USA | UK 2026
Opening July 16, 2026
Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Writing credits: Christopher Nolan, Homer
Principal actors: Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Zendaya, Charlize Theron
Oscar® winning writer-director Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer, 2023) took on the formidable challenge to visually interpret one of Greek literature’s greatest ancient poems, Homer’s the Odyssey. The British director’s eponymous film is a more transparent depiction. Hidden meanings, often dark, grim or of moral/social concerns, are embedded in English nursery rhymes, e.g. “Jack and Jill,” the German Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales, e.g., “Little Snow-White,” and oral folktales, e.g., “Cinderella,” the Greek story of “Rhodopis” from the first century BCE. So is it with the Odyssey.
Following the twenty-four-book epic set in the otherworldliness of Ancient Greece inhabited by humans, gods, and mythical creatures, Nolan begins in the middle as does the original. Almost twenty years since leaving Ithaca king Odysseus (Matt Damon’s career-best performance) is trying to get home after fiercely warring with Troy (present-day northwest Turky), the major trading center controlling access between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, anxious to reunite with his son and wife. On the island, Odysseus’s wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and son Telemachus (Tom Holland), bound by Zeus's law, struggle keeping the wolves at bay, i.e., ill-mannered suitors led by wily Antinous (Robert Pattinson) wanting to marry Penelope usurping Odysseus’s throne; they are devouring Ithaca’s supplies like human vacuums. Eumaeus (John Leguizamo), Odysseus's blind servant mentor and (Ryan Hurst), Telemachus’s mentor, remain loyal to the court.
The Greek king Agamemnon (Benny Safdie) and Odysseus take different routes home. Challenges, catastrophes and confusion accompany Odysseus and crew’s grueling journey lurching from one crisis to another running into Sirens, the massive whirlpool Charybdis and Scylla, the six-headed sea monster, et al. And gods, goddesses and seers: Athena (Zendaya), Cyclops Polyphemus (Bill Irwin), Teiresias (James Remar), the enchantresses Circe (Samantha Morton, a rather amusing encounter), and Calypso (Charlize Theron, a major distraction). Oftentimes it was “easy to land, impossible to leave.”
Nolan literally integrated the grandiose cast led by an A-list team into his ambitious project: Damon’s beard is homegrown and physical training was intense; twenty actors climbed into the horse, along with the director and cinematographer shooting in real (claustrophobic) time. Mixing myth and history Nolan links the Odyssey and the Trojan War through the characters of Helen of Troy (Lupita Nyong’o also as Clytemnestra) and Sinon (Elliot Page). The crew relished and rose to the challenge of cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema shooting on the acutely accurate IMAX 70mm cameras utilizing more than 610 kilometers (two million feet) of celluloid on locations in Morocco, Greece, the Italian Aegadian island of Favignana, Scotland, Iceland, and the US. Recurring Nolan collaborators are editor Jennifer Lame, visual effects supervisor Andrew Jackson; Lame’s preoccupation with battlefields neglected audiences need to concentrate on the dense storyline, regardless of its length. Composer Ludwig Göransson’s bygone music makes use of Greek instruments: the aulos flute, the lyre, and various bronze gongs.
Die Odyssee’s themes are ancient and revelatory ranging from family issues, love, loyalty, betrayal, and the debilitating effects of war, while exploring empathy, compassion. His ten-year-long homeward struggle returns a hardened, wiser Odysseus to Ithaca, in keeping with “Zeus's Law,” hope, love, and cohesive societal harmony. 172 minutes (Marinell H.)