Ben Shapiro Calls Nolan's 'The Odyssey' a Masterpiece, Rebukes Conservative Critics

Ben Shapiro moved to separate himself from a wave of conservative backlash against Christopher Nolan's new film The Odyssey, publishing an 18-minute YouTube review on the movie's opening day in which he called it a work of exceptional filmmaking and urged fellow right-leaning commentators to recalibrate their approach to cultural criticism.

Shapiro's Assessment of the Film

According to TheWrap, Shapiro rated The Odyssey between an 8.5 and a 9, describing the film flatly as "a masterpiece." He praised Nolan as the finest director working in Hollywood today, arguing that the filmmaker consistently delivers films of lasting cultural weight. Shapiro acknowledged that the adaptation does not adhere entirely to the Robert Fagles translation of Homer's epic, but said that deviation was insufficient reason to dismiss the project.

Casting Disputes at the Center of Conservative Criticism

Much of the pre-release conservative displeasure centered on two casting decisions: Lupita Nyong'o as Helen of Troy and Elliot Page as the Greek soldier Sinon. Shapiro addressed both directly, though his responses differed sharply.

On Nyong'o, Shapiro defended the choice by pointing to how Nolan's screenplay itself reframes Helen's role, noting that the script deliberately shifts the narrative away from Helen's physical appearance as the central cause of the Trojan War. That contextual rewrite, Shapiro argued, neutralizes the most obvious objection to the casting.

His treatment of Page's casting was considerably more critical. Shapiro called it an "absolute puzzler," contending that the physical and vocal presentation created an implausible portrayal of the character as written. Shapiro misgendered Page throughout that portion of the review — Page uses he/him and they/them pronouns — a decision that drew its own attention alongside the broader casting debate.

A Message Aimed at the Right

The more pointed section of Shapiro's review was directed not at Nolan but at conservative commentators who predicted the film would fail commercially because of its casting choices. Shapiro pushed back on that framing with visible frustration, arguing that audiences demonstrated a willingness to set aside specific grievances when a film delivers on entertainment.

His broader argument carried a strategic undertone: that labeling an entire work of art as worthless because of a single flawed decision is both intellectually lazy and politically counterproductive. "If conservatives want to be effective in the culture," he said, "you can't just label the entire piece of art 'bad' because a decision in the art is bad."

The statement reflects a tension that has surfaced repeatedly within right-leaning media circles — a debate over whether reflexive boycott culture serves as a meaningful form of leverage or simply cedes cultural ground. That dynamic mirrors broader discussions about how political movements engage with institutions they feel excluded from, a question that extends well beyond Hollywood. Ramaphosa's government braces for June 30 anti-immigrant protests and Albanese's push to toughen Australia's under-16 social media ban each reflect similar tensions between populist pressure and institutional response in their respective contexts.

Context and Significance

Shapiro's willingness to publicly break with conservative consensus on a high-profile cultural flashpoint is notable given his platform. His media operation, The Daily Wire, has itself attempted to produce alternative entertainment content as a counter to what it frames as ideologically compromised Hollywood output. A near-9 rating for a major studio film amid a conservative backlash cycle cuts against that positioning to some degree.

The review did not soften his objections to Page's casting, but it drew a firm line between criticizing a specific element and condemning a film wholesale — a distinction Shapiro argued the right has been slow to make.

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