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| Christopher Nolan: The Odyssey (GB/US 2026). Matt Damon as Odysseus. |
Οδύσσεια / Odissea / La Odisea / A Odisseia / L'Odyssée / Die Odyssee / Odyssea / Odiseja / Odisėja / Odüsseia / Odüsszeia / Odyseja / Одиссея.
GB/US © 2026 Universal Pictures. Universal Pictures Presents. A Syncopy Production. EX: Thomas Hayslip. P: Emma Thomas, Christopher Nolan. Co-P: Andy Thompson, Helen Medrano.
Written for the screen and directed by Christopher Nolan. Based on the epic poem Odyssey / Ὀδύσσεια / Odysseia, 24 books in Homeric Greek from the 8th century BCE, attributed to Homer. In Finnish: Odysseia, Otto Manninen (1924), Pentti Saarikoski (1972) and Odysseuksen harharetket, Paavo Castrén (2016, his new translation of the complete epic included in his tome Homeros: Troijan sota ja Odysseuksen harharetket). The main source about the Trojan Horse is Aeneid / Aeneis, Golden Latin, by Virgil, 19 BCE.
DP: Hoyte Van Hoytema. Shot and finished on film – negative format 65 mm – cinematographic process: IMAX – release formats 35 mm, 70 mm, DCP – aspect ratios 1.43:1 (IMAX 70 mm & Dual Laser) – 1.85:1 (theatrical, constant width) – 2.39:1 (theatrical, constant height) – 2.20:1 (70 mm).
PD: Ruth De Jong. Cost: Ellen Mirojnick. Makeup: Luisa Abel. Hair: Gloria Casny. VFX: Andrew Jackson. SFX: Scott R. Fisher. M: Ludwig Göransson. Song during final credits: "When I'm Home" (James Blake, Ludwig Göransson, Travis Scott, Christopher Nolan). ED: Jennifer Lame. Casting: John Papsidera.
C: Matt Damon (Odysseus, king of Ithaca), Anne Hathaway (Penelope, queen of Ithaca), Tom Holland (Telemachus, Odysseus' son), Robert Pattinson (Antinous, an Ithacan suitor of Penelope), Lupita Nyong'O (dual role as Helen of Troy / and her sister Clytemnestra, queen of Mycenae), Charlize Theron (Calypso, an immortal nymph), Zendaya (twin role as the Troyan priestess of Athena and the goddess Athena herself), Samantha Morton (Circe), John Leguizamo (Eumaeus, blind swineherd, servant of Odysseus), Jon Bernthal (Menelaus, king of Sparta, husband of Helen of Troy), Himesh Patel (Eurylochus, second-in-command to Odysseus’ crew), Bill Irwin (Polyphemos, a Cyclops, a one-eyed giant), Elliot Page (Sinon, a Greek warrior), Benny Safdie (Agamemnon, king of Mycenae), Corey Hawkins (Polybus, an Ithacan suitor), Ryan Hurst (Mentor: guide, bodyguard and teacher of Telemachus), Mia Gothe and Logan Marshall-Green (twin siblings Melantho and Melanthius, treacherous servants of Penelope and Odysseus), Travis Scott (Phemius, a bard), James Remar (Tiresias), Kate Fuglei (Eurycleia).
The part of the dog Argos is played by several dogs of all ages of the ancient Portuguese Podengo breed.
Dedicated to David Keighley.
Filming dates: Feb – Aug 2025.
Loc: Morocco (Ait Ben Haddou, Essaouira, Marrakesh, Dakhla), Western Sahara, Greece (Messinia, Methoni Castle, Pylos, Corinth, Nestor's Cave [the Cyclops' lair]), Italy (Sicily: Favignana [Ithaca], Aeolian Islands), Malta, Iceland [the underworld] (Markarfljot River, Sydra Skogarnes, Hjorleifshofdi Beach), Scotland (Moray: Findlater Castle, Culbin Forest, Sunnyside Beach), England (Heythorp Zoological Gardens) and the United States.
Studios: Stage 12 and Falls Lake, Universal Studios, Universal City. – Stages 9 and 27, Sony Picture Studios, Culver City.
172 min
Gala premiere: 6 July 2026 London (Odeon Luxe Leicester Square).
France, Belgium, Switzerland: Wednesday 15 July 2026.
Global release (UK, US and others): Friday 17 July 2026
Finnish premiere: 17 July 2026 – released by Finnkino – Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Topi Oksanen / Frej Grönholm.
FIRST VIEWING on DCP at 2.39:1 at Kuvalinna (Savon Kinot) (Dolby 7.1, digital 2K), Savonlinna, 17 July 2026.
SECOND VIEWING at Finnkino Itis Helsinki IMAX, at 1.43:1, 9 Aug 2026
A 315 m² curved floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall screening, 4K laser projection technology (installed 30 Nov 2018), digital 12.0-channel sound system.
Official: "Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is a mythic action epic shot across the world using brand new IMAX® film technology. The film brings Homer’s foundational saga to screens worldwide as the first feature film ever shot entirely with IMAX® Film Cameras."
AA: Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey is a full-blown Hollywood blockbuster and a fresh interpretation of Homer's timeless saga. Recommended for everybody, including lovers of the classics of Antiquity, not despite its departures from the original but because of them.
It is an adaptation for the 21st century, the cinema's superhero age. The ancient superpowers of Pallas Athena, Zeus and Poseidon are at large. Only Athena appears as a visible presence. Odysseus himself is not a superhero, not even a hero. He is an antihero, human and fallible, more than a sum of his contradictions, strengths and weaknesses. At a distance of millennia we still relate to him.
XENIA
The concept is great. Odyssey the movie is theme-driven, and the theme is xenia – hospitality to the stranger and the asylum seeker. In the movie it is called Zeus' Law.
"Don't be rude to the stranger, for he may be God in disguise."
This supreme virtue was discussed by Hesiod, Homer's contemporary, in Works and Days. Its legendary dramatization, the tale of Philemon and Baucis, survives in a classic form in Ovid's Metamorphoses, written 700 years later.
Issues of hospitality and breaches against hospitality appear at every stage. Even before The Iliad begins, Paris, a prince of Troy, enjoys the hospitality of Sparta but elopes with Helen the Queen, the most beautiful woman in the world. The treachery ignites the Trojan War.
LOVE
Nolan excels in violence. Love has been diluted. We hear the Sirens singing but hardly see them through the thick fog. The seductive beings have inspired countless artists, not Nolan.
Missing is the young Princess Nausicaa of the happy and peaceful island of Phaeacia and her entourage of bathing beauties who save the shipwrecked naked Odysseus. A missed legitimate opportunity to display male physical glory, paying tribute to the sculpture of classical Antiquity, in which male physique was preferred. More importantly, a missed chance for a moving vignette of the earliest surviving tale of unrequited love. According to Aristotle, Nausicaa later married Telemachus, Odysseus' son. Phaeacia is also essential for the theme of xenia, the one kingdom of peace and harmony, though defending itself against an abuse of xenia.
The tale of Circe the daughter of the sun god Helios is totally chaste. In Homer, Odysseus spends a year in her bed, resulting to at least one child, if not more (possible for gods if not for mortals).
The greatest passionate affair – with Calypso – is even more chaste. Nolan merges the Calypso tale (in Book 5) with the lotus-eaters (a flashback in Book 9). In the movie, Calypso drugs Odysseus with lotus so that he loses his memory. In Homer, Calypso attracts Odysseus with kindness, hospitality, ambrosia, nectar, song – and above all her desire. For seven years, they spend nights in loving embrace. At daytime, the homesick Odysseus sits on the beach crying. In Nolan, we do not know if they even sleep together.
Calypso offers immortal love. Odysseus prefers a mortal one with Penelope.
In Homer, Zeus sends Hermes to Calypso to set Odysseus free. Male gods are allowed affairs with mortals, but female gods who want the same, are punished. Calypso "rages against the male double standard for female sexual behavior in a memorable speech that has lost none of its freshness – or pertinence" (Daniel Mendelsohn).
In Homer, Calypso helps Odysseus build a solid raft carved from highest quality timber for his return home. In Nolan, he is only able to craft a dismal vessel from driftwood.
At Ithaca, after finishing off a hostile gang of "suitors", Odysseus can finally embrace his beloved Penelope. In Daniel Mendelsohn's translation:
"When the two had taken their pleasure in love’s entrancing delights,
They took their delight in stories, each telling a tale to the other."
There is one bed scene in the movie: Odysseus with Penelope before his departure, but no marital passion in the finale.
This is strange. I found the sexuality in Oppenheimer moving and essential to the story. Sex and wit go together.
The characters of the love scenes have an air of having stranded from L'avventura by Michelangelo Antonioni. Antonioni and Nolan share a shooting location: the Aeolian Islands in Sicily. L'avventura was shot on Basiluzzo, Lipari, Lisca Bianca and Panarea. Nolan's Ithaca was shot on Favignana.
RECOGNITION
Recognition (anagnorisis), a crucial narrative device in Aristotle's Poetics, is employed with panache by Nolan, faithfully to Homer. Odysseus returns to Ithaca in the disguise of a miserable beggar calling himself Sinon. The first to recognize him is his 20 year old dog Argos who dies right after seeing him. In Homer, only then does his loyal servant, the blind swineherd Eumaeus, realize his identity. In a deeply moving scene in Nolan's film, the scene is witnessed only by Telemachus, who hasn't seen his father since infancy.
Next is Eurycleia, Odysseus' nurse. Requested by Penelope to wash the dirty stranger, Eurycleia recognizes on his thigh a tell-tale scar from a boar hunt. Odysseus hushes her. Still incognito, he enters the archery contest of the suitors using the bow that only he can string. Everybody fails, even Odysseus himself at first try. After his victory, in Homer, Penelope tests the stranger one more time by asking servants to move the marital bed. Odysseus states that it is immovable because he has crafted it himself from an olive tree still rooted in the ground. Nolan omits the bed as the object of identification and replaces it with Penelope's golden Athena pin which Odysseus has carried with him for twenty years.
There is still one final recognition. Another addition of Nolan's is the character of Sinon, who, however, appears in Aeneid. In Nolan's movie, Antinous buys Sinon's lot to dodge the draft to the Trojan War. At the end of the war, Sinon is ordered by Odysseus to stand guard by the wooden horse and convince the Trojans that it is a gift to Pallas Athene. On his visit to the underworld, Odysseus meets the ghost of Sinon who reveals Antinous' deceit and the fact that he never paid his debt. Odysseus also confronts his own duplicity. He never told Sinon the truth about the Trojan Horse, wary of him giving the secret away. Sinon's ghost gives the lot to Odysseus. In the final showdown, Odysseus forces Antinous to recognize it before dropping it into his mouth and killing him.
Penelope's pin and Sinon's lot are the twin objects of recognition invented by Nolan to the story.
TO BE CONTINUED
I have covered only three topics. The more I think about The Odyssey, the more I find to say. Browsing the media I realize that I am not alone. People seem eager to debate every detail and every deviation. The reception is growing into an odyssey of its own. To be continued.
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THE ODYSSEY
The odyssey has long ago become a synonym for a trek into the unknown. The Finnish term is harharetki, in German, Irrfahrt. In English perhaps "peregrination".
It has been said that the Iliad and the Odyssey are two major formats of narrative fiction in general.
Cinema itself has been an odyssey since the Lumière brothers launched their tour du monde as film-makers and exhibitors. They recorded the seven wonders and more.
Major genres relevant to the odyssey include the road movie and the Western.
"The Civil War is part of nineteenth century history, the Western has turned it into the Trojan War of the most modern of epics. The march to the West is our Odyssey" (André Bazin in Le western ou le cinéma américain par excellence, 1953). The Searchers belongs to the lineage of The Odyssey, Rio Bravo to that of The Iliad (the siege story)....
HOMECOMING
A mighty parallel theme, also reverberating through the history of fiction, is homecoming (nostos), which can become a dysnostos (a cursed homecoming). Random examples from the cinema: Heimkehr (DE 1928), Oblomok imperii (SU 1929), Berlin-Alexanderplatz (DE 1931), The Road Back (US 1937), The Grapes of Wrath (US 1940), The Long Voyage Home (US 1940), The Best Years of Our Lives (US 1946), Igy jöttem (HU 1965), Kalina krasnaya (SU 1974), Coming Home (US 1978).
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MONSTERS
Nolan's The Odyssey is also a great horror movie and a creature feature. Inspired by Homer he offers original visions of the man-devouring cyclops Polyphemos, man-eating Laestrogynian giants, the sorceress Circe who molds men into pigs like clay figures, Charybdis the lethal maelström worthy of Edgar Allan Poe and Scylla the multi-headed sea monster. In the most profound horror sequence, Odysseus visits the underworld. He does not meet Hades, the God of the underworld, but he meets ghosts of his fallen comrades, including his commander Agamemnon and the accusing spirit of his loyal soldier Sinon. In the land of the dead he sees himself like in a dark mirror, facing what he has done. The vision of the army of the dead evokes Abel Gance's J'accuse !, 1919 and 1938 versions, which belong to the origins of the zombie in the cinema. In the underworld, Odysseus meets the ghost of Tiresias, the legendary blind clairvoyant of Apollo, who in Greek mythology was a sex-changer and knew the pleasure of love both from the male and the female sides and found the latter superior (none of this is in Nolan's film). Tiresias warns Odysseus about the island of Helios where his men must not eat Sun God's cattle. Defying Odysseus' order, his men eat the cattle and perish in monstrous storms raised by Poseidon in revenge.
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STORYTELLING
The Odyssey continues to amaze in its craft of storytelling. In medias res. The non-linear narrative. Narrative inside narrative. The flashback structure. The first-person narrative. The untrustworthy narrator. Narrative masks. Narrative by dialogue. Character expressed in action and dialogue. Changes in point-of-view. The hero's journey. Anagnorisis and peripeteia. "Structure is nothing if people do not respect its meaning", as Penelope states in the movie. Nolan has changed much, but all in a Homeric spirit. The changes he has made are not trivializations.
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FEMALE AGENCY
Christopher Nolan wrote his screenplay in an age aware of a groundbreaking English translation by Emily Wilson (2017) and reinterpretations by Margaret Atwood (The Penelopiad, 2005) and Madeline Miller (Circe, 2018). When Circe turns Odysseus' men into swine she tells him that "I just turned them into what they are". --- Btw. Emily Wilson is also the first translator to call the servants of the saga slaves.
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THE HELEN MYSTERY
A mystery remains: the slashed face of the former Helen of Troy, now Helen of Sparta again. This does not come from Homer or another source of Antiquity. Did Menelaus punish her for her elopement? Male agency? Her face "launched a thousand ships" according to Christopher Marlowe in Doctor Faustus. Now Menelaus remarks that it only launches 500 ships. The image reminds me of the fate of Debby (Gloria Grahame) in The Big Heat. Even relevant to Oppenheimer, the fate of those Hiroshima victims whose face was burned on one side while the other side remained intact.
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SHELL SHOCK
The Odyssey is the original "lost generation" tale and a foundational story about brutalization by war and violence. The post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). "We violated everything that's ever sacred between people".
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CHOKEPOINT
There are two chokepoints on the route from the Black Sea to the Aegean and Mediterranean via the Sea of Marmara: the two Turkish Straits – the Bosporus Strait and the Dardanelles Strait (the Strait of Gallipoli, the Çanakkale Strait). The ancient Troy by the Dardanelles was of a great strategic importance.
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CASTING
The casting is great down to the smallest parts. There are no indifferent performances. Matt Damon is rock solid as a war commander, fighter, swashbuckler, sailor, castaway and a man battling with his conscience. He is not a great lover and could be replaced by Ken in love scenes. Samantha Morton as Circe is my favourite performance. Robert Pattinson as Antinous is so impressive that I am reminded of Alfred Hitchcock's maxim "the stronger the villain, the stronger the movie". I also like John Leguizamo as Eumaeus and Himesh Patel as Eurylochos, the second-in-command. Charlize Theron and Anne Hathaway would be great if given a chance of real chemistry with Odysseus.
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PAINTING WITH LIGHT
The cinematographer John Alton, "the prince of darkness", a film noir maestro, wrote a groundbreaking book called Painting with Light (1949). Even in the darkest night you can convey light. About The Odyssey I am not certain. I was expecting a colourful sea adventure under a dazzling, intoxicating Mediterranean sun, a feeling of sweltering heat, lush flowers and vegetation in gardens and trees, combats and massacres with lots of red blood, gore and splatter, and skin glowing with sweat and heat in passionate loving embraces and the "suitors'" rampages with Ithaca's maidservants. I failed to experience that. Often there is darkness, twilight and a murky atmosphere.
I miss the Sun, I miss warmth. The vision is cool and dark, more Nordic than Mediterranean.
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FIRST VIEWING 17 JULY 2026
This movie must be experienced at the cinema, and I need to see it again. Perhaps there was something strange in the DCP parameters of the screening I visited. I even thought for a moment that I had my sunshades on.
SECOND VIEWING 9 AUG 2026
I see the film for the second time, now at Finnkino Itis IMAX. As usual, I sit in the front row, to take notes in the light reflected from the screen. Again, it is almost impossible, because the image on the screen is too dim. The experience is better than three weeks ago, but I would be interested to hear a technical expert's remarks. Why so much darkness and twilight? What did Stanley Kubrick and John Alcott do right in Barry Lyndon, shooting in candlelight, without murky results? Is this the visual concept of Christopher Nolan and Hoyte Van Hoytema, is this how the movie is supposed to look like?
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THE FINNISH TITLE
The Finnish title of Homer's epic is identical with the Greek one: ODYSSEIA. It is incomprehensible that the movie is shown in Finland with an American title.
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HOMER TRANSLATORS COMMENT NOLAN'S MOVIE
Daniel Mendelsohn: "Artful Weaving" ("The most authentic thing about Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey is its densely braided narrative, but its tormented hero sounds like the heroes of Christopher Nolan movies."). The New York Review of Books, 17 July (online) 20 Aug (print) 2026.
Emily Wilson: "An Uncomplicated Man". London Review of Books, 27 July (online), 13 Aug (print) 2026.
A FINNISH POET'S REMARKS
Saila Susiluoto: "Odysseusta johdattavat naiset, mutta Nolanin elokuva sivuuttaa heidät" [Odysseus is guided by women, but Nolan sidelines them]. Helsingin Sanomat, 6 Aug (online), 8 Aug (print) 2026.
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HOMER IN THE CINEMA
Of the Homeric epics of the cinema I have seen my two favourites are now Manfred Noa's Helena – Der Untergang Trojas I–II / Helen of Troy (DE 1924, 217 min) and Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. I look forward to seeing Franco Rossi's tv series Odissea 1–11 / The Odyssey / Finnish title Odysseia (IT/FR/DE 1968, 7 h 26 min).
Hannu Salmi's remarks on Odissea 1–11 (IT/FR/DE 1968), 31 July 2026.
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FINAL VERDICT
Despite my reservations I find The Odyssey the greatest international film of the year so far and the best of Nolan (a high compliment), rewarding in the context of his entire parcours, including Batman and Oppenheimer. Attempting to compare and analyze The Odyssey's storytelling genius, I miss David Bordwell and hope that Kristin Thompson might contribute to the critical reception!
Nolan's The Odyssey is boldly original and worthy of Homer's grandeur of spirit.
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| Odysseia. The Finnish translations of 1924 by Otto Manninen and 1972 by Pentti Saarikoski. |
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| Odysseia. The Finnish translation of 2016 by Paavo Castrén is included in his book Homeros: Troijan sota ja Odysseuksen harharetket [Homer: The Trojan War and the Peregrinations of Odysseus]. The complete Odysseia in prose is a great guideline even for a reader of the epic in hexameter. Cover art: tied to the mast, the naked Odysseus hears the Sirens singing. Detail from an Attic red-figured stamnos, ca. 480-470 BCE. From Vulci. British Museum. Data from Wikipedia. |
