The Screen · 1954–2026
For seventy years filmmakers have circled these poems — usually the Odyssey, which has monsters, and rarely the Iliad, which has grief. In 2026 the circling ended in the biggest way possible: Christopher Nolan filmed the Odyssey at a scale no Homer adaptation has ever had. The catalogue below runs from Kirk Douglas to the Coen brothers; the hub starts with the reason most readers arrive at this site now.
The facts, sourced from the July 2026 trade coverage. The Odyssey is the first feature shot entirely on IMAX film cameras — an ambition Nolan called his longest-held (per Variety) — photographed by Hoyte van Hoytema, edited by Jennifer Lame, scored by Ludwig Göransson, produced by Nolan and Emma Thomas. About 172 minutes, rated R, released July 17, 2026, IMAX-exclusive for its first three weeks; the production exposed over two million feet of film (PetaPixel). The budget — $250M (first reported by Puck, per The Hollywood Reporter) — reportedly made it Nolan's most expensive film. Locations ran from Sicily and the Egadi Islands through Iceland, Greece, Morocco, Western Sahara, Scotland, and Ireland.
The cast: Matt Damon as Odysseus, Tom Holland as Telemachus, Anne Hathaway as Penelope, Zendaya as Athena, Lupita Nyong'o as Helen and Clytemnestra, John Leguizamo as Eumaeus, Mia Goth as Melantho, with Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthal, Elliot Page, and a large ensemble. The opening weekend — $124.5M domestic, $264.1M global — was, per CNBC, Nolan's best ever, and per Deadline the fourth-biggest R-rated opening on record; IMAX 70mm tickets had gone on sale a full year in advance. Reviews: 95% on Rotten Tomatoes with an "A" CinemaScore. All figures are early, as of late July 2026.
Per Britannica's summary, Nolan keeps the wanderings as spectacle — Cyclops, Sirens, Laestrygonians, Circe, Calypso — but invents an ending: Telemachus crowned king of Ithaca while Odysseus and Penelope sail away. Homer does the opposite. In the poem the wanderings are a tale Odysseus tells at a banquet, a third of the whole; the second half is patience, disguise, and a reckoning inside one house — and it ends with the king back on his throne, the marriage bed rooted where it always was (the architecture of the poem).
Screenplay by David Benioff, 'inspired by Homer's Iliad' but ranging over the wider cycle. Gods removed, ten years compressed to weeks, Menelaus and Agamemnon killed out of Homeric order. The 2007 Director's Cut (196 min) is generally considered the stronger version. Nolan was offered it before Petersen.
Kirk Douglas as Ulysses; Silvana Mangano in a dual role as Penelope and Circe; Anthony Quinn as Antinous. The Cyclops sequence was co-directed by Mario Bava. Relatively faithful to the homecoming.
Acclaimed RAI production — a lavish, comparatively faithful European co-production.
NBC/Hallmark two-parter: Armand Assante, Greta Scacchi, Isabella Rossellini, Christopher Lee; creatures by Jim Henson's Creature Shop. The most comprehensive screen retelling of the full poem.
With Rossana Podestà — and Brigitte Bardot in a small role. A 2003 USA Network miniseries retold the story for television.
BBC One/Netflix, eight episodes retelling the war over the whole cycle, with a notably diverse cast (David Gyasi as Achilles).
A stark, godless retelling of the Odyssey's second half. Ralph Fiennes as Odysseus, Juliette Binoche as Penelope — their first film together since The English Patient.
The Odyssey in Depression-era Mississippi: Ulysses Everett McGill, Sirens, a one-eyed Bible salesman. The Coens cheerfully admitted to working from the myth (and Joyce) more than the text.
The title and the voyage-of-transformation structure invoke Homer thematically.
A Civil War Odyssey — a soldier's long journey home to his Penelope.
A film about filming the Odyssey, after Moravia's novel; Fritz Lang plays himself directing Homer.
A filmmaker's Balkan journey structured as an Odyssey; Harvey Keitel.
The adaptation tradition is older than cinema and wider than it. Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (Venice, carnival 1639–40) is one of the earliest operas in the repertory; Fauré's Pénélope premiered in 1913. On stage, Kate Hamill's Odyssey premiered at the American Repertory Theater in 2025, and Simon Armitage's radio and stage versions keep the poem in British earshot. In games, the pantheon thrives — Hades II features Odysseus as an aiding character, and Assassin's Creed Odyssey borrows the name for the Peloponnesian War — though a major, direct Homer game remains unmade. And the pipeline, as of mid-2026, holds nothing further: beyond Pasolini's The Return (2024) and Nolan's film, no new major screen Homer is confirmed — the AI-generated "Odyssey" projects announced in July 2026 are promotional launches, not productions.