The trailer of The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s classic, dropped on Monday evening. The multi-starrer film is the first in history to be filmed entirely on IMAX cameras, and given Nolan’s legacy, it is one of the most anticipated releases of 2026. The short trailer, less than two minutes long, gave fans exactly what they had expected – enough tease but not enough reveal, but a grand look at the canvas Nolan is stitching for what could be his magnum opus.
The Odyssey trailer’s high points
The trailer has few lines of dialogue, typical for a Nolan promo. It is punctuated by visuals, both intimate and grand, as the maverick filmmaker introduces his ancient Greece. We see the end of the Trojan War, Odysseus wanting to return to Ithaca, and the perils that follow. The expanse and setting of The Odyssey are immense. Nolan has utilised natural scenery and real, rough scenes to create an epic where every frame feels authentic, rather than the green-screen fakery we have been served by major studios over the last decade. The Odyssey gives the feel of an old-school historical, mythological epic, where the grandeur is mostly real, and only accentuated by CGI, not completely created in a computer.
Every character gets a chance to own the screen for a few moments, be it Telemachus (Tom Holland) or Penelope (Anne Hathaway), even as the focus always remains on Matt Damon’s Odysseus. The mythical characters are only teased, with Nolan not even showing us their full outlines, let alone forms. That is, perhaps, for another trailer later, and rightly so. The ‘tease more and reveal less’ philosophy works great in today’s world where everything is oversaturated and overanalysed. A little mystique goes a long way in such a climate.
Really, historical accuracy complaints for a mythical story?
If you have been on the internet in the last few days, you must have seen the usual complaints about how the armour Odysseus wears in the trailer is not ‘era accurate’, and that Penelope’s clothes are not right, and even nitpicks about the colour of armour ancient Greeks wore. All this over a work of fiction set 3000 years ago?
It is true that ancient Greeks wore multicoloured armour to distinguish themselves from the enemy in dusty battlefields. But I would take monotone armours instead of Matt Damon and Jon Bernthal dressed in pink and green armour with yellow shields in hand. The rule of cool applies to cinema! It must look good first, and then be accurate. To those who complain about the film’s historical accuracy, I hope you don’t clutch your pearls at spotting the odd cyclops or minotaur in the film. After all, they will certainly not be ‘historically accurate’.
About The Odyssey
Based on Homer’s Odyssey, the Christopher Nolan film stars Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Zendaya, and Charlize Theron. It is scheduled to release in theatres on 17 July, 2026.
