The Odyssey review: Nolan’s IMAX epic finally brings Homer’s myth to the big screen

Christopher Nolan’s three-hour adaptation of Homer’s epic opened in UK and US cinemas on 17 July 2026, starring Matt Damon as Odysseus, and has already become the director’s biggest opening in over a decade.

TL;DR

• Rated 15 by the BBFC in the UK for strong violence.
• Took $120.5 million in North America and roughly $257.8 million worldwide on its opening weekend.
• The first feature ever shot entirely on IMAX cameras, using around two million feet of film.
• Stars Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson and Charlize Theron.

What the film is about

Christopher Nolan wrote and directed the film, which follows Odysseus’s ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War. The story is based on Homer’s Odyssey, produced by Emma Thomas and Nolan through their company Syncopy, and distributed by Universal Pictures. Matt Damon leads an ensemble that includes Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway as Penelope, Robert Pattinson, Zendaya as Athena, Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthal and Lupita Nyong’o in a dual role as both Helen and Clytemnestra. The film opens mid-story, with the hero recounting his journey from Ithaca through the Trojan War and a further decade of wandering. Benny Safdie, who played physicist Edward Teller in Oppenheimer, appears as Agamemnon.

Behind the camera, cinematography comes from Hoyte van Hoytema, the film is edited by Jennifer Lame, and the score is by Ludwig Göransson. Musician Travis Scott co-wrote and performed the closing-credits track and appears on screen as the story’s framing narrator.

According to Universal’s own announcement, the film was billed from the start as a “mythic action epic” shot across the world on new IMAX film technology, and marks the first time Homer’s poem has reached IMAX screens. We first covered the project’s scale in our earlier trailer breakdown, and the finished film matches that ambition.

How critics reacted

Reviews out of the US have leaned strongly positive. Rotten Tomatoes’ critics consensus describes the film as reinvigorating an ancient adventure with majestic sweep, praising its ensemble and its ability to give myth genuine human feeling. The Rotten Tomatoes page also carries an audience score built from early screenings.

Variety’s review called it a grand, gutsy vision that delivers a major set-piece every few minutes across its near-three-hour runtime. RogerEbert.com’s review was similarly warm, describing it as a film that begins with a storyteller on a banquet table and builds outward from there.

Audience reaction has matched the critics: according to Deadline, the film earned an A CinemaScore, and Nolan himself was the top reason cited by 51% of surveyed moviegoers for buying a ticket, ahead of the cast (44%) and Damon specifically (27%).

Box office: Nolan’s biggest opening since Dark Knight Rises

Thursday previews: $17.6 million
Source: Variety

Friday (including previews): $51.2 million
Source: The Hollywood Reporter

North America opening weekend: $120.5 million
Source: Deadline

International opening weekend: $137.3 million from 73 markets
Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Global opening weekend: approximately $257.8 million
Source: Deadline

According to Deadline’s domestic box-office report, that US total is Nolan’s third-best preview night on record, behind only two prior Dark Knight Rises previews, and marks the biggest domestic opening of Matt Damon’s career. The Hollywood Reporter noted it also stands as 2026’s biggest live-action debut and Universal’s highest-ever opening weekend for an R-rated release. Of the domestic haul, roughly $30 million is estimated to have come from IMAX screens alone, about a quarter of the North American total.

Internationally, Deadline’s global report found Australia alone brought in $3.7 million through Friday, the biggest opening day for a non-superhero Nolan film there and 51% above Oppenheimer’s opening day. The same report noted a JustWatch survey of over 3,200 people across France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK and North America found 60% planned to watch both The Odyssey and the 2026 FIFA World Cup final on the big screen the same weekend.

For context, Variety’s projections piece reported the film cost $250 million to produce, with Universal spending around $125 million more to market it globally, including launch events in London, Paris and Mumbai. By comparison, Nolan’s Oppenheimer opened to $82.4 million domestically in 2023 before finishing its run at $975 million worldwide, and his 2012 film The Dark Knight Rises remains his biggest domestic opener at $160 million.

The UK picture

In the UK, the British Board of Film Classification has given The Odyssey a 15 certificate, citing strong violence. The film opened in UK cinemas on the same day as its US release, 17 July 2026.

The film is screening in IMAX at UK venues including London’s Barbican, which is also flagging flashing-image content for photosensitive viewers, and at Odeon cinemas nationwide. Odeon’s own write-up notes the shoot used over two million feet of IMAX film, which at roughly 337 feet of 65mm stock per minute works out to around 100 hours of raw footage. Educational charity Into Film has also built a UK schools competition around the release.

Reportedly, several of the ensemble’s British stars, Tom Holland and Robert Pattinson among them, are expected to take part in UK press activity around the release, though full details had not been confirmed at the time of writing.

Our take

For our money, the film earns its length. Nolan leans into scale rather than speed, and the IMAX photography gives even quiet dialogue scenes an unusual weight. It won’t convert anyone who found Oppenheimer’s density exhausting, but as a piece of large-format, star-driven filmmaking it’s hard to beat this summer.

Related reading: our opinion piece on the AI-recreated Michael Caine narration digs into one of the film’s more divisive choices, and full technical details are on the film’s Wikipedia entry.

Rating table: how The Odyssey scores across the aggregators

Aggregator	Score	Basis
Metacritic	89/100 (“Universal Acclaim”)	57 critic reviews
Rotten Tomatoes (Tomatometer)	Certified Fresh, high-90s%	200+ critic reviews
Rotten Tomatoes (Popcornmeter)	97%	1,000+ verified user ratings, a Nolan career-best
CinemaScore	A	Opening-weekend exit polling
IMDb	Not yet aggregated	Rating still populating post-release

Sources: Metacritic (direct), Rotten Tomatoes’ own “First Reviews” roundup, Forbes’ report on the Popcornmeter record, Deadline’s opening-weekend CinemaScore report, and DK Network’s ratings roundup.