A Journey Worth Taking
The Odyssey just had its world premiere in London, and the first wave of critic reactions is here. The verdict? Christopher Nolan has done it again. There is something almost poetic about the fact that the oldest story in Western literature. A tale about a man desperately trying to find his way home across a world full of monsters, gods, and impossible odds. This is the one that Christopher Nolan chose to follow up Oppenheimer with. Because if there is one thing Nolan has always understood, it is that the biggest stories are never really about the spectacle. But about what it costs a person to keep going when everything is working against them. And Homer knew that too, roughly three thousand years ago. So in a strange way, this was always going to be his film.
Praise Across the Board
As reported by Variety. The social media embargo lifted on July 6. And the reactions that poured out were, to put it plainly, overwhelming. We’re talking full caps lock. Multiple exclamation marks. Critics who cover films for a living completely abandoning any pretence of measured restraint. Variety’s own Jazz Tangcay called it an astonishing achievement. He described it as a triumphant and spectacular epic with performances from Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, John Leguizamo, Robert Pattinson, and Lupita Nyong’o that are, in her words, genuinely grand. With some delivering the best work of their entire careers.
Clayton Davis, of Variety, went one step further. He described The Odyssey as the Christopher Nolan take on Hamilton. A multicultural, generational cast anchoring a sword-and-sandal epic, with Damon leading with grit and Holland bringing the sensitivity and heart. Robert Pattinson’s villain, he added, feels cut from the same cloth as Alan Rickman in Robin Hood. High praise. Very high praise.
Collider’s Steve Weintraub said he’d seen it twice already and it gets better on the second viewing. Urging anyone who can to see it in IMAX 70mm. ScreenRant’s Liam Crowley called it the must-see theatrical experience of our generation and a new gold standard for blockbuster cinema. The Independent went straight for it, calling The Odyssey Nolan’s biggest film to date, with triple the number of huge set pieces compared to any of his previous films, and every single one of them is breathtaking. And Simon Thompson, who has been covering film for years, said Damon delivers a career-defining powerhouse performance.
The One Voice of Caution
Not every reaction was pure rapture, to be fair. IndieWire’s David Ehrlich. Yes the same Ehrlich who never hands out praise lightly, acknowledged that it’s too clunky to be S-tier Nolan while still maintaining that the last act rewards the journey. Now at nearly three hours long that’s the kind of caveat worth noting, especially for anyone who found the back half of Oppenheimer a little demanding. But even Ehrlich described it as a surprisingly natural follow-up, framing The Odyssey as a story about a man haunted by defying the gods and dooming civilisation, fighting now to avenge his own hubris. Which, if anything, makes it sound more interesting.
History Made With IMAX
The film runs 2 hours and 52 minutes and was shot entirely on IMAX cameras, making it the first film in history to be filmed completely in the format. Nolan himself has said it needed to be the biggest film he had ever made, and from the look of these reactions, he got there. Several critics specifically flagged a horror sequence involving Polyphemus, the one-eyed Cyclops played by Bill Irwin, as something genuinely unsettling in a way Nolan has never really attempted before. Also The Hollywood Reporter’s Aaron Couch, who noted he has been watching Nolan in cinemas since Memento over 25 years ago, said The Odyssey gives audiences a first: a fully fleshed-out horror sequence directed by Christopher Nolan. Get this, he said it works.
Meet Nolan’s Gods and Heroes
The cast, for what it’s worth, is genuinely staggering. Matt Damon as Odysseus. Anne Hathaway as Penelope. Tom Holland as Telemachus. Robert Pattinson as the villain Antinous. Lupita Nyong’o who pulls double duty as both Helen of Troy and her twin sister Clytemnestra. Zendaya as Athena. Charlize Theron as Calypso. Samantha Morton as Circe. Jon Bernthal as Menelaus. Benny Safdie as Agamemnon. Mia Goth. Elliot Page. Himesh Patel. John Leguizamo. Corey Hawkins.
It reads like someone was given an unlimited budget and told to cast the best working actors alive right now and just went for it. And if you need one more reason to be excited. Nolan himself told Deadline that Homer’s source material is essentially the Marvel of its day. Which is exactly the right way to frame it for a modern audience, and exactly the kind of thing only Nolan would say with complete sincerity and have it land perfectly.
The Odyssey opens in cinemas worldwide on July 17, 2026. If these reactions are anything to go by, you’re going to want the biggest screen you can find.
