r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • 10h ago

Official Discussion Official Discussion - The Odyssey (2026) [SPOILERS] Spoiler

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The Odyssey (2026)

Summary

After the Trojan War, Odysseus faces a dangerous voyage back to Ithaca, meeting creatures like the Cyclops Polyphemus, Sirens, and Calypso along the way.

Director Christopher Nolan

Writer Christopher Nolan

Cast

  • Matt Damon as Odysseus
  • Tom Holland as Telemachus
  • Anne Hathaway
  • Zendaya
  • Lupita Nyong'o
  • Robert Pattinson
  • Charlize Theron
  • Benny Safdie
  • Jon Bernthal
  • John Leguizamo
  • Elliot Page
  • Himesh Patel
  • Samantha Morton

Rotten Tomatoes: 96%

Metacritic: 88

VOD / Release Theatrical release

Trailer Official Trailer

1.8k Upvotes

86% Upvoted

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836

u/mikeyfreshh r/Movies Veteran 10h ago

This is a movie about a man who uses his smarts to create an unethical device of war that allows him to become a hero but ultimately leads to the complete collapse of polite society, forcing him to spend the remainder of his life reckoning with the consequences of his actions and attempting to put the proverbial toothpaste back in the tube.

Nolan just made Oppenheimer again

147

u/pacmain1 10h ago

The ending monologue gave me Oppenheimer ending vibes... Also a tinge of the Dark Knight ending.

7

u/YaMomsCooch 7h ago

Not just the monologue, but the cinematography of Odysseus staring at both the setting sun and the burning Trojan horse with Ludwigs score layered over it all was so eerily reminiscent of Oppenheimer’s horrified expression as ICBMs crisscross through the sky.

3

u/TJeffersonsBlackKid 6h ago

The twist that the Sea Peoples were all the Greek soldiers who had survived Troy was a fucking gut punch. They got a taste of treachery and were now a plague on mankind. The final shot showing the burning horse was harrowing.

3

u/Comrade_Legasov 6h ago

yeah, very dark knight rises vibes.

and both ended with Anne Hathaway and the main hero in a far away place

1

u/GameOfLife24 6h ago

Rises with the cut to Matt Damon being alive and not dead just like batman

161

u/BBDBVAPA 10h ago edited 9h ago

The reading that Nolan has been making The Odyssey in some way, shape, or form with every movie has been a really fun thread in reviews.

Inception opening on the beach. Bruce Wayne trying to get out of the pit and get home. Cooper trying to get back to Murph after abandoning his family.

But your note is so good. The way his movies are in conversation is so, so interesting. And so good from a retrospective that yes, they seem to be talking to one another. The idea in this film that in some way “this too shall pass”, while in Oppenheimer it almost felt like it can never go back, is so interesting.

68

u/GunnyMoJo 9h ago

Maybe, in some way, every story is just treading the grounds and structures Homer laid out thousands of years ago.

15

u/ZizzianYouthMinister 8h ago

I dunno this Odysseus guy is a bit of a Mary Sue feels pretty overpowered maybe should have thrown in a few more tragic flaws this Homer guy should try watching Suits or The Walking Dead and take notes.

4

u/Sebastianlim 7h ago

And before him the hundreds or thousands of oral storytellers who first told these stories.

11

u/bigjerfystyle 9h ago

I was saying to my girlfriend that it was like he finally wrote his “Inception totem” in a way that wasn’t built on an insanely stilted plot and was able to land it naturally. (Loved inception, but boy was it over engineered)

I do think that he just landed the fucking plane in ways that are spread throughout his other movies as incomplete ideas. I felt like so much of his craft just “clicked” in this movie that it’s really a top of form moment for him. And there are so many echoes from the rest of his movies. I even loved when they were approaching the whirlpool and Odysseus tells them to aim for it and I remember the dizzying spiral of the black hole from Interstellar coming back as an echo. Beautiful visual echoes across the films.

1

u/Troyal1 7h ago

Definitely true

1

u/karmaticforaday 6h ago

Telemachus leaving to Sparta because he felt his father was alive reminded me of how Anne Hathaway talked about love traversing distance better than anything physical in Interstellar.

•

u/pjtheman 3h ago

That's what stuck out to me. On the surface level, this movie seems like such an outside the box choice for Nolan. But having seen it, it feels completely at home with movies like Oppenheimer, Inception, or Interstellar.

106

u/twavisdegwet 10h ago

Except somehow this movie had LESS sex in it. If people were less mad about the Oppenheimer sex scenes I bet we would have seen Odie and Circe boning down while the crew are pigs like in the book.

74

u/TheHoss_ 10h ago

Kind of shocking that there’s 0 sex in the movie tbh

21

u/AngryhamLincoln 8h ago

As a teacher I love this. So exciting that students will get to see this adaptation along with the reading

12

u/howtospellorange 7h ago

I was literally just talking to my partner about how there's no sexual nudity, just violence and two "fuck"s so it's pretty safe for like a 12th grade classroom if parents sign a permission slip kinda thing.

•

u/HockeyKelly5 1h ago

I didn’t even realize they said it only twice, although I guess Nolan isn’t really the type of person who has a lot of cursing in his movies usually

10

u/ZizzianYouthMinister 8h ago

Cyclops sheep but no cyclops hog :(

8

u/UpsideTurtles 9h ago

There almost was btwn Ody and Pen. I bet they just had to cut it. #ReleaseTheNolanCut

1

u/behv 8h ago

I believe that's an outtake during the eiplogue where they were about to wrap filming finally but turns out Matt Damon and Anne Hathaway did A LOT of coke and molly before getting on the boat

Nolan being a professional of course just kept the camera rolling besides asking them to pause every 3 minutes for the IMAX reel to change

4

u/millanstar 8h ago edited 7h ago

Blame Gen Z, somehow they ended up more prude than baby boomers...

•

u/TacoParasite 4h ago

Ah yes, up and coming Gen Z director Christopher Nolan.

•

u/HockeyKelly5 1h ago

I mean, sometimes we just don’t want to see two people fucking on our screens especially with family.

-4

u/heathmon1856 6h ago

I’m Gen Y and I hate sec scenes in movies and tv shows.

45

u/mikeyfreshh r/Movies Veteran 10h ago

I feel like Agamemnon's death scene could have used a little more sex

7

u/Anteater4746 10h ago

i mean there was a stabbing

4

u/stallionsRIDEufl 9h ago

That's a kind of sex

2

u/Bukki13 9h ago

Now that you say it, stabbing someone and pulling the sword back out does have a striking resemblence to... y'know

20

u/Able_Advertising_371 10h ago

surprisingly no sex despite the source material

1

u/Impressive-Potato 6h ago

Those gods be boning

11

u/Go_Plate_326 10h ago

He would not show us the dong! Not the cyclops dong, not the pig soldier dongs, no dongs!

3

u/twavisdegwet 10h ago

It's okay- I think the hog watchers are still feasting off bone temple

5

u/Go_Plate_326 9h ago

I think I would have been less aware of it if I hadn't also seen Ralph Fiennes hanging dong in The Return, also based on The Odyssey. Nolan is even more afraid of sex than Spielberg, it's so weird.

1

u/TJeffersonsBlackKid 6h ago

Unless it’s Cillian Murphy and Lawrence Pugh for no goddamn reason lmao.

-4

u/Entharo_entho 7h ago

I refuse to watch Oppenheimer due to the sex scenes in it. I don't understand why should women show titties in a movie about Oppenheimer. Give women the budget, awards and acclaim for showing titty.

10

u/freethepeados 9h ago

“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” ― Albert Einstein

I can see something about the bronze age collapse in those words. The fire rises.

4

u/Successful_Basket399 10h ago

Had the exact same thoughts at the end 😂

5

u/BloatedGlobe 9h ago

I did not go into this movie expecting the Achaeans to the be the sea peoples, responsible for late bronze age societal collapse. It worked out really well thematically, but it just was not what I was expecting.

3

u/Pure_Salamander2681 9h ago

Ha we came out joking it was an Oppenheimer prequel.

3

u/SportsFan34 9h ago

Everybody talks about Nolan’s affinity for fucking with time but this - man’s arrogance leading directly to his demise and misery - is the most interesting throughline of his work and it is so underdiscussed at large. Or maybe I just don’t see it as much.

2

u/wild_h0rses 9h ago

No, it’s the sequel to Oppenheimer

2

u/Evane7 8h ago

Everyone’s afraid of the people from the sea not knowing it was them.

2

u/atclubsilencio 7h ago

Despite the similarities you mention I liked this so much more than Oppenheimer. I’ve yet to rewatch that one since seeing it theaters, but I forward to watching The Odyssey again, and possibly in theaters one more time.

1

u/ajarbyurns1 7h ago

Also Anne Hathaway is longing for her husband who has not returned home from a long journey

•

u/o07jdb 2h ago

That entire last monologue by Odysseus was so Oppenheimer

0

u/millanstar 8h ago

but ultimately leads to the complete collapse of polite society

This I still dont quite understand completly, is the implication tht Troy was the kingdome helding all together? That him violating Zeus Law by entering as a gift open the gates for other armys to do the same (and if so, how?)?, another thing entirely?

6

u/GriffinQ 7h ago

I think it’s a few things, one of which is that Odysseus and Agamemnon’s armies using subterfuge to rape and pillage an enemy city under the guise of a gift is akin to trying to put toothpaste back in the tube - once you do something like that and break down a previously believed in rule of warfare, you can’t undo it.

Another is that the ten years of sieging Troy and then the release of rage that came with finally sacking the city and burning it and its people down, the Greek armies needed a continued outlet - the men who took part in the Trojan war, in some cases, were incapable of just going home, and so they would have turned their monstrous natures on other cities and villages and peoples rather than returning to society as the same men who left.

The men who left for war aren’t the ones who returned and there’s no fixing that.

3

u/trigerfish 7h ago

IMO the soldiers returning from the Trojan war, following in the footsteps of violating Zeus law, are the men from the sea destroying the polite society they once came from