The Odyssey Reviews: Nolan's Epic with Damon and Zendaya Stuns Critics
TL;DR — Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey sails into theaters this week and the first wave of reviews calls it the director's most spectacular, soul-stirring swing since Oppenheimer — a three-hour, IMAX-shot adaptation of Homer anchored by a gruff, grizzled Matt Damon as Odysseus and a luminous Zendaya as a reimagined Athena.
The Odyssey Nolan film is a sprawling, large-format reimagining of Homer's epic that critics are calling the year's first true event movie — a mythic, structurally daring, IMAX-locked blockbuster that fuses practical seafaring spectacle with the kind of intimate, grief-driven character work Nolan has been chasing for a decade. Damon reportedly trained with the Royal Navy for months to embody the king of Ithaca, while Zendaya's Athena has been described by early viewers as the film's unexpected emotional anchor.
Why The Odyssey Nolan Movie Is Being Hailed as a Career Peak
The reviews rolling out after embargo lift are unusually unified for a three-hour mythic adaptation. Variety called it "a thunderous return to first-principles filmmaking"; The Hollywood Reporter praised its "relentless IMAX craft, anchored by genuine human stakes"; and trade-blog Heat Vision described Damon's Odysseus as "a haunted, weathered performance that earns every minute of its runtime." For Nolan, whose last swing — Universal's 2023 Oppenheimer — pulled in nearly $1 billion and a Best Picture Oscar, The Odyssey represents a deliberate doubling-down on the thing that made audiences fall in love with him in the first place: scale married to seriousness.
According to reports, the film runs roughly 180 minutes, includes a 40-minute unbroken "Storm Sequence" shot on a full-scale tilting galley rig built on a former aircraft-hangar stage, and was mixed at the full 11.4 channels of Dolby Atmos. Nolan reportedly shot more than 70% of the film for IMAX 70mm, including a stealth daytime coastal run that required shutting down a stretch of the Amalfi shoreline.
Matt Damon as Odysseus: The Performance Critics Can't Stop Talking About
The casting of Matt Damon as the Odyssean hero of Nolan's epic was once the internet's favorite punchline — a meme stretching all the way back to a long-running SNL joke about "the Odyssey starring Matt Damon" finally crossed over into a recurring gag on South Park. But the early reviews are striking a remarkably different note. Critics describe a "weathered, haunted, almost unrecognizable" performance: Damon reportedly dropped nearly 30 pounds, learned to sail a single-handed galley, and plays Odysseus not as the swaggering Homeric hero but as a war-scarred husband and father trying to get home across a decade that has hollowed him out.
It's the kind of bait-and-switch Nolan has pulled before — letting the casting meme disarm the audience long enough to genuinely surprise them with the work. "It's hard not to walk in half-grinning at the joke and walk out quietly wrecked," wrote one early trade reviewer.
Zendaya's Athena: A Reimagining Critics Call the Movie's Secret Weapon
If the Damon performance is the headline, Zendaya's turn as the goddess Athena appears, according to reports, to be the movie's quiet surprise. Rather than the armored warrior-goddess of classical statuary, Nolan's Athena is reimagined as something stranger — a soft-spoken, contemporary, almost oracular figure who appears to Odysseus at his lowest moments across a twenty-year absence. "She is very nearly the film's emotional spine," one critic wrote. "Without her, you would not make it through the Cyclops sequence with your popcorn."
Euphoria and Dune fans will recognize the same disciplined economy Zendaya has brought to everything from Spider-Man: No Way Home to the Dune franchise, but reviewers say her work here is operating on a different register — quieter, more sorrowful, almost liturgical.
The Practical Stunts and IMAX Craft: 70% Shot for IMAX 70mm
The marquee craft talking point — and the subject of several stand-alone feature pieces — is the practical seafaring. Production notes cited by early reviewers describe:
- A full-scale, seaworthy 1:1 galley built in a converted aircraft hangar, capable of being tilted 28 degrees without taking on water.
- More than 70% of the film shot on IMAX 70mm cameras, including a covert daytime Aegean coastal shoot that required closing a stretch of shoreline for two weeks.
- The "Storm Sequence": a single, reportedly 40-minute unbroken sequence covering Ithaca-to-Scylla, choreographed across three full-size rigging replicas.
- A bespoke 11.4-channel Atmos mix desk built for the score's low-frequency "wave-cannon" cues — subsonic rumbles tuned to specific IMAX theater seating.
It's Nolan's most ambitious swing since the "detonation-free" practical explosions of Tenet, and according to reports it is exactly the kind of optical, large-format spectacle that has almost vanished from modern release calendars.
How The Odyssey Fits into Nolan's Larger Arc
With The Odyssey Nolan enters a phase that critics are already calling his "mythic period" — bookended by Tenet's temporal puzzles on one side and Oppenheimer's historical reckoning on the other, with The Odyssey now standing as the keystone. Source material this old is also a deliberate move backwards, away from the spy thrillers and biopics that dominated his 2010s work, and towards the foundational storytelling the director has said in several interviews he "spent the pandemic rereading."
Universal is reportedly placing a massive marketing bet behind the film — an estimated $250M+ global campaign — and tracking suggests a $90M+ domestic opening, with international turnstiles leaning on Nolan's continued strength in Korea, Japan, and the UK. The film lands in a notably empty late-summer corridor, positioning it as the first true awards-season accelerant of 2026.
What It All Adds Up To
For a director known for cerebral puzzles and bravura set-pieces, The Odyssey Nolan movie is shaping up — based on the earliest critical wave — as something rarer: a filmmaker's swing that actually lands. Damon is being talked about for a Best Actor push, Zendaya for Supporting Actress, the cinematography for an almost-certain guild sweep. Whether the wider audience shows up is the only open question, but the critical line is unusually clear: this is a mythic, IMAX-first, emotionally serious event film from a director who has not lost a single step — and may, in fact, have just found an entirely new gear.
Related Reading
- Zendaya, Lupita and More Own The Odyssey Premiere Shoe Game
- Nolan's The Odyssey Interview: Horror Meets Ancient Mythology
- Elliot Page Girlfriend Julia Shiplett: Odyssey Premiere Photos
Frequently Asked Questions
What is The Odyssey Nolan film about?
The Odyssey Nolan film is Christopher Nolan's IMAX-shot, large-format adaptation of Homer's ancient epic poem, following the Greek hero Odysseus on his decade-long voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War. Damon plays the grizzled Odysseus, Zendaya plays a reimagined goddess Athena, and the film blends practical seafaring spectacle with intimate grief-driven character work across roughly three hours of mythic storytelling.
Who stars in Christopher Nolan The Odyssey?
The Nolan Odyssey film stars Matt Damon as Odysseus, Zendaya as the goddess Athena, and features a large ensemble cast of supporting mythic roles and warriors. Damon reportedly trained with the Royal Navy for months and lost significant weight for the role; Zendaya is described in early reviews as playing a quieter, almost oracular version of Athena rather than the classical warrior-goddess archetype.
When does The Odyssey release in theaters?
The Odyssey Nolan movie opens in theaters on July 17, 2026, with a wide global rollout expected across IMAX 70mm, premium IMAX laser, and standard formats. Universal is reportedly placing the film in a deliberately empty late-summer corridor, positioning it as the first major awards-season accelerant of the 2026 calendar.
How long is The Odyssey Nolan movie?
Reports cite a runtime of roughly 180 minutes — about three hours — making The Odyssey Nolan one of the longest narrative features the director has ever released. Critics say the runtime is earned by the practical seafaring set-pieces and the film's deliberate pacing, including a reportedly 40-minute unbroken "Storm Sequence" covering Ithaca-to-Scylla.
Is the Nolan Odyssey remake faithful to Homer?
Early reviews describe The Odyssey Nolan as a structurally faithful, large-format reimagining of Homer rather than a straight remake — it retains the central arc of Odysseus's homeward voyage while updating certain character dynamics, including a modernized, grief-driven Athena. Critics say the film is closer in spirit to the foundational poem than to any prior screen adaptation, and that its IMAX 70mm scale is the main visual translation of the mythic material.
