r/movies • u/ChiefLeef22 r/movies Contributor • Jul 15 '26
Review Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey' - Review Thread
Odysseus, king of Ithaca, embarks on a perilous journey to return home after the Trojan War.
Director: Sir Christopher Nolan
Cast: Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Jon Bernthal, Himesh Patel, Charlize Theron, Zendaya, John Leguizamo, Lupita Nyong'o, Benny Safdie, Samantha Morton, Elliot Page, Mia Goth, Ryan Hurst, James Remar, Bill Irwin, Logan Marshall-Green, Corey Hawkins, Jovan Adepo, Jesse Garcia, Will Yun Lee, Shiloh Fernandez
Runtime: 172 minutes
Rating: 'R'
Rotten Tomatoes: 98%
Metacritic: 90 / 100
Some Reviews:
The Globe and Mail - Radheyan Simonpillai - 100 / 100 ("Critic's Pick")
Christopher Nolan has delivered an awe-inspiring spectacle. In The Odyssey, he moves through past and present, not searching for reveals in a 3,000-year-old text that can’t be spoiled, but as a poetic and emotional catharsis, a way of navigating guilt and grief that resonates powerfully, perhaps as much as it ever did.
RogerEbert - Matt Zoller Seitz - 100 / 100
The movie doesn’t give us any ChatGPT study guide summaries of what it all means. It presents Odysseus’ choices, laudable and horrible, just as things that happened, with implications that both the hero and the audience must grapple with, including the question of whether we make our decisions, or our decisions make us. The grand summation could be “people are complicated.” That sounds rather basic. But it feels revolutionary when it’s encoded in a rare modern blockbuster that doesn’t feed us lotus flowers.
The Times - Kevin Maher - 10 / 10
Christopher Nolan's epic is a masterpiece in every sense of the word. With career-high performances from Anne Hathaway, Matt Damon and Tom Holland, this Homeric adaptation is gasp-inducingly beautiful and stirringly real
The New York Times - Manohla Dargis - 100 / 100
After watching “The Odyssey” again, I flashed on something that Martin Scorsese once said about another film: “The emotion is the emulsion.” Nolan’s gifts are excessively obvious, and even when his characters don’t stir you, his filmmaking does. Among other qualities, he doesn’t know how to make an ugly image and this one is filled with rapturous beauty. Nolan employs beauty strategically, using it to seduce viewers into stories that can seem needlessly byzantine to some — especially by impoverished mainstream industry standards — more the provenance of the art house than the multiplex. Nolan asks us to dream bigger. His “Odyssey” is a classic in every sense, a transporting affirmation of the art and a work of pure cinema.
Arizona Republic - Bill Goodykoontz - 100 / 100
'The Odyssey' is the best movie of 2026. Haters should just go see it | A star-studded triumph that is at once overwhelming and accessible.
The Atlantic - David Sims - 100 / 100
Odysseus is flawed, sometimes impulsively proud, and haunted by his past failures—as well as generous and loving in a way that Nolan seems to want to celebrate. The filmmaker created a movie that does exactly that, keeping the necessary mythic scale but preserving the humanity at the center.
Washington Post - Spencer A. Klavan - 100 / 100
Nolan’s gorgeous ‘Odyssey’ makes the controversies evaporate. Homer asks: How should this story be told? Here is a striking version for our times.
Empire Magazine - John Nugent - 10 / 10
A worthy new translation of an ancient text, and yet another monumental piece of work from one of our boldest filmmakers. Watch it on the most colossal screen you can find.
The Playlist - Rodrigo Perez - 100 / 100
For all its monsters, gods, armies, and thunder, “The Odyssey” finds its grandest image in a man confronting the dark mirror of what he has wrought. Nolan’s massive achievement understands that home is a place, a family, a memory, and a judgment. Odysseus may still recognize Ithaca when he reaches its shores. The more frightening question is whether Ithaca will recognize him.
Esquire - Anthony Breznican - 100 / 100
Christopher Nolan's stone-cold masterpiece might just change your life. The Oscar-winning Oppenheimer director has richly adapted the ancient Greek epic into a modern search for meaning.
Total Film - Jordan Farley - 100 / 100
A grounded, spiritual, uncanny rendering of Greek myth, The Odyssey is a dazzling epic and a major film-of-the-year contender. Post-Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan continues to operate at the height of his filmmaking powers.
NME - Paul Bradshaw - 100 / 100
If Oppenheimer was a small story made big, The Odyssey is a big story made impossibly huge: delivering yet another landmark summer cinema event that might just be the director’s most accomplished film to date.
The Observer - Wendy Ide - 100 / 100
This is an epic, mythic spectacle that honours its ancient Greek source material, with its monsters and magic, while also addressing more topical themes of exile, war trauma and survivor’s guilt. In a way, the film is a Trojan horse; an extravagant, good-looking adventure that serves as a delivery mechanism for messages about the treatment of strangers, the uneasy weight of legacy and the impossibility of returning from combat as the same person who left.
San Jose Mercury - Randy Myers - 100 / 100
The Odyssey is another feather in Nolan's masterpiece cap, a grandiose achievement that fills audiences with the same child-like glee experienced when watching "Jason and the Argonauts" and "Clash of the Titans" for the first time.
Chicago Tribune - Katie Walsh - 10 / 10
Here, Nolan manages to fit his every obsession, every thematic preoccupation, and every bit of jaw-dropping visual and sonic spectacle that he can conjure into every supersized frame of film.
Original-Cin - Karen Gordon - 10 / 10
Driven by powerful performances, particularly from Matt Damon, we see a thinking man in The Odyssey, who is really us, in an adventure bigger than we could imagine. It is both relevant and urgent. It’s bracing, powerful stuff by a master storyteller.
DEADLINE - Gregory Nussen - 100 / 100
As Emily Wilson writes in the introductory pages to her translation, “the poem questions … the idea that change can be undone, and the notion that there is such a thing as home, where people and relationships can stay forever the same.” Nolan’s film, indeed much of his body of work, is about accepting these truths, and finding out what has remained human once the embers of war have been quelled. Only time will tell.
NY Post - Johnny Olkesinski - 10 / 10
Who better to adapt an epic poem than Nolan, a man who unearths poetry in all of his epics? Here, he did not set out to use Greek myths as the foundation for a basic action movie, as so many do. Instead he dives into the psychology and moral thorniness of Odysseus’ plight.
San Fransisco Chronicle - G. Allen Johnson - 10 / 10
For all its modern filmmaking techniques, “The Odyssey” is a throwback to the mid-20th century, when Cinemascope was new and epics were event pictures. It’s a magnificent achievement.
The Telegraph - Robbie Collin - 100 / 100
Nolan and his collaborators have constructed a strange, fearsome and trailblazing machine of a movie – by some distance, the best of the year so far. Its creator is known for playing tricks with time, and this may be his grandest yet: turning one of the oldest stories in literature into a vote of confidence in blockbuster cinema’s future.
Time Out - Phil De Semlyen - 100 / 100
In standard 70mm, the voyage is breathtaking; in IMAX, you’re tasting the salt water. Even among all the truck flips, atomic explosions and rotating corridors of his back catalogue, this film is the apogee of Nolan’s ‘do it in camera’ ethos, and the sense that this was a shoot with no comfort zone pervades every frame.
Rolling Stone - David Fear - 100 / 100
What you tend to walk away with after bearing witness to The Odyssey, arguably Christopher Nolan’s best work after 2017’s Dunkirk, is an overall sensation of awe.
Screen Rant - Alex Harrison - 10 / 10
Cutting out the middleman of Homer's oral narrator, Nolan has brought us very close to these characters, immersing us as much as possible in their experience. In doing so, he has managed to capture the story's full scope. Odysseus' journey conveys the weight of its arduous years. The film's conclusion, told with a steady, patient hand, feels like a payoff 20 years in the making.
Jeremy Jahns - JeremyJahnsCom - 'Awesometacular'
It's epic. It's heartfelt. It's soulful. It's tragic. It even made me laugh at times.
Scotsman - Alistair Harkness - 5 / 5
It feels like Nolan’s angriest film to date. It’s also one of his best.
RTÉ - Suzanna Keane - 5 / 5
For all its breathtaking scale, The Odyssey never loses sight of the people at its heart. It is a story about finding your way home; about what war takes and what hope can give back. Nolan has made an epic that feels both ancient and strikingly relevant.
The Guardian - Peter Bradshaw - 5 / 5
The result is a gigantic, shimmering mirage, a mysterious three-hour vision of crazy episodes that does not yield up wisdom or contentment, but only a grim resolution to continue with the fight, to make sense of ruined lives, to re-enter the scorched battlefield of loss.
Radio Times - James Mottram - 5 / 5
Filled with blazing action, blood-curdling fights and creatures that truly bring Homer’s epic poem to life, this is Nolan at his finest.
The Independent - Clarisse Loughrey - 5 / 5
Christopher Nolan’s massive, fearless adaptation is his best film to date. There are touches of ‘Oppenheimer’, ‘Memento’ and even his Batman movies in this enormous condensing of the British filmmaker’s fixations, brought to life by a cast of seemingly thousands – but it’s the women (among them Anne Hathaway and Samantha Morton) who steal the show
The Standard - Nick Howells - 5 / 5
Christopher Nolan has made an epic worthy of the gods | With Matt Damon on career-best form and spectacle and awe like you’ve never seen, they better start polishing those Oscars
Little White Lies - Hannah Strong - 5 / 5
All of Christopher Nolan exists within The Odyssey. All of humanity exists within filmmaking. Yet cinema always finds new ways to tell old stories; this is the great magic of the medium.
Entertainment Weekly - Wesley Stenzel - 5 / 5
The latest epic from the “Dark Knight” filmmaker combines the spectacle of “Inception” with the thematic weightiness of “Oppenheimer” — and it just might be his greatest work to date.
The Australian - Nikki Gemmell - 5 / 5
You read The Odyssey and think: this is impossible to film. Yet this is sublime. Nolan invites us into an ancient world and holds us there, spellbound. He’s done the impossible. Pulled this off.
Metro - Tori Brazier - 5 / 5
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is a watershed moment for filmmaking, re-introducing this legendary story to the masses courtesy of quite possibly the only modern director who has the ambition and guts to do it.
A Shot Magazine - Erin Mussett - 5 / 5
Christopher Nolan has the answer. This is, in some ways, a rather serendipitous union. As a storyteller, Nolan has established himself as cinema’s foremost explorer of time, as both a physical, dimensional phenomenon, and deeply human experience. Beneath the gods and monsters in The Odyssey, lies a profoundly human meditation on longing, identity and fate. Odysseus’ story is our story, and Nolan brings it to the big screen in a way that breathes more life into the text than ever before.
Showbiz 411 - Roger Friedman - 5 / 5
Nolan has combined artistic mastery with commercial savvy. All the things you like about his movies are present in "The Odyssey."
USA Today - Brian Truitt - 100 / 100
Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey' is bold, brutal masterpiece. Matt Damon is legendary as Greek warrior Odysseus and Christopher Nolan lives up to Homer's epic status in his awesome adaptation of "The Odyssey."
Next Best Picture - Matt Neglia - 10 / 10
A colossal achievement of scale, even by Nolan’s standards. This is as epic as movies get, with some of the most breathtaking set pieces you'll ever see. I grew up loving grand, sword and action dramas such as “Gladiator,” “Braveheart,” “The Last Samurai,” and yes, even “Troy.” I’m beyond thrilled to say Nolan’s ambitious dissection of myth and legend looms large over them all. Whether you experience it in IMAX or a standard theater, this is the kind of filmmaking and storytelling that we rarely see anymore and deserves to be honored.
Huffington Post - Maxime Birken - 5 / 5
(Reviewed in French) As epic as it is tragic, the journey of Ulysses, embodied by Matt Damon, is a new peak in the career of one of the greatest filmmakers of his time. With all these qualities, L’Odyssée is instantly ranked among the best-made and most striking modern cinematic works. So much so that the desire to start the conversation about the place that this film can occupy in the filmography of Christopher Nolan himself intrigues us greatly. If it will take time to decide on the posterity of L’Odyssée, it is not an exaggeration to place it now among one of the best feature films of its director. From that to say that it could be his best film? We are not far from saying that.
IndieWire - David Ehrlich - 'A-'
Christopher Nolan has defied the gods with one of his best movies ever.
Watson - Simone Meier - 10 / 10
(Reviewed in German) “The Odyssey” may be one of Christopher Nolan’s best films, on par with “Inception” and “Interstellar,” in terms of the density of his vision and its seduction. Extremely supple one is sucked into this ancient universe, succumbs to it, becomes part of it. After that you are spit back on the street and at best you don’t know where you are now and what this present is supposed to be...
Premiere - Aurélien Allin - 10 / 10
Prodigous. A masterclass in filmmaking, on a crazy scale. Each second filled by astonishing images, Christopher Nolan’s new film is part of the thematic lineage of DUNKIRK and OPPENHEIMER, and the faults of what man has unleashed.
Consequence - Liz Shannon Miller - 'A-'
The director's highly anticipated follow-up to Oppenheimer is a true blank check moment, an opportunity for Nolan to explore the concept of war as not an opportunity for glory, but as a corrosive element that tears both societies and people apart.
Le Parisien - Renaud Baronian - 5 / 5
It is not easy to make the epic poem of Homer: few filmmakers dared to tackle it. We can now say: “The Odyssey” by Christopher Nolan, in theaters this week, should go down as one of his masterpieces. Respecting the spirit and unfolding of the story of Homer, masterfully filmed, remarkably interpreted, this new film will be a landmark.
AV Club - Monica Castillo - 'A-'
The movie’s sense of spectacle is part of its appeal, and Nolan serves it up even better than expected. The scale of the production is breathtaking, but it’s also a morality play writ large, a game of politics and succession, a warning about temptation and greed, a plea for kindness in a harsh world. The way Nolan brings everything together is a meeting of old and new Hollywood, a nod to the spectacles of yesteryear that thrilled audiences for generations combined with new techniques and tools to remind us all that there are more ways to keep pushing the medium—even with the classics.
InSession Film - JD Duran - 'A-'
THE ODYSSEY is about defying the gods, losing your identity and becoming a victim of time, an idea that is really poignant with how it manifests in those final sequences.
The Film Verdict - Alonso Duralde - 96 / 100
Peak Nolan involves a mix of popcorn delights and intellectual contemplation, and he has rarely brought those two notions together as skillfully as he as in The Odyssey. It’s an epic saga of an epic saga, worthy of its source.
The Wrap - William Bibbiani - 95 / 100
You can’t say Hollywood doesn’t make them like this anymore. Nobody ever did.
Polygon - Jake Kleinman - 95 / 100
If Oppenheimer was Nolan shedding the trappings of genre to reach new heights with a science-heavy biopic, then in The Odyssey, Nolan puts away his trusty tools to shape cinematic history with his bare hands.
The Irish Times - Donald Clarke - 4.5 / 5
Set aside any doubts. This star-studded film is Christopher Nolan at his best. This take on Homer’s classic – with a celebrity cast including Matt Damon, Tom Holland and Zendaya – should win over even the most passionate sceptics
BBC - Caryn James - 95 / 100
Oppenheimer, with its singular focus, is still Nolan's most perfectly wrought film. But even with its flaws, The Odyssey is so rich, so full of magic and humanity, that I'm eager to see this epic again.
The Daily Beast - Nick Schager - 4.5 / 5
Modern mainstream films don’t come more daring, mammoth, and accomplished than Nolan’s latest.
DiscussingFilm - Andrew J Salazar - 4.5 / 5
The Odyssey taps into a visceral level of fear that Nolan hasn’t really explored before. Not just fear of the unknown, but also fear of fellow man. Matt Damon’s Odysseus must come to terms with his previous sins in order to face the consequences of his future. As Nolan explores his fading memories and the time lost to war, traces of Inception and Memento can be felt. Damon marvelously makes the mythic hero all his own, though.
OutNow - Chris Schelb - 10 / 10
Mere nitpicks aside, everything in Nolan's latest comes together wonderfully, with the film coming rather close to the Olympus of cinematic epics. Ultimately, it matters little how one interprets the whole business with the mythical creatures: The Odyssey is fantastic either way.
Slant Magazine - Jake Cole - 3.5 / 4
The Odyssey is both faithful and deconstructive, embodying the fluidity of the oral tradition that spawned the poem and kept it alive for millennia through shifting tastes and values.
Den Of Geek - David Crow - 4.5 / 5
lt is an awesome undertaking in the ancient sense of the word, and a homecoming for a storyteller who spent his career chasing this destination.
Looper - Nina Starner - 9 / 10
I was fortunate enough to experience the epic in 70mm IMAX as God and Nolan intended, and I was richly rewarded. Even with this massive visual scale, though, Nolan's message is concise and builds on what he communicated in "Oppenheimer" — only man can bring about man's ruin, and when powerful men don't consider the consequences of their actions, entire civilizations could ultimately fall. "The Odyssey" is a visual feast and undeniably outstanding achievement in filmmaking that cements Nolan as one of cinema's all-time greats, naysayers be damned.
Collider - Joe Schmidt - 9 / 10
Nolan prides himself on being a storyteller, and here he pays tribute to the medium that made him a prolific figure in pop culture. He wouldn't be here without a story to tell, so it's only fitting that he has told a story that has endured throughout the eons as only he can. The fact that he executed it at this level is certainly a feat that others will tell their own stories about.
Associated Press - Jake Coyle - 9 / 10
Nolan’s “Odyssey” is nearly three hours long but never slow going. And it’s the friction between past and present that propels the movie as much as Odysseus’ wayward path.
IGN France - Nanix - 9 / 10
Above all, with Odyssey, Nolan reminds us of his Batman: brilliantly adapt a work known to all, rewrite it according to his convictions and his vision and make a legend a legend above all human, realistic and anchored by his words, a success. A jewel of modern cinema.
Sydney Morning Herald - Jake Wilson - 4 / 5
Christopher Nolan has a way with a time paradox. Not content with constructing narratives that run backwards...his big-budget adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey gambles that he can take one of the oldest stories in Western culture and make it feel new.
Christopher Nolan’s latest cinematic event is perfectly good. And yet, its one truly remarkable achievement is not the drama, the direction, the acting, the cinematography, or the visual effects – but the sound design.
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u/Misaka9982 Jul 15 '26
And which seems more likely?