Is Nolan's Odyssey Worth Watching?

The film

The Odyssey (2026)

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What this movie is

Nolan filmed Homer. The plot is the one you half-remember from school: Odysseus, king of Ithaca, spends ten years trying to get home from the Trojan War, losing ships and men along the way. At home he is presumed dead. Suitors have taken over the palace and circle his wife Penelope, while his grown son Telemachus sets out to find his father.

The cast looks like an Oscar ceremony seating chart — see for yourself:

• 
  Matt Damon

  Odysseus
• 
  Anne Hathaway

  Penelope
• 
  Robert Pattinson

  Antinous
• 
  Tom Holland

  Telemachus
• 
  Zendaya

  Athena
• 
  Samantha Morton

  Circe
• 
  Charlize Theron

  Calypso
• 
  Lupita Nyong'o

  Helen / Clytemnestra
• 
  Elliot Page

  Sinon

Holland and Zendaya managed to headline both of the summer's biggest movies: the new Spider-Man opened two weeks after The Odyssey with both of them in it. Behind the camera it's the Oppenheimer team: cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema (Interstellar, Dunkirk) and composer Ludwig Göransson, who already owns two Oscars. Shot on IMAX cameras, runs 172 minutes.

Now the numbers, so we don’t manufacture suspense. The film was received extremely well. It opened to $124.5 million in the US and $264 million worldwide, Nolan’s biggest launch ever, ahead of The Dark Knight Rises. Critics have it at 95% on Rotten Tomatoes, audiences at 97%, with an “A” CinemaScore. On paper this is the best-reviewed film of Nolan’s career. But inside that success there are several live arguments. Which side of each one you land on decides whether you get your film of the year or just three beautiful hours.

What almost everyone praises

The look. “Every frame looks like a painting” — lines like that fill the reviews, and more than one outlet calls this the best cinematography of van Hoytema’s career. The Cyclops scene and the Sirens’ song are already being filed under future classics.

The score. For a number of critics, Göransson’s score is the film’s single biggest achievement. He’s being tipped for a fourth Oscar, and winning the composing statuette two years in a row is something almost nobody in the history of the award has done.

Damon. Praised for restraint. One review put it precisely: it’s “the kind of sturdy, grounded performance this material needs to keep three hours of gods and monsters tethered to something human.”

And the theater itself. Critics are close to unanimous here: see it on the biggest screen available, skipping IMAX would be a mistake. Even the reserved reviews agree the film will lose half its meaning at home.

What the arguments are about

Argument one: this isn't that Nolan

The Odyssey is told straight. No big twist, almost no games with time — one review even calculated that the film is more linear than the poem. For some critics that’s the point: RogerEbert.com called it “a rare modern blockbuster that doesn’t feed us lotus flowers.” For others it’s a loss of signature: the simplicity makes the film accessible but strips away the conceptual spark Nolan is loved for, and the “obvious flashbacks” don’t play in the same league as Tenet or Dunkirk. Our read: this is mature Nolan, and if a puzzle is specifically what you come to him for, there isn’t one here.

Argument two: the action

An unexpected weak spot. Several reviews independently describe the final battle as choppy and poorly staged; the harshest verdict says Nolan should finally hire a second unit director for action. The same critics praise the sea sequences and the Cyclops. The spectacle here runs on scale and atmosphere; the fight choreography lags behind. Go in knowing that.

Argument three: Holland

Opinions on him split harder than on any other actor: half the reviews call Telemachus the best work of Holland’s career outside Spider-Man, the other half call it one of the year’s most miscast performances, an actor who never gets on the same wavelength as his scene partners. There is almost no middle. Your own feelings about Holland as an actor are an honest predictor here.

Argument four: the women

This fight has history: Nolan has been criticized for years for writing women who exist to serve the hero’s story. Some reviewers think he finally fixed it here — Penelope, Circe and Athena stop being footnotes, and Hathaway gets called the best thing in the film. The other camp’s problem is with the roles, not the actresses: Homer’s women are cunning and powerful, while the film hands them the position of “divine set dressing.” The sharpest framing came from Madeline Miller, the author of the bestseller Circe and hardly a biased voice on the women of Greek myth: Homer’s Penelope “is absolutely meant to be brilliant,” and in the film that brilliance is dimmed. Notice that both camps praise the performances. The argument is about what the women were given to play.

Argument five: the darkness

Literal darkness in the frame. Part of the film is shot in deep black, and reviewers complain about it outright: “heavy darkness with no clear sense of geography,” “too dark and monochromatic.” The defense says it’s the design — a film about isolation should look like flickering flame in the dark. If “I can’t see anything” in late-era blockbusters drives you up the wall, you’ll meet it here too.

Common questions

How do the three hours feel?

Lighter than they sound. “Feels shorter than its 172-minute runtime” is a line that travels from review to review, and the editing earns it. An honest minority reports sagging around the middle. The runtime is scarier going in than it is once you’re in the seat.

Do I need to know Homer?

No. The story runs on two linear tracks, father and son, converging at the end — reviewers compare the construction to The Godfather Part II, and it works with zero homework. If you know the poem you’ll catch an extra layer, plus the anachronisms that annoy purists. But the film doesn’t check tickets at the door.

Do I need to watch Troy first?

No. The films are unrelated: Troy came out in 2004 with a different director, a different studio and its own take on the myths. All they share is Homer’s universe. In myth chronology Troy covers the war Odysseus is coming home from, so you can treat it as an optional prequel. Everything you need to know about the war, Nolan’s film shows you itself. Odysseus is in Troy too, played by Sean Bean — consider it an unofficial passing of the torch to Damon.

Is IMAX worth the upcharge?

If you’re going at all, yes. This is the rare case where the format is part of the design, and even the reserved reviews agree on that. At home it’s just a long movie.

So is it worth watching

Yes, if you love big, slow cinema. If Nolan the storyteller interests you more than Nolan the puzzle-maker. If you can get to a big screen — this is the film that made critics reach for the word “event” again.

Probably not, if you’re expecting Inception in ancient Greece: there are no twists, by design. If you’re going for the battle scenes — by critical consensus, they’re the weakest part. And if three hours of unhurried myth sounds like an endurance test, the reviews chanting “theater only” won’t help you.