Christopher Nolan's forthcoming film adaptation of The Odyssey features a recurring, ominous threat known as the "Sea People", a mysterious force said to be marauding across Ithaca and its Mediterranean neighbours while King Odysseus is away. Their presence looms over the story, with Queen Penelope fearing Ithaca is vulnerable without a king able to raise an army against them, and the film later hints that Odysseus and his own forces may themselves have inspired the legend.

Towards the end of the film, Odysseus implies that his army, having arrived by sea and sacked Troy using the wooden horse, may be the origin of the Sea People myth, a theory also held by some historians due to Homer's "Cretan Lie" episode in the original text. In reality, the Sea Peoples were a loose confederation of various groups, including the Peleset (confirmed as the Philistines) and the Shekelesh, thought to have attacked Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean around 1200BC, largely evidenced by inscriptions at the Egyptian temple of Medinet Habu. Historians remain uncertain of their exact identity, whether they caused or merely reflected the Bronze Age collapse, and note they likely resembled displaced communities rather than organised armies.