Matt Damon stars as Odysseus in The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan's adaptation of Homer's ancient epic, set for release on July 17, 2026, through Universal Pictures. The film has been gestating in Nolan's imagination for over 20 years, and it arrives on the heels of Oppenheimer, a biographical blockbuster that pulled in more than $950 million worldwide, making The Odyssey one of the most anticipated productions in recent Hollywood history.
Written and directed by Nolan and produced through his Syncopy banner alongside partner Emma Thomas, the project reunites much of the Oppenheimer creative team and brings together a cast that includes Tom Holland, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, and Travis Scott. It’s estimated budget is $250 million, Nolan’s biggest to date.
The story follows Odysseus on his perilous journey home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, a passage filled with encounters with figures like the Cyclops, the Sirens, and Circe.
Filmed on location around the world, this production is undeniably grand and garnering headlines; however, it is not the first adaptation of the epic. For instance, the Coen brothers put their spin on the story with O Brother, Where Art Thou? in 2000, a far less literal version that what Nolan is going for but an essential version nonetheless.
As recently as 2024, the Italian filmmaker Uberto Pasolini adapted The Odyssey with his film The Return, starring Ralph Fiennes as Odysseus.
Why is The Odyssey such a big deal?
Few filmmakers working today have managed to make ambitious, large-scale cinema that also draws massive audiences the way Nolan has. Dunkirk reframed a World War II evacuation as a formally rigorous exercise in overlapping timelines, while Oppenheimer turned the biography of a theoretical physicist into a three-hour blockbuster that earned over $950 million worldwide. Adapting Homer, in that context, is less a departure than an escalation.
The source material casts a long shadow. The Odyssey is among the oldest and most widely read works in the Western canon and translating it to the screen at this scale is the kind of undertaking Hollywood doesn’t jump at these days. (The 2004 film Troy drew from the Iliad and Nolan was originally hired to direct before it went to the filmmaker Wolfgang Petersen.)
Nolan’s approach to The Odyssey
One revealing window into Nolan's thinking comes from his reimagining of the Trojan Horse, a sequence that suggests he is less interested in mythological spectacle for its own sake than in finding the physical reality inside the legend. Rather than the familiar image of a wooden contraption rolled through city gates, his version is a horse half-submerged in water, with Greek soldiers inside breathing through straws.
"If the horse were sinking into the sand and about to be swept away by the tide, the Trojans would never believe there could be anybody in there," Nolan told TIME. "They would be rescuing this thing from the waves and dragging it into the city as a prize. It wouldn't be on wheels, like a roller skate." This kind of logic is a hallmark of Nolan’s body of work.
Beyond individual set pieces, the broader shape of the story points toward something more intimate. The Odyssey is a homecoming narrative. How closely Nolan will track Homer's structure remains an open question, but the Trojan Horse detail suggests he is willing to depart from the source material. And we all know Nolan doesn’t like a straightforward timeline.
The cast and crew of The Odyssey
Matt Damon plays Odysseus with an ensemble that includes Tom Holland, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Anne Hathaway, Lupita Nyong'o, and Charlize Theron, as well as Travis Scott.
Nolan first worked with the rapper on 2020’s Tenet. When it came time to cast The Odyssey, Nolan specifically sought out Scott again, tying him to the epic’s history. “I cast him because I wanted to nod towards the idea that this story has been handed down as oral poetry, which is analogous to rap,” Nolan has said.
Behind the camera, Nolan reassembled much of the creative team from Oppenheimer: cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, editor Jennifer Lame, and Göransson all return.
Controversies surrounding The Odyssey
Befitting the social media era and its absurdities, much of the initial uproar centered on Nyong’o playing Helen of Troy. “Not one person on the planet actually thinks that Lupita Nyong’o is ‘the most beautiful woman in the world,’” conservative talking head Matt Walsh tweeted, a representative opinion for a certain kind of exhausting blowhard. “But Christopher Nolan knows that he would be called racist if he gave’ the most beautiful woman’ role to a white woman. Nolan is technically talented but a coward.”
There have also been debates over the “historical accuracy” of the film, with trailers showing characters wearing darker colored clothing when its said that these areas had more colorful attire at the time; still others have questioned the armor design.
Nolan has defended his choices with historical evidence, but for others, maintaining “historical accuracy” doesn’t make much sense for this project.
The Odyssey hits theaters on July 17, 2026.
