I walked out of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey with one word in mind – “thoughtful.” It’s an impeccably made big budget movie with stunning sequences and an almost unfathomable scope, but that’s not what it is. It’s an incredibly thoughtful work of art in every way. It engages Homer’s epic poems with reverence. It treats both Ancient Greece’s real history and mythology with the seriousness of a scholar rather than a big-budget summer blockbuster, but in a way that makes it accessible to modern audiences. And it understands, in deep, meaningful ways, why these stories transcend time and cultures, all while speaking to the world of 2026 right now. It’s as good an adaptation as anyone who cares about The Odyssey could hope for. Every scene, every line of dialogue, and every decision is all just so thoughtful. And it only gets better on a second viewing.
I have a million things I want to say about The Odyssey and why I love it. Some of them are easy to talk about, like how the cast is absolutely incredible. I could write this entire review just about how good they are. Matt Damon gives maybe the best performance of his career as Odysseus, the great hero of the Trojan War, who is lost in all ways. The same is true of Tom Holland, who has never been better as his broken-hearted, naive son Telemachus. Meanwhile, Anne Hathaway has scenes so good as the long-suffering wife Penelope, it’s hard to imagine anyone else in the role. And Robert Pattinson might very well win a Best Supporting Oscar for playing the sneering villainous suitor Antinous.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg of standout performances in The Odyssey. Elliot Page, Jon Bernthal, Lupita Nyong’o, Hamish Patel, John Leguizamo, Samantha Morton, Zendaya, Charlize Theron, and Corey Hawkins are all absolutely fantastic. It’s like the ’27 Yankees of casts. This might be a mythological story that takes place during a “time of apparent magic,” but the performances are nuanced, authentic, and human. The result is multiple scenes and character moments that land with the emotional weight of a lightning bolt to the heart.
Nolan’s ability to create spectacle has also never been better. And yes, I realize what I just said. Forget the mass attack on the city of Troy in The Odyssey, which is so big and terrifying that it’s among the most harrowing war sequences ever put to film. The scenes on the sea are so good, I had to actually remind myself they weren’t CGI. It just seems impossible anyone took a bunch of actors out on an ancient-style boat and actually filmed a working script. There are also parts of this movie so good–including some that put most horror films, action movies, and thrillers to shame—that they left me completely awed by their scope and intensity. (Nolan also gets a big assist from the film’s fantastic score.)
But for the many things I can discuss about The Odyssey, there are far more I can’t get into because this is a spoiler-free review. I know that sounds funny since this story is roughly 3,000 years old, but Nolan’s script is truly an adaptation. It has its own point of view and makes changes in service to his version of the story. (Which also pulls from Virgil’s The Aeneid and Homer’s The Iliad.) This is not the more traditional, straight adaptation the movie’s underwhelming trailers teased. This is a film that has something to say. It has a reason to exist beyond just bringing Homer’s tale to the screen.
The Odyssey answers every question I had about why Nolan picked this specific, unlikely story as his follow-up to Oppenheimer. I ultimately understood and enjoyed every change he made along the way, including why he altered the inciting event of Odysseus’ long struggle to get home. Even the movie’s much-maligned color scheme and costumes made perfect sense. They are all in service to the film’s themes, which also pull directly from actual Mycenaean Greece history.
But I did not understand all of Nolan’s choices along the way. For most of the movie, I didn’t even understand why he wanted to make this film. That’s because The Odyssey intentionally holds back what it’s really about for the majority of its lengthy runtime. (Which flies by, FYI). For a long time, even while I was enjoying it, I couldn’t stop thinking, “Okay, but why? Why did he make this movie? What’s the ultimate point to all of this?”
The moment the movie lets you in and answers that—in what is also its best scene—I more than got it. I was moved by it. In that instance, it was though I had been putting together a puzzle without knowing what it was supposed to look like. Only then, when I suddenly realized the big picture, could I fully appreciate all the parts that had already been put in place.
This movie has something to say. And what it has to say is both timeless and timely. This is a story about how even across time and culture, humanity’s failings and successes have always been the same. They bind all of us, just as we are bound to one another and always have been. The question is whether we always remember that or not. It’s about the world we create, the world we live in, how we treat one another. This film asks us if whether or not we appreciate what we have and why we should hold on to it. Nolan’s The Odyssey is about what we want from life and who or what we blame when we don’t get it. Or, in some cases, when we do.
It’s all just so thoughtful in a way most movies, especially most blockbusters, just aren’t and don’t want to be. But its thoughtfulness wasn’t the only thing I could think about after I saw it. I walked out really loving this film, but I also walked out wanting to see The Odyssey again immediately. What I wanted was to watch it, knowing what it was about from the opening scene. I wanted to know if that knowledge would make a great movie into a truly special one. And that’s exactly what happened.
This was the rarest of times when I was able to see a second screening before writing my review. (Though sadly not on an IMAX screen like I did the first time, and I would 100% recommend seeing it on the best and biggest screen you possibly can.) As I suspected, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey was even better the second time. When I wasn’t so concerned with thinking about what it’s about, I thought it was even more thoughtful.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. He wasn’t even that excited for The Odyssey after seeing the trailers. You can follow him on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.
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