Review: The Odyssey (2026)
The Odyssey trailer was doing some misdirection. I think we all spotted that? Selling Nolan’s latest epic as a straight swords and sandals, when anyone with knowledge of the source knew it was going to be something different. Nolan’s The Odyssey is a gods-and-monsters epic — massive in scale, strange, fantastical, and gloriously nerdy. With a star-stacked cast putting on career high performances, there’s something here for everyone.
Scale is something that Nolan has always done really well, but here he takes it to the next level. The Odyssey does this practically. Boats and monsters are built, allowing this tale to be delivered as reality, as testimony. This is Odysseus recounting what happened to him and his crew. Not a yarn that has been spun by a fantasist.
My favourite scene is The Underworld. Filmed on a black beach in Iceland, it’s the moment Odysseus is made to reckon with the toll his journey has taken. It’s enormous and intimate at the same time. The biggest image in the film, and the quietest moment in it, and it only lands because Nolan made this world believable.
It feels like Nolan has been building to this his whole career. There are a few scenes that will feel familiar to fans of his work. Not because he’s making a cheap callback, but because he’s wittingly or unwittingly been practicing to tell this story. Dunkirk’s soldiers hiding in a beached ship foreshadowing the Trojan horse is the clearest example.
The biggest image in the film, and the quietest moment in it.
Nolan has earned those quiet moments in this movie. His spectacle buys him credit which he spends on two people talking, getting to the heart of the story. It’s profound and often weighty, but it never feels like homework. His pacing is important in this.
There’s a stretch where we were moving through Odysseus’s memories so fast that I had to check my watch. But this speed buys him room to land the final scenes properly, instead of cramming them in. Here’s where he shows his character. Where he demonstrates the lesson that he’s learned. It’s stunning.
Of course I’m giving this five stars. I don’t like throwing around words like ‘masterpiece’ but we’re in that territory. Some folk pre-release have been a bit pissy about accents and historical inaccuracies, but The Odyssey is a story that exists to be retold and reinterpreted. Nolan’s cinematic version is one that people will come back to for decades, long after the trailer stops mattering.
