Find music like The Odyssey soundtrack for your content
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Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is one of 2026’s biggest cinema events, and the soundtrack is one of its most striking features. Here are five tracks to give your content that widescreen, Bronze Age feel.
Yun Jae Young – Kyung-Geum
Nolan gave composer Ludwig Göransson a seemingly impossible task for The Odyssey: no orchestra. Flutes, gongs, a lyre, and more created an authentic atmosphere alongside eerie electronics and choral passages.
Yun Jae Young’s Kyung-Geum captures the unmoored, chaotic feel of the battles, the travel, the pure scale and endlessness of it all. The ceremonial drums and aggressive cymbals disregard tempo, giving it a stressful musical spine to match the closing throes of Göransson’s Cyclops segment.
DEX 1200 – Tunnels
Period instrumentation plays a huge part in The Odyssey, but the role of modern sounds can’t be overstated. DEX 1200’s Tunnels brings strings and a monstrous, sub-heavy drone to proceedings, acting as a low-key counterpart to Göransson’s Another Name.
Dian Shuai – Return of the Longship
Dian Shuai balances high-seas hope and woe during Return of the Longship. It’s slow. Magisterial. Perhaps more immediately epic, with pipes popping off and vocal chants a-chanting, but it still takes you on a journey. Across just two and a half minutes, it touches on both the melancholy and majestic aspects heard throughout The Odyssey soundtrack.
Johan Landqvist – Whispers of the Deep
The Odyssey soundtrack uses leitmotifs to tie key characters and details to specific musical sequences; everything from Odysseus stringing his bow to the traumatic sacking of Troy is given personality through music.
Johan Landqvist’s three-note callback anchors itself through Whispers of the Deep, traversing strings, sweeping piano, and electronics to find its way home. The Odyssey soundtrack is often dark and straight-up terrifying, but Landqvist digs through the dirt to find some light.
Hampus Naeselius – Downshift
The Odyssey’s nail-biting finale, backed by The Trial of the Bow / Vengeance, pours the sound and sheer weight of a three-hour film into one last blast. The callbacks, the percussion, the escalation — it’s overwhelming. Hampus Naeselius’ Downshift marches to a similar beat, pitting drums and electronics against primal strings.
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Frequently asked questions about The Odyssey soundtrack
Who did the soundtrack for The Odyssey?
Ludwig Göransson composed the soundtrack for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. The two had previously worked together on Tenet and Oppenheimer, the latter of which won Göransson the Academy Award for Best Original Score in 2024. For The Odyssey, he based the music around reconstructed ancient instruments and electronics, rather than a traditional film orchestra.
Why doesn’t The Odyssey soundtrack have an orchestra?
There were no orchestras in ancient Greece, and Christopher Nolan wanted the music to reflect the world the film depicts in an “earthy, accessible” way. Ludwig Göransson worked with archaeomusicologists and ethnomusicologists to research and rebuild instruments from the period.
What instruments are used in The Odyssey soundtrack?
Ludwig Göransson centered The Odyssey’s soundtrack around instruments from the Bronze Age depicted in the film. The core instruments include:
- The aulos, a double-piped wind instrument reconstructed for the recordings
- A lyre
- 35 bronze gongs
- The fyell, an Albanian end-blown flute
- Albanian iso-polyphonic folk singing
- Synthesizers
- Scrap metal
What’s the difference between The Odyssey’s score and its soundtrack?
A score is music, usually instrumental, written to accompany on-screen action. A soundtrack can include that music, plus other tracks featured in the film. Ludwig Göransson’s score accounts for 22 of The Odyssey’s 23 tracks. The closing track, When I’m Home, is an original song rather than part of the score. Göransson wrote When I’m Home with Christopher Nolan, plus musicians Travis Scott and James Blake. The song plays during The Odyssey’s closing credits.
Does The Odyssey have a theme song?
The Odyssey doesn’t have a theme song or theme tune, but it does contain some strong leitmotifs. The story’s protagonist, Odysseus, has a simple theme that repeats at various points throughout the film, often in different musical arrangements.
When was The Odyssey soundtrack released?
Ludwig Göransson’s soundtrack for The Odyssey was released digitally on July 17, 2026, the same day the film opened in theaters. Back Lot Music distributed the album, which is available now via streaming, download, and physical media.
Can I use music from The Odyssey soundtrack in my own videos?
No. The Odyssey soundtrack is traditionally licensed music with multiple rights holders. Using it without a license in commercial or monetized content can lead to copyright claims, demonetization, and takedowns. If you want music with a similar feel, try the tracks listed in this article. Epidemic Sound’s music comes with a direct license, and anything published during an active subscription is cleared forever.
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