Film Review: The Odyssey

5 Stars

By Joseph Beyer | Aug. 1, 2026

Spoiler alert: the book was better. But in a post-literate world (and in the hands of translator and director Christopher Nolan), The Odyssey has roared back to life 3,000+ years after the first telling not just as the epic and mythic Greek tale attributed to the poet Homer and handed down for millennia, but now as an IMAX big-screen movie experience playing on almost 4,000 screens across America while becoming a contemporary cultural phenomenon.

How it came to be that the Oscar-winning director Nolan launched this creative act of bravery and succeeded, only the gods can explain. But we, the audiences, are the beneficiaries of perhaps the oldest example of “existing IP” in movie studio history.

From the opening salvo delivered by rap artist Travis Scott in the spirit of oral storytelling and the lyrical verses of Homer’s original, to the final frames that come quicker than the 2 hour 52 minute running time might suggest, Nolan and his (mostly) exceptional cast deliver what is sure to be the most lauded drama of the year.

If you prefer CliffsNotes, then you probably know the basic arc of the warrior Odysseus (Matt Damon in an inspired turn), who spends a precious amount of his life trying to get home after the Trojan War and must fight against the gods, nature, man, and himself to get there. Drawing him back is his deep desire to be reunited with wife Penelope (a fiery and unexpected Anne Hathaway) and a son he hardly knew, Telemachus (played without gusto by Tom Holland).

We learn how Odysseus lost his way, what happened in the bloody war, and what the gods have in mind for his future. Homer’s original is roughly 120,000 words long, but in the hands of Nolan—working here as sole writer as well as director—this Odyssey sings in the colloquial and feels remarkably relatable and passionate even as it strips itself of verse and exaggerated effects. The audience is trusted to pick up the film’s language and style and navigate a complex web of truths and consequences in a time long ago and far away, but still just as violent and unpredictable as today.

No one and nothing lingers in The Odyssey, and the pace of time and space Nolan blends is relentless and gripping in tempo, enhanced by the subdued but powerful score by composer Ludwig Göransson, who creates a post-modernistic soundscape for the past, present, and future spanned in the adaptation.

Commanding the praise alongside Nolan is Damon as Odysseus, who brings all the pathos and passion to a role of a lifetime and creates an inner journey of immense feeling.

He’s backed by an ensemble of star performances that are riveting and unexpected from an unrecognizable John Leguizamo as Eumaeus, to a subtle and manipulative dance from Charlize Theron as Calypso, to Robert Pattinson as the conniving suitor Antinous. Never to be forgotten is Samantha Morton as the mesmerizing Circe, who curses Odysseus’ crew with a feminine energy combining prosciutto and Pussy Riot vibes.

If The Odyssey had any shortcomings for me, they would first and foremost be the sometimes dismal dialogue editing, which had everyone straining to understand what seemed, at times, like critical information, creating a maddening soft mumblecore that seemed entirely unbefitting of Dolby.

The other would be Holland’s sometimes lackluster performance as a son seeking to avenge his father, even as he has to be provoked like Hamlet to take up the journey and seek the truth about his fate. At times the innocence worked, but later fell short for me and felt out of equilibrium with the stakes at hand.

Some familiar chapters of the story are also less saucy than you might remember, but others are more profound and mythological. The brilliant and sophisticated treatment of the gods and the mystical, an amazing visual landscape fit for a moral canvas of choice and destiny, and a true conversation piece with friends is more than we can usually expect for the price of a ticket.

Nolan and his collaborators delivered, reminding hungry audiences what a sweeping and all-encompassing experience cinema can be, still.

In a world of attention management chaos and micro-dialogue, The Odyssey of 2026 has managed to slow it down and remind us of a human thread we come from, when the thunder and lightning and oceans were the realm of the magical and a story could connect us all.