Homer’s Odyssey features two giant-sized races: the Cyclopes and the Laestrygones. The Cyclopes are savage, lawless, gigantic shepherds. The most famous of these was Polyphemus, son of Poseidon, whose encounter with the hero Odysseus is one of Greek mythology’s best-known episodes. When Polyphemus traps Odysseus and his companions in his cave, he dismisses the hero’s appeal to the sacred custom of hospitality (Greek: xenia), declaring that the Cyclopes fear no gods. Odysseus escapes by blinding Polyphemus with a heated olive-wood stake. Odysseus then encounters the Laestrygones. They sink his fleet by flinging huge boulders at the ships and eat the sailors after dragging them to shore. The surviving ship, with Odysseus on board, escapes the carnage by quickly sailing away.
Both plot lines are featured in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey (2026), though some details were changed. Notably, he omits the famous dialogue between Odysseus and Polyphemus, making the giant mostly silent. In the encounter with the Laestrygones, Odysseus and his crew first meet them on land, where a battle ensues. When the Greek warriors flee back to the shore, the Laestrygones capture and destroy two of the ships, and only Odysseus’s craft escapes to the open sea.