The Odyssey isn't enough to decode the great mystery of Christopher Nolan

Christopher Nolan is one of the most famous movie directors alive. His films — including Inception, Interstellar, and Oppenheimer — have been seen by hundreds of millions of people around the world. Yet even after making 13 films, Nolan remains a mystery. His new film, The Odyssey, gives fans one of their best chances yet to understand what makes this director tick.

Nolan's new film is based on the ancient Greek story of the same name. It stars Matt Damon as Odysseus, a war hero trying to get home to his wife Penelope, played by Anne Hathaway, and his son Telemachus, played by Tom Holland. The journey is long and dangerous, and the story is about how hard it can be to return to your family after being away for a long time. This theme — family being separated — shows up again and again in Nolan's movies.

Think about it: in Memento, The Prestige, Inception, and Interstellar, the main characters have all lost their wives. In the Dark Knight films, Batman's parents are long dead, and a butler figure steps in like a father. In Inception, Leonardo DiCaprio's character is kept away from his children by the law. Nolan keeps returning to stories about parents and children being apart, and many fans wonder why.

Some movie fans think directors focus on difficult family relationships in their films because of their own tough childhoods. But Nolan's childhood doesn't seem to have been difficult at all. His mother was a flight attendant and teacher, and his father was an advertising executive who loved and supported his sons. In fact, it was his father who took young Christopher to see films like Star Wars and gave him a camera to make his own movies.

Today, Nolan is a father of four grown children. His wife, Dame Emma Thomas, is a producer who has worked on every single one of his films. His children also worked behind the scenes on The Odyssey. So unlike Odysseus, who had to leave his family behind, Nolan actually brings his family along for the ride.

But there is one part of Nolan's family story that stands out as truly unusual. In 2009, his older brother Matthew was arrested by the FBI. Authorities from Costa Rica wanted to try him for murder, and court documents even claimed he had worked as a paid killer. Matthew denied all of this, and a U.S. judge decided there was not enough proof to send him to Costa Rica — but Matthew was still sent to prison after trying to escape from a jail in Chicago.

Neither Christopher nor Jonathan has ever spoken publicly about their older brother. A 2010 newspaper report said Matthew was once thought to be the most charming of the three boys, and that people might have expected him — not Christopher — to become the famous filmmaker. The report also said the brothers had drifted apart over the years, with Christopher and Jonathan becoming close while Matthew went a separate way.

Some fans point out that many of Nolan's characters lead secret lives or are running from the law, and wonder if his brother's story has influenced his work. One report even said that Matthew once used a fake name that included the word 'Oppenheimer' — the same name as Christopher Nolan's 2023 film. That is almost certainly a coincidence, but it is the kind of detail that makes people stop and think.

In recent films, Nolan has started to show more of his political views. Both The Odyssey and Oppenheimer deal with serious moral questions around war and world politics. That is a new kind of openness for a director who used to keep his opinions to himself. But his personal life remains, for now, a closed book.

Watching a Nolan film is a bit like trying to solve a puzzle without all the pieces. His movies are clearly about something deep and real, even if he won't say exactly what. Some people hope he will one day make a personal film like Steven Spielberg's The Fabelmans, which helped explain much of Spielberg's life and work. Until then, searching for meaning in Nolan's films is not just fun — it is exactly what great filmmaking is meant to inspire.