Christopher Nolan’s much-anticipated The Odyssey is winning over early critics, who are praising it as “staggering”, “breathtaking”, and “a filmmaking feast”.
The film adaptation of Homer’s Greek epic by the Oppenheimer director was screened for the press on Monday night.
The initial verdict from critics was overwhelmingly positive, with many describing it as Nolan’s biggest and most ambitious work to date.
The movie follows Odysseus’s decade-long journey home to Ithaca after the Trojan War as he battles monsters, gods and other mythical foes while his wife Penelope fends off suitors and son Telemachus searches for him.
Matt Damon stars as Odysseus, Anne Hathaway as Penelope and Tom Holland as Telemachus. The cast also includes Robert Pattinson as the suitor Antinous, Zendaya as Athena, Charlize Theron as Calypso, Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy, as well as Jon Bernthal, Benny Safdie, John Leguizamo, Himesh Patel, Samantha Morton, Mia Goth, Elliot Page, and Bill Irwin.
The Independent’s chief film and TV correspondent Jacob Stolworthy described it as “Nolan’s biggest film to date”.
“This film has about triple the number of huge set pieces than any of Nolan’s previous films, and every single one of them is breathtaking in their own way,” he said. “In The Odyssey, Nolan showcases visual trickery in a way you’ve never seen before.”
He praised Holland’s performance as “his best role to date” and praised Morton who “steals the show with the few scenes she’s in”.
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Digital Spy film editor Ian Sandwell wrote on X that “The Odyssey is staggering”. “Packed with intense and spectacular set pieces, often backed by a soul-rattling score, it builds to a final act that’s as good as anything Nolan’s done,” he said.
He added that “purists might baulk at the adaptation changes, but as an experience, nobody is doing it like Nolan”.
Collider’s Perri Nemiroff described it as “a filmmaking feast”, calling it “a grand and gripping rendition of Homer’s epic, and one that feels uniquely Christopher Nolan”. “It’s sincerely hard to imagine any other filmmaker on the planet being able to bring that source material to screen with this much scale, scope and heart,” she said.
Los Angeles Times film editor Joshua Rothkopf called the film “staggering”, describing it as “earthy, ghostly, weighty, touched by humour and grandeur alike”.
He also praised Morton, calling her scenes “simply incredible, witchy and wonderful”.
Time Out film critic Phil de Semlyen urged audiences to “believe the hype”, writing that The Odyssey was “dense but accessible, packed with career-best work from the stacked cast”.
“A chilling vision of brutalised men seeing themselves in the eyes of women, a study of leadership and an old-school sweeping adventure tale,” he wrote on X.
Variety’s Jazz Tangcay called the film “an astonishing achievement” and “a triumphant, spectacular epic”.
Fandango critic Eric Davis described it as “an absolute triumph and a crowning cinematic achievement from one of the great filmmakers of our time”. He singled out Hathaway, Damon, and Holland for praise before adding that “Robert Pattinson absolutely stole the show for me”, calling the movie “the must-see cinematic event of the summer – and quite possibly the year”.
Aaron Couch, film editor at The Hollywood Reporter, wrote on X that “The Odyssey gives us a first: a fleshed out horror sequence directed by Christopher Nolan”.
Not every reaction was as glowing, however, with IndieWire’s chief film critic David Ehrlich describing the film as “a surprisingly natural (and less despairing) Oppenheimer follow-up”, but arguing that it was “too clunky to be S-tier Nolan”.
The Odyssey is the first feature film to be shot entirely on IMAX film cameras, made possible after the director worked with IMAX to develop lighter, quieter equipment capable of handling dialogue-heavy scenes.
The Odyssey will be released in theatres on 17 July 2026.
