Rating: R | Runtime: 173 minutes
Release Date: July 17th, 2026 (USA)
Studio: Universal Pictures
Director(s): Christopher Nolan
Writer(s): Christopher Nolan / Homer (novel)

It was the song of all the promises I couldn’t keep.

Christopher Nolan looked at all the themes in Homer’s The Odyssey and chose one as a foundation for his adaptation: xenia, or Zeus’s Law. It’s an interesting in-road that points to which portions of Odysseus’s journey to focus on as evidence of its dissolution (intruding on the Cyclops, Laestrygonians, and Circe) while also mirroring the suitors in Ithaca who have been exploiting Penelope’s adherence to it for personal gain. The Trojan Horse becomes Pandora’s Box.

While a nice narrative fix to ensure you can pack as much as possible into a feature-length runtime (although many would say three hours takes it well past that), it does also mean that those obstacles are often reduced to pawns in service of that brevity. They’re utilized for the spectacle and thrills of an IMAX-scale experience. Bill Irwin lends his Cyclops sympathy through animal impulse while Samantha Morton’s Circe exemplifies our current paranoid mania.

The epic poem is thus being wielded as a comment on today’s hate and fear. It asks that we treat our neighbors as we would like to be treated while also teaching us how ignorance isn’t an excuse for violence. Sure, wrapping that all up in Odysseus’s guilt trip (handled very well by Matt Damon) often presents him as the victim, but that’s the point since the script is literally building towards the reveal of him being the danger from sea all along. Fighting vs. hunting, etc.

Wild that so much has been made about Lupita Nyong’o and Elliot Page’s presence despite both having a combined (maybe) five minutes of screen time while Himesh Patel is almost always by Damon’s side, but the former definitely ginned up interest online (all press is good press). Charlize Theron’s Calypso and Zendaya’s “Athena” (the Wizard of Oz effect makes it so, just like with Troy, no Gods are actually used) are sadly wasted, but that’s what happens when every side character is an A-list celebrity.

The film looks amazing, though. Morton, Page’s Sinon (especially in Hades), and John Leguizamo’s Eumaeus are the unquestioned acting highlights, but how can you not love Robert Pattinson’s Antinous hiding behind a column while yelling for everyone else to pick up the swords and shields being thrown from the ceiling? I don’t remember if Sinon and Antinous’s connection here is in the book since I read it decades ago, but it’s Nolan’s most memorable and crucial piece.

If only he ended things with Damon and Anne Hathway setting sail for the new Highmark Stadium, the poster tagline could have been “Be good, do good. God bless, and Go Bills.” Because, when you boil it all down, that’s the sentiment. Well, that and therapy. After seven years on Calypso’s couch processing his complicity in setting the world on fire, Odysseus was finally able to return home and put his untrained son in charge of cleaning his generation’s mess.

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L to R: Matt Damon is Odysseus and Zendaya is Athena in THE ODYSSEY, written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan. Photo by Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures. © Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.