The Odyssey (2026): Cast, Release Date, Plot & Reactions

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey — his first film since the seven-Oscar sweep of Oppenheimer — opens in cinemas on Friday 17 July 2026, with preview showings from the afternoon of 16 July. Matt Damon stars as Odysseus in an R-rated, 2-hour-52-minute epic shot entirely on IMAX film cameras, a first for any feature. The world premiere happened in London on 6 July, and the first reactions are in: largely glowing, with a few honest reservations. Here’s the full cast, what the story covers, what early viewers are saying — and, since the film isn’t out yet, an ending guide built on Homer’s original, with a promise to update once the credits actually roll.

When does The Odyssey come out, and how can I watch it?

The Odyssey releases worldwide in cinemas on 17 July 2026, and this one is built for the biggest screen you can find. Nolan shot the entire film with new IMAX 70mm film cameras — the first feature ever made that way — and IMAX screens carry it exclusively for the first three weeks. Demand has been extraordinary: when a batch of opening-weekend IMAX tickets went on sale a full year early, they sold out within hours, and industry tracking points to an opening of at least $80–100 million in North America, with the most recent forecasts pushing past $100 million.

The Odyssey cast: who plays whom?

The ensemble is enormous even by Nolan standards, mixing longtime collaborators with first-timers. One point worth clearing up, because listings have differed: footage Universal showed at CinemaCon this spring settled it — Charlize Theron plays the nymph Calypso and Samantha Morton plays the enchantress Circe, not the other way around, as early reports and some databases have had it. Lupita Nyong’o, meanwhile, takes on a dual role.

The Travis Scott casting is one of the film’s quirkier stories: Nolan has said he chose the rapper to draw a line between hip-hop and the oral-poetry tradition through which Homer’s epic was originally passed down. And for anyone keeping score, Holland, Zendaya and Bernthal will reunite just two weeks later in a certain web-slinger’s next outing.

What is The Odyssey about?

The film adapts Homer’s roughly 2,700-year-old epic: after ten years of the Trojan War, Odysseus sets out for home — and the journey takes another ten. Blown across the sea and toyed with by gods, he and his crew face the Cyclops Polyphemus, the enchantress Circe (who turns his men to swine), the song of the Sirens, and the nymph Calypso, who holds him on her island for years. Back on Ithaca, his wife Penelope fends off a houseful of suitors led by the preening Antinous, while his son Telemachus sets out to learn whether his father is even alive.

The trailers make clear Nolan isn’t skipping the greatest hits — the Trojan Horse, the Cyclops and the sirens all feature — and true to form he shot as much as possible for real, across Greece, Sicily, Morocco, Scotland and Iceland. On structure, we know more than usual: Homer tells the story out of order, beginning in the middle with flashbacks, and Nolan — cinema’s great non-linear storyteller — has confirmed his film follows suit, opening in Ithaca and unfolding non-linearly. Exactly how he sequences the famous episodes is what remains to be seen.

The Odyssey review: what the first reactions say

There’s no full review to give you yet — proper reviews are under embargo until closer to release — but the very first impressions landed after the London world premiere on 6 July, and they lean strongly positive. Early viewers describe the film with words like “staggering,” “monumental” and “colossal,” praising the in-camera spectacle, the emotional weight, and set pieces — the Cyclops and Circe sequences especially — ranked among the best of Nolan’s career. There’s real awards chatter already, including talk of Matt Damon as a best-actor contender, and the ensemble draws consistent praise: Anne Hathaway is called the film’s emotional anchor, Robert Pattinson a scene-stealer, and Samantha Morton’s brief, scene-stealing Circe has emerged as the surprise standout.

The reservations are worth hearing too. A few early viewers felt the film crams in almost too much — myth, battle and even flourishes of real Bronze-Age history — for even a near-three-hour runtime, and at least one argued it’s too unwieldy to rank as Nolan’s very best. One more honest caveat: these premiere-night reactions come mostly from an invited, enthusiastic crowd, with the wider press seeing the film in the week ahead — so treat the consensus as promising, not settled. We’ll update this page with a proper review verdict once full reviews land.

The Odyssey ending explained (Homer’s version — the film isn’t out yet)

A quick, important honesty note: the film doesn’t release until 17 July, so nobody outside embargoed screenings knows exactly how Nolan ends it — and we won’t pretend otherwise. What we can explain is how Homer’s poem ends, which is the ending any adaptation must grapple with. Consider this a 2,700-year-old spoiler warning.

In the poem, Odysseus finally reaches Ithaca and — disguised by Athena as a beggar — enters his own palace, sizing up the suitors who have spent years devouring his household and pressuring Penelope to remarry. Penelope — who has stalled them with tricks of her own, famously unweaving a burial shroud each night — announces a contest: she will marry whichever man can string Odysseus’s great bow and shoot an arrow through twelve axe heads. Only the disguised beggar can. His first arrow after that goes through the throat of Antinous, the suitors’ ringleader, and with Telemachus and a few loyal servants he kills every last suitor in the hall. Penelope, wary after twenty years, tests him one final time by ordering their marriage bed moved — a bed Odysseus built around a living olive tree, immovable, a secret only her true husband would know. His outrage at the impossible order proves who he is, and they are reunited. The poem then closes with Odysseus reuniting with his aged father Laertes and Athena stepping in to halt a blood feud with the suitors’ families, imposing peace on Ithaca.

How much of that survives in Nolan’s version — the bow, the bed, the bloodbath, the goddess-ordered truce — is exactly what the final act will answer. Pattinson’s prominent casting as Antinous suggests the suitor storyline is central, and the premiere reactions’ emphasis on Hathaway’s Penelope hints the homecoming carries the film’s emotional weight. Once it’s in cinemas, we’ll update this section with the film’s actual ending, explained scene by scene.

The Odyssey opens 17 July 2026, with previews on 16 July — and having been shot entirely for IMAX screens, it’s one to see on the biggest screen you can find. For more of our film coverage and ending explainers — including this year’s other big-screen adaptation, Project Hail Mary — browse our Movies section.