to imagine any scenario where The Odyssey ends March 14, 2027, with less than four wins.

The best-case scenario for The Odyssey is a historic win total. Ben-Hur, Titanic, and The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King hold the Oscars record for movies with the most wins at 11.

If Nolan’s movie does come out on top in Best Picture and Director, wins for Cinematography, Film Editing, Sound, Score, Casting, Costume Design, Production Design, and two of the acting categories would tie the record. Should it manage victories in Adapted Screenplay, VFX, Makeup and Hairstyling, or even Original Song, a new all-time high win total could be set.

At this point, the most likely range of wins is between three and seven. That’s the range that every Best Picture winner has fallen under since 2010, and where 75 of 98 Best Picture winners overall finished. But if The Odyssey establishes itself as a one-of-a-kind, once-in-a-century, generational movie, Nolan’s epic may just go higher.

Release Date

July 17, 2026

Runtime

172 Minutes