Film Review – The Odyssey

July 20th, 2026 | POSTED BY Allen Almachar

How does Christopher Nolan follow up his Oscar-winning work in Oppenheimer (2023)? By tackling one of the great foundational works of Western literature, that’s how! In a strange way, Homer’s ancient Greek poem The Odyssey is tailor made for Nolan’s sensibilities. He has always been a filmmaker whose ambition knows no bounds. Whether it is crime thrillers, comic book movies, sci-fi adventures, or historical dramas – Nolan has approached each project in his own unique way. He has never been a linear filmmaker. He loves twisting his narrative in all sorts of directions, playing with time and perspective to uncover emotional and psychological patterns. The Odyssey (2026) fits perfectly into his wheelhouse. Yes, the story has been translated and adapted in all forms of media, and yet Nolan has found a way to give it new life once more. This is an epic of the highest order.

What is there to say about this story that hasn’t already been taught in countless classrooms throughout the world? Odysseus (Matt Damon) – king of Ithaca – has defeated his enemies at Troy after a ten-year war. But his journey home has proven to be an equally difficult challenge (if not more so). Encounters with gods, turbulent weather, monsters, the loss of loyalty from his men, evil temptations, hubris, starvation, and his own self-doubt has added an additional decade onto Odysseus’ voyage home. During that time, Ithaca verges on the precipice of collapse, with Odysseus’ wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) barely managing to keep unruly suitors at bay, and his son Telemachus (Tom Holland) going on his own journey to find his father.

What I described barely scratches the surface of The Odyssey. It’s a work that has been analyzed over and over again, detailing themes of intelligence vs. physicality, hospitality, kindness, vengeance, divine justice, fate vs. free will, etc. – the possibilities are endless. While most of this is already well known, Nolan (who writes and directs) organizes it in a way that reflects his artistic tendencies. The most blatant example involves how nearly all the action is described in flashbacks. Nolan loves to jump around with his timelines, and here he takes that approach to another level. With editor Jennifer Lame, Nolan drops us into various points of the plot and has characters recall important events or pieces of information. Whether it is through Odysseus himself, his trusted friend Eumaeus (John Leguizamo), Telemachus, Penelope, the conniving suitor Antinous (Robert Pattinson), gods and goddesses such as Athena (Zendaya) or Calypso (Charlize Theron), and several others, Nolan packs the narrative with characters constantly telling stories. This makes sense given that The Odyssey was passed down verbally for centuries before Homer ever wrote it down.

The cutting back and forth in time may create a disjointed feeling at first, but it maintains an emotional and thematic consistency. Nolan makes each scene feel like a discovery, tying events so we can see how one moment effects something else down the line. We trace Odysseus’ trajectory from beginning to end – starting as the soldier and gradually questioning if his choices are responsible for the calamities that would follow. Matt Damon gives a stellar performance in the lead role. The baby face look of his youth has been replaced with gray hair, a weathered beard, wrinkle lines, and a body carrying the weight of every battle he has taken part in. Damon plays the character with varying degrees. He makes Odysseus smart, resourceful, and introspective. But on the flipside, he is fully capable of deception and dishonesty to get what he wants. It’s a trickier role than what we would first gather, but Damon handles it like a seasoned veteran.   

The Odyssey is the first motion picture to be fully shot in IMAX. Nolan worked with developers to build lighter and quieter cameras to handle the demands of the 70mm,  1.43:1 aspect ratio format. What ends up on screen is an immersive visual experience that calls to mind the likes of Lawrence of Arabia (1962) or Ben-Hur (1959). Hoyte van Hoytema’s cinematography captures beautiful shots, whether it is the nighttime attack on Troy or Odysseus simply walking by himself alone in the far distance. The visuals are so good, in fact, that Nolan may not have done enough to highlight it. Several scenes have the camera shoot actors in closeup with the edges of the screen blurred out. The constant jumping around in time also took away from the imagery. Whenever we’re given an awe-inspiring shot, the editing cuts away a little too soon. Nolan doesn’t allow enough time to let the visuals breathe. We’re not given many chances to sit back and soak in all the eye candy – it’s as though the narrative is too eager to get to the next scene. To be fair, for a movie that runs almost a full three hours, the opportunities to pause and admire the scenery is slim. But it did seem like there was more room for the IMAX format to flex its muscles.

Christopher Nolan is an old school filmmaker playing in a new school era. His insistence to keep as much of the special effects tangible and “in camera” is admirable. An example of this is when Odysseus and his men run into the infamous cyclops (Bill Irwin). Other productions may rely on computer generated imagery (or worse, AI) to construct the set piece. Nolan and his team opted for a more practical approach, using a combination of forced perspective, lighting and composite photography to make the cyclops appear gigantic. The assertion for tangible effects is further illustrated in the film’s most terrifying sequence featuring the sorceress, Circe (Samantha Morton). I won’t go into details, but the precise editing, make up effects, matter-of-fact tone and Morton’s icy performance makes the scene highly disturbing. These two instances (and many others) are a further argument that well-established, long-practiced cinematic techniques sometimes produce better results – it’s all a matter of when and how to use them.

Did we need yet another version of The Odyssey? No, but under Nolan’s vision, this iteration is both a larger-than-life tale of mythical proportions and an intimate character study. It is less concerned about being one hundred percent accurate to its source material than it is inhabiting the size, scope, and wonder that Homer’s poem elicits. There are countless directors in the world, a portion of which are really good at what they do. An even smaller amount occupy the cultural conversation with each new release. Christopher Nolan is a member of this very exclusive club. 

Anne Hathaway, Ben-Hur, Bill Irwin, Charlize Theron, Christopher Nolan, Featured, Homer, Hoyte van Hoytema, Jennifer Lame, John Leguizamo, Lawrence of Arabia, Matt Damon, Oppenheimer, Robert Pattinson, Samantha Morton, The Odyssey, Tom Holland, Zendaya