The Odyssey Review: The Wait Was Worth It

[00:00:00]Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey is arguably the single most anticipated movie of 2026.

[00:00:06]>> No one can stand between me and home.

[00:00:09]How do you get the gods?

[00:00:11]>> Since it was first revealed as the Oscar-winning filmmaker's next project in 2024, Nolan's devoted fan base and cinephiles alike have waited with baited breath for updates on his adaptation of the ancient Greek poem. Gradually, casting news trickled out as he built a stacked ensemble centered on Matt Damon as Odysseus, the king of Ithaca waylaid on route back home after orchestrating [music] the Greeks' victory in the Trojan War. Anne Hathaway as his faithful, strong-willed wife Penelope, and Tom Holland as their son Telemachus.

[00:00:39]As Nolan's follow-up to Oppenheimer, the record-breaking, box office busting smash hit that also won him a pair of Oscars with best director and best picture, it's safe to say the pressure was on to deliver [music] with The Odyssey. That's not even to mention that its source material is one of the oldest, most famous stories in human history. A sprawling tale of adventure, the gods, political intrigue, romance, and one man's hubris.

[00:01:03]Incredibly, The Odyssey checks all the boxes of a summer blockbuster. Nolan's film is an exhilarating, magnificent spectacle that near perfectly balances the epic scale of Homer's adventure story with a narrative that's both deeply, intimately human, and surprisingly prescient.

[00:01:20]The Odyssey's ensemble cast is uniformly excellent. Damon is the linchpin around which The Odyssey revolves. He is staggering as the narrative weaves between past and present, embodying very different versions of the king of Ithaca at different points in his life. His Odysseus is in turn pompous, powerful, arrogant, broken, guarded, and defeated.

[00:01:41]Damon transforms both physically, believably playing the warrior over a span of two decades, and emotionally.

[00:01:47]It's a powerhouse performance and it ranks among the best of Damon's career, up there with Goodwill Hunting, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and The Departed.

[00:01:55]Anne Hathaway similarly delivers a career-best performance as Penelope.

[00:02:00]Nolan's iteration of Homer's character is imbued with even more depth and complexity. She is in turn heartbroken and enraged, wanting her husband, revenge, and recognition for the years she spent ruling underappreciated and unacknowledged in Odysseus's absence.

[00:02:14]Her scenes with Robert Pattinson's Antinous, her most slimy, conniving suitor, are particularly electric, allowing Penelope's vulnerability to shine. Pattinson plays Antinous with an oily charm and a face that somehow gets more punchable as the 172-minute runtime chugs along. That makes him instantly compelling and deeply unsettling. In short, he is the perfect villain.

[00:02:35]Holland, meanwhile, gives Telemachus a boyish earnestness that keeps the younger man from feeling like a mere extension of his famous father. He is searching not only for Odysseus, the father he never knew, but for a sense of who he's supposed to become. That uncertainty gives the film another emotional anchor, and the eventual scenes Damon and Holland share together are some of the film's most beautiful and emotional. The Odyssey is populated by warriors, rulers, gods, and monsters, but Nolan and his cast rarely lose sight of the human motives beneath the mythology. Pride, grief, fear, loyalty, and resentment drive nearly every character, lending even the most heightened sequences a groundedness that's entirely human.

[00:03:15]Visually and sonically, The Odyssey is a masterpiece. Nolan's world-building is famous for a reason, with Inception as perhaps the best example of the singular distinct nature of his stories. The jaw-dropping visual effects are at their best during the war sequences and during the various trials Odysseus and his men face on their way home. The Cyclops sequence, the first time the movie gets decidedly mythological, pulls off something that could have been goofy and makes it genuinely tense and terrifying.

[00:03:43]Similarly, the sequence on Circe's island is one of the movie's best.

[00:03:46][music] Samantha Morton is a standout among the supporting cast, giving Circe an eerie stillness. Most people who have even a passing familiarity with the original text know exactly what happens to Odysseus and his men when they encounter the witch on their journey.

[00:04:00]The actual scene is more visceral and horrifying than our reviewer could have anticipated. And again, a major triumph for both the movie's visual effects team and Nolan's careful direction. The sound design is just as overwhelming as the imagery. As is the score by Ludwig Göransson, who previously teamed with Nolan for Oppenheimer's Oscar-winning soundscape and the criminally underrated 20 20 sci-fi thriller Tenet. Battles are chaotic and loud without becoming incoherent. While the quieter stretches at sea use creaking wood, crashing waves, and long pockets of silence to build dread. Nolan understands that Odysseus's journey is as much about waiting for disaster as it is surviving it. Our reviewer won't be remotely shocked if the pulse-pounding score from The Odyssey nets Göransson back-to-back Academy Award wins following his sinner's trophy earlier this year. For all its spectacle though, The Odyssey is most effective when it slows down.

[00:04:49]The scenes in Ithaca where Penelope and Telemachus contend with a court that has grown increasingly hostile provide necessary breathing room. As do Odysseus's frame story scenes with Charlize Theron's Calypso, another female character like Circe and Penelope, who Nolan's script imbues with more complexity and depth. They also prevent Odysseus's adventure from becoming a disconnected series of trials that could have come across as formulaic. Every monster and foolhardy miscalculation carries weight because the audience understands exactly what is waiting for our hero at home.

[00:05:19]The Odyssey is a monumental achievement.

[00:05:22]The movie is not entirely effortless though. It's non-linear structure occasionally makes an already dense and long story more difficult to follow. And some supporting characters inevitably receive less attention than the caliber of the cast may suggest. Zendaya, while excellent as Athena, doesn't have much to do other than stare judgmentally at Odysseus and barely appears. Lupita Nyong'o, in dual roles as the emotionally and physically scarred Helen of Troy and Agamemnon's murderous wife, Clytemnestra, is a standout whose few scenes leave viewers wanting more. Yet, those are minor drawbacks in a project this ambitious, especially when the remains emotionally coherent while moving across kingdoms, years, and mythological realms. More importantly, Nolan finds a compelling modern resonance in the material without forcing contemporary language or ideas into the ancient setting. This is a story about the cost of war, the burden of leadership, and the stories powerful men tell about themselves. Odysseus is a hero, but the Odyssey never lets him forget the damage left in his wake. This is ultimately what makes the Odyssey more than an immaculate technical achievement. Beneath the massive battles, impossible creatures, and towering performances is a story with incredible heart about whether a person can truly return home after being transformed by everything that happened along the way. Nolan has made a film worthy of its legendary source material, bold, demanding, deeply moving, and built for the biggest screen possible.

[00:06:44]The wait, incredibly, was worth it. I'm Klein. For all the latest on Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey and more, cbr.com is your place to be.