YNOT at the Movies

Director Christopher Nolan spent sixteen years chasing an all-IMAX feature, and he finally made "The Odyssey" (UK/USA 2026 | 172 min.). Like the incredible journey told in the film, the film itself is incredible to watch in the 70mm format on IMAX, a genuine spectacle, shot across six countries (Morocco, Greece, Italy, Iceland, Scotland, and the U.S.) with real ships and thousands of extras on a burning set.

The film adapts Homer's ancient Greek epic poem, one of the foundational texts of Western literature, believed to have been composed around the 8th century BCE. It follows Odysseus (Matt Damon), king of Ithaca, in the years after the Trojan War, as he tries to sail home and is instead dragged through a series of hostile gods, monsters, and supernatural islands. The Trojan War itself was sparked when a young Trojan man took Helen (Lupita Nyong'o), queen of Sparta, from her husband Menelaus (Jon Bernthal) and brought her back to Troy.

Back in Ithaca, Odysseus's wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) fends off a palace full of suitors pressuring her to remarry, led by Antinous (Robert Pattinson), while their son Telemachus (Tom Holland) comes of age searching for any word that his father is still alive. After a few years, Odysseus defies the gods and endures tremendous ordeals to complete the journey back home.

The filmmaking is exceptional. Whether it's the massed torchlight of the sack of Troy or the real ocean crossings on a genuine Norwegian longship, Nolan's commitment to shooting practically shows up on screen in a way visual effects alone couldn't fake. Nolan shot the entire film with IMAX film cameras, a first for a fiction feature, using a newly engineered camera housing (nicknamed "the blimp," later renamed The Keighley) that finally solved the decades-old problem of the camera being too loud to record dialogue on set. You feel that scale in every frame.

The performances are top notch throughout. Lupita Nyong'o takes on a dual role as both Helen and her twin sister Clytemnestra, queen of Mycenae, finding distinct notes in two women trapped in very different marriages. Matt Damon never smiles once during the entire movie. He plays a sad warrior, a man worn down by ten years of war before the movie even gives him room to grieve it.

However, the mystery might be a bit hard to understand, particularly what the monsters and gods actually are and why they're attacking the warriors. Viewers unfamiliar with Homer's book may find it challenging to keep up with figures like the witch Circe (Samantha Morton), the nymph Calypso (Charlize Theron), and the goddess Athena (Zendaya), who repeatedly intervenes on Odysseus's behalf, without much scaffolding for who they are or what they want.

You can also mirror the war in the movie with reality here, and it resonates. The invasion and conquest at the heart of the story lives on in thousands of years of human history, even though this particular story isn't quite real Greek history to begin with. That tension between myth and modern recognition is what makes the siege of Troy land as more than spectacle.

Homer's poem took generations of oral storytellers to become myth. Nolan's version needed six countries, a 300-pound camera, and a cast and crew willing to row real oars and hike real hillsides to make it real. Both were worth it.

"The Odyssey" opens in theaters on Friday, July 17, 2026.