The Odyssey

Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey opens July 17, 2026, distributed by Universal Pictures in IMAX, and it may be the most technically audacious film ever made. With a $250 million production budget — the largest of Nolan's career — the film adapts Homer's ancient Greek epic into a widescreen event movie shot entirely on IMAX 70mm film cameras, using a newly developed, lighter, quieter version of the camera built specifically for this production. Over two million feet of IMAX 70mm film stock was consumed during a shoot that spanned seven countries: Morocco, Greece, Italy, Scotland, Iceland, Western Sahara, and Malta. Matt Damon stars as Odysseus, the legendary king of Ithaca, navigating the treacherous sea journey home after ten years fighting the Trojan War. Anne Hathaway plays Penelope, his faithful wife. The ensemble cast — which reads like a comprehensive list of every A-list actor working today — includes Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong'o, Zendaya, and Charlize Theron in roles that include Telemachus, Antinous, Athena, Circe, and Calypso respectively. The film chronicles Odysseus's encounters with the Cyclops Polyphemus, the sirens, the nymph Calypso, and the land of the dead — mythology brought to life at a scale and with a level of craft that Nolan's track record suggests will be genuinely unprecedented. Nolan's previous film, Oppenheimer, grossed over $950 million worldwide and won seven Academy Awards including Best Picture. The Odyssey arrives with that momentum and raises the technical stakes even higher. For the theatrical IMAX experience alone, this is the event film of summer 2026.