Review Warning: The following review will do its best to refrain from specific details as it relates to the filmmaker’s intention, but the source material is so woven into modern storytelling in a variety of ways that not discussing the source material seems foolish. Additionally, be advised that there are two sequences in the film that utilize a great deal of flashing light that may be triggering for photosensitive viewers: the scene in which Odysseus is separated from his men at sea and the confrontation with Penelope’s suitors.
Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy.
– Opening line of Homer’s The Odyssey – Book I.
Generally speaking, there are two approaches to any adaptation: a strict 1:1 or the adaptor’s perspective. Adaptations are tricky because the source material may not conform easily to a new medium and, if translating from print to screen, the technology may not be available to get it as the source intends. Because of this, a strict adaptation seems like the safer bet as by hewing closely to what the original author intends allows for engagement to be placated somewhat by what is given versus what’s not. The adaptor’s perspective is tricky because it means using the source as a vehicle, picking and choosing what goes and stays in order to craft something that bears the name of the source while generating something new. For all the films like Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) or Max Payne (2008), there are also those like The Princess Bride (1987) and Dune (2021) and, now, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. What is easily perceived as a tale of virtue and triumph through Homer’s original writing is now brilliantly conceived and presented as a cautionary tale regarding duty and wisdom amid the wage of war. This is a work that recontextualizes not just the original epic poem, but the works of others that have so defined the modern era in language and philosophy, demanding a recounting so as not to continue to fall into hands of lesser ideals that will break the world all because humanity has largely forgotten a simple truth: kindness and honesty leads to a clear conscience.
A scene from THE ODYSSEY, written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan. Photo Credit: Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures. © Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.
Wise and clever King of Ithaca, Odysseus (Matt Damon), conceived a way to get through the fortifications and finally end King Agamemnon’s (Benny Safdie) siege of Troy. Rather than follow Agamemnon home, Odysseus chooses a different route, unknowingly setting he and his men on a longer path filled with countless dangers and challenges. Adding 10 more years to his absence, totaling 20 with the years of the war included, Odysseus is unaware that his wife, Queen Penelope (Ann Hathaway), and son, Prince Telemachus (Tom Holland), have been under a different kind of siege by various suitors for years. As each side awaits Odysseus’s return home, hard truths will be faced, without which coming home will possess no meaning.
I went to a college preparatory school from kindergarten through 11th grade and, had I graduated from there, would have done my senior presentation as a textual analysis of two anti-war plays from Ancient Greece. I was analytically-minded then (as now) and had even taken Latin for several years (starting in middle school) because of a love of mythology. To that end, I did, indeed, read Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, taking from it what most do about those stories when their worldview is limited — the gods are as fallible and capricious as any human *and* that Homer’s poems mythologize the warriors within the stories. These two poems are the songs that have helped shape art, philosophy, and even approaches to war because they herald Agamemnon as a great leader going to war to aid his brother Menelaus in returning his stolen wife, Helen, and whose victory is secured by the brilliance of Odysseus. In between, the story tells us that the war happens because of Aphrodite’s jealousy and that Odysseus’s journey home takes so long because both Poseidon and Zeus make it so. Adapted by Nolan (Oppenheimer; Inception), Odysseus is the arbiter of his own distraction and self-destruction, the gods merely discussed and never seen, though their presumed presence is made known. Using the framework provided by Homer, Nolan creates a deconstruction of the heroic myth, presenting a notion that the songs we’ve sung are only part of the story as they immortalize the deeds but retain none of the weight that comes from them. That weight is what makes us human, what results in the choices we make each day reverberating into the future, creating opportunities to either remake the same deluded choices or deviate and make something better.
Though the film opens with a line of text informing the audience that magic exists within this world, there’s never a god seen, only discussed. It may be as the halls of Ithaca are lined with suitors and beggars seeking sustenance and not being turned away due to “Zeus’s Law,” the Cyclops crying out to Poseidon when blinded, or temples filled with people making their tithes to Athena that an argument could be made that not a one appears within the film. This choice by Nolan places all the onus of real responsibility on each of the beings, their faith in the gods a mere excuse for the violence they do or do not inflict. If all our failings are because we offended the gods, then how much control do we really have? In reality, whether one believes in any spiritual being, the choices we make shape our lives and those of the people around us. Consider the sequence with Samantha Morton’s (Anemone) witch Circe who transmogrifies Odysseus’s men into pigs despite their statements of passivity and requests for aid upon finding her home on an island. One might think that Circe is breaking Zeus’s Law, the idea that any person could be a god in disguise and should, therefore, be treated as an honored guest in one’s home; however, to her reality, these men represent a very real danger to her person, which she explains to Odysseus when he finds her alone and his men gone (fully aware that they’ve likely been transformed). Though he tries to adhere to Zeus’s Law when she offers food, he finds a clever way around it, prompting an outburst from her regarding the violence within men, their appetites for war and pillaging, and the support men like Odysseus provide because they need that in their soldiers to fight wars. The silence from Odysseus, careful as always with his words, speaks volumes regarding what the wizened warrior believes and is reluctant to say. By never decrying or denouncing such behaviors, even if Odysseus remained ever faithful to Penelope, he would still be responsible for any violence outside the fog of war as he would be within it. Circe’s words cut through Morton’s deft handling of the scene, bringing to bear the first real notion that perhaps it’s not the gods to blame for the frailty of humanity but humans themselves. Later, upon calling on Tiresias (James Remar), the souls of the dead appear and Odysseus speaks with several, including Sinon (Elliot Page), the young soldier, devoted to Odysseus, given the responsibility of handling the care of the Trojan Horse in its handoff. In this sequence, Nolan brings to bear the full-weight of his intention in several ways (more shortly) as Sinon calls Odysseus to task for the general’s culpability for not just Sinon’s death but the reason he was sent to fight Troy. Not the gods, not Agamemnon, not Helen (Lupita Nyong’o), not Menelaus (Jon Bernthal), nor the people who killed him, just Odysseus. In the Jewish tradition, upon celebrating Yom Kippur, before we ask for forgiveness from our G-d, we must seek it from the people we’ve wronged. People first, before G-d. Here, Nolan places all of the responsibility of choice on Odysseus’s shoulders, using Page’s Sinon as the physical manifestation of Odysseus’ choices, forcing both the general and the audience to reconsider how we viewed all that we’ve seen thus far, including all we believed to be true. Gods don’t make heroes, people do — and in the recitation of their deeds, tend to forget, remove, or gloss over the victims of the choices when said person is raised into notoriety.
There are several changes Nolan has made to The Odyssey from portions revised to meet his narrative intention or cut entirely, but the essence of Homer’s work remains. One of the more interesting pieces comes from the inclusion of Sinon. This is a character from Virgil’s Aeneid and is viewed so greatly as a terrible person despite aiding in the delivery of the Trojan Horse, that the word is used as a noun to describe someone who “deceives and betrays by false tales: one guilty of perfidy.” Why would Nolan place such an important narrative beat on the head of a famous liar? Because the poems we’ve learned are often missing information. That the versions we’re comfortable with often leave out greater details. Because stories require villains and who but those we position as betrayers make the best enemies? It’s not just the obvious power-hungry Antinous (Robert Pattinson) or Polybus (Corey Hawkins), but those who decide to betray the trust of those who follow blindly, in full faith. Now, a Threads post by Flint Del Sol adds an additional layer onto the decision by Nolan to cast Page in the role, but that’s an aspect of theory that I cannot speak to given my specific lack of perspective (though it’s fascinating and likely quite intentional by the detail-driven filmmaker). What is clear is that The Odyssey isn’t just a sword-and-sorcery tale, a retelling of classic literature for the big screen, but a morality play in the vein of Euripides’s The Trojan Women or Aristophanes’s Lysistrata, drawing distinct parallels between the fictions of the past and the realities of the present. While no filmmaker requires a reason beyond their own desire to cast whomever they want in whichever role they see fit to do so, by reframing the whole of The Odyssey in this way, by laying it all out as a melancholic work of one man’s true failure despite good intentions, by connecting threads between the past and the present, bringing together an international cast furthers the perspective by showing the Greeks as a complex community of races and nationalities, all flying under one flag. Cinema is about subjective truth and Nolan uses everything from casting to characters to in-camera tricks to curate an experience that’s as otherworldly and ancient as it is grounded and of the moment.
Center: Matt Damon is Odysseus in THE ODYSSEY, written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan. Photo Credit: Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures. © Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.
There’s so much that can be said about Nolan’s adaptation and would be in a spoiler-filled review. One can certainly enjoy the film as a cinematic adaptation, especially when it comes to the various practical, in-camera ways in which Nolan made things like the Cyclops, Circe’s magic, and Laestrygonians realized. However, it’s far more interesting to turn this film over and around, just like one might do with Homer’s work in Latin class or in an Ancient Literature course, as Nolan invites audiences to investigate the heroes in order to see them for who they really are without the mythology gloss. Complete with Nolan’s usual technical meticulousness, the superb score from Ludwig Göransson (Sinners; Oppenheimer), the grounded-yet-inspiring cinematography from Hoyte van Hoytema (Interstellar; TENET), the evocative performances from the ensemble, and a razor-sharp thematic work, The Odyssey is among the best adaptations, as well as among the best of Nolan’s films, *and* the films of 2026, not just because it’s the sort of story people go to the movies to see in order to be entertained, but because it brings a specific perspective and voice to a well-known tale.
In theaters and IMAX July 17th, 2026.
For more information, head to the official Universal Pictures The Odyssey website.
Final Score: 4.5 out of 5.
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Categories: Films To Watch, In Theaters, Recommendation, Reviews
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