The Odyssey (2026)

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About

Odysseus, King of Ithaca, fights his way home across ten years of sea and war after the fall of Troy, while the household he left behind is slowly overrun in his absence.

Christopher Nolan's adaptation opens by cutting between the Trojan horse on a beach near Troy and Odysseus held on the island of the nymph Calypso, before settling in Ithaca. There Penelope is besieged by a mob of suitors who have installed themselves in her home, led by the arrogant Antinous, and her son Telemachus is left trying to defend a mother and a kingdom he is not yet strong enough to protect.

Odysseus's memory has been bewitched by Calypso, and the account of his long journey home emerges in a cascade of flashbacks rather than a straight line, a structure that lets Nolan tell a three-thousand-year-old story in the fractured, time-folding style that has defined his work.

Cast and characters

Matt Damon plays Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, and Anne Hathaway is Penelope, the wife holding his household together through twenty years of absence. Tom Holland plays their son Telemachus, and Robert Pattinson is Antinous, the ringleader of the suitors who have installed themselves in the palace.

The gods and enchantresses are played by Zendaya as Athena, Charlize Theron as the nymph Calypso of Ogygia, and Samantha Morton as the witch Circe of Aeaea. Lupita Nyong'o takes a dual role as the sisters Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra, opposite Jon Bernthal as Helen's husband Menelaus, king of Sparta, and Benny Safdie as Agamemnon, king of Mycenae.

Among Odysseus's men and household, Himesh Patel plays his second-in-command Eurylochus, John Leguizamo the blind swineherd Eumaeus, Elliot Page the soldier Sinon, and Jovan Adepo the doomed Elpenor. James Remar appears as the blind prophet Tiresias, and Bill Irwin performed the Cyclops Polyphemus on set. In Ithaca, Mia Goth plays the disloyal maidservant Melantho, Logan Marshall-Green the dishonest cowherd Melanthius, Ryan Hurst Telemachus's teacher Mentor, and Kate Fuglei the loyal nurse Eurycleia.

Ending explained

Nolan's ending departs from Homer. Odysseus returns to Ithaca in disguise, wins the contest of the bow and kills the suitors, with a particular reckoning reserved for Antinous, and is reunited with Penelope. But the slaughter does not restore him to his throne. He is exiled from Ithaca for it, and the kingdom passes to Telemachus.

The film closes with Odysseus and Penelope sailing west together into the setting sun, honouring the charge laid on him in the Underworld by the men he could not bury: that he sail out into the unknown. Where the poem ends with Odysseus home, the film argues that he was never destined to stay there.

Runtime and format

The Odyssey runs 172 minutes, or two hours and 52 minutes. It is rated R in the United States and 15 in the United Kingdom, and is the first feature in history shot entirely with IMAX film cameras.

Details

Director: Christopher Nolan

Writer/Screenplay: Christopher Nolan, based on the epic poem by Homer

Producer: Emma Thomas, Christopher Nolan


Running time: 172 minutes (2 hr 52 min)

Certificate: R (United States) / 15 (United Kingdom)

Budget: $250 million

Box office: $1.291 billion worldwide ($504.7 million domestic, $786.2 million international)

Genre: Action, Adventure, Fantasy

Released: July 17, 2026 (United States and United Kingdom). World premiere July 6, 2026 at the Odeon Luxe Leicester Square, London

Music Composer: Ludwig Göransson

Cast

Soundtrack

Related

Trivia

  • The first feature film in history shot entirely with IMAX film cameras.
  • At a reported $250 million, it is the most expensive film of Christopher Nolan's career.
  • Nolan's first release since Oppenheimer (2023) in 2023.
  • Lupita Nyong'o plays two roles, the sisters Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra.
  • Its 97% Rotten Tomatoes audience score broke a previous Nolan record of 94%, held jointly by Memento, The Dark Knight and Batman Begins.
  • Its 94% critics' score ties Nolan's career best, level with The Dark Knight and Memento. The score opened at 95% in the days after release and settled at 94% as the review count passed 400.
  • It is Nolan's third film to pass $1 billion worldwide, and is now his highest-grossing film.
  • Nolan has said it will be at least three years before his next film.

Critical Reception

The Odyssey drew some of the strongest reviews of Christopher Nolan's career. It holds a 94% approval rating from 495 critics on Rotten Tomatoes, level with The Dark Knight and Memento as his best-reviewed film, and a 97% audience score from more than 25,000 verified ratings, which broke his previous audience record of 94%. Audiences graded it "A" on CinemaScore exit polls. The critics' score opened at 95% in the first days of release and settled at 94% as more reviews were counted.

Critics praised the decision to tell Homer's story out of sequence, arguing that the fractured structure suited both Nolan's instincts and the poem's own habit of doubling back on itself, and singled out Matt Damon's weathered, unheroic Odysseus. The IMAX photography was widely described as the film's defining achievement. Reception was not universal: some reviewers found the pacing uneven across its 172 minutes, even while judging the film a success overall.

Reviews

  • Rotten Tomatoes critics' score of 94% from 495 reviews.
  • Rotten Tomatoes audience score of 97% from more than 25,000 verified ratings, a record for a Nolan film.
  • "A" grade on CinemaScore exit polling.
  • IMDb rating of 8.5 out of 10 from more than 400,000 votes.
  • RogerEbert.com concluded that Christopher Nolan "has done it again".
  • NPR called the film thrilling but uneven, describing it as a homecoming for its director.

Links

Production

The Odyssey was directed by Christopher Nolan from his own screenplay, adapting Homer's epic poem, and produced by Emma Thomas and Nolan for Universal Pictures. Hoyte van Hoytema, Nolan's cinematographer since Interstellar, shot the film, and Ludwig Göransson composed the score.

The production's defining technical choice was to shoot entirely with IMAX film cameras, something no feature had previously attempted. The format is notoriously difficult to work with, the cameras being heavy and loud, and the decision shaped how the film was staged. Location work included shooting in Scotland with Matt Damon, Tom Holland and Zendaya.

At a reported budget of $250 million, it is the most expensive film Nolan has made, and his first since Oppenheimer (2023).

Box Office

The Odyssey opened on July 17, 2026 across 3,919 North American cinemas. Studio estimates put the domestic opening weekend at $124.5 million, which Box Office Mojo later settled at $123.5 million, alongside $139.6 million from 73 international markets for a global opening of roughly $264 million. That was the biggest live-action opening of 2026, behind only Toy Story 5 (2026) among all releases that year, and comfortably exceeded pre-release forecasts for an R-rated, near-three-hour adaptation of an ancient poem.

The film held strongly through the following month. It has grossed $504.7 million in North America and $786.2 million internationally for a worldwide total of $1.291 billion, a little over five times its production budget. International territories account for roughly 61% of the total.

That figure makes The Odyssey the third Christopher Nolan film to pass $1 billion worldwide and, having overtaken his previous best, the highest-grossing film of his career. It is also one of a handful of 2026 releases to reach $1 billion. The performance has been widely attributed to the strength of Nolan's name and to sustained demand for the IMAX presentation, which kept premium-format screens occupied for weeks after release.

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