Nolan’s The Odyssey earns rapturous early praise after London premiere

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey drew rapturous first reactions after its London world premiere on Monday, with early responses calling the film “staggering,” “breathtaking” and “a filmmaking feast.” The reception gives Nolan a forceful follow-up to Oppenheimer and arrives as Universal Pictures prepares to release the film in cinemas on 17 July 2026.

The movie adapts Homer’s The Odyssey, the foundational Greek epic about Odysseus, king of Ithaca, and his 10-year struggle to get home after the Trojan War. The poem is traditionally dated to the 8th century BCE, while later Greek authors placed the Trojan War in the 12th or 13th century BCE. Nolan has turned that material into his first feature film shot entirely on IMAX film cameras, a technical milestone that has already helped frame the project as more than another prestige adaptation.

Matt Damon plays Odysseus, with Tom Holland as Telemachus and Anne Hathaway as Penelope. The ensemble also includes Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o and Charlize Theron, a lineup that gives the production the kind of marquee weight usually reserved for franchise films. Early screenings were held in IMAX theaters where available, and 70mm IMAX tickets sold out a year before release, a sign that Nolan’s name still carries unusual box-office pull for a non-franchise title.

That demand matters because The Odyssey is testing whether a literary epic can still break through in a market crowded by sequels, superhero series and familiar brands. Nolan’s post-Oppenheimer stature appears strong enough to make a 3,000-year-old story feel like a major event movie, while the IMAX-first release strategy shows how premium formats have become part of the pitch for drawing audiences back into cinemas.

The film has also generated heat well before release. Critics have objected to filming in the Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara, and the trailer drew backlash over accents and modern dialogue. For all the early acclaim, The Odyssey arrives with the kind of prestige, technical ambition and public scrutiny that could make its theatrical run a referendum on what kinds of films can still command a wide audience in 2026.