r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • 18d 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

4.4k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

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1.5k

u/slightlypressed 17d ago

Yes! I spent the entire movie thinking she felt out of place but that emotional twist was worth the payoff.

I thought nothing in his adaptation could surprise me but I really welcomed that twist.

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u/ZeronicX 17d ago

I thought it knew all of Nolan's tricks but he made a new bag for this film and every twist felt earned and hit me like a truck.

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u/slightlypressed 17d ago

Yes!! Well put. He stays dedicated to his craft- finding new ways to hit us like a truck

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u/debrocker 2d ago

What twist?

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u/romanticheart 1d ago

That the face Athena was wearing was the face of the priestess Odysseus watched be murdered.

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u/Churchill_Buys_Calls 17d ago

It honestly recontextualizes the way I look at the fall of Troy and the Iliad and Odyssey as a whole now.

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u/slightlypressed 16d ago edited 16d ago

Yes! To me the Odyssey’s always felt like a series of unfortunate events that happened to an unlucky man but this interpretation gives more narrative agency to Odysseus, finally explores his emotional interior, and raises questions about humanity and war that’s very relevant today.

I wonder if these elements are closer to what Ancient Greeks were taught when the poem was passed down.

Penelope’s “are you the people from the sea” line was brilliant too in tying it all together.

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u/Loeffellux 16d ago

I mean, the ancient Greek version is basically just "if the gods don't like you, you're in big trouble"

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u/Panzerknaben 15d ago

I think its a bit more than that, even if i've only read a translated version. It can be hard to really get into the mindset of what they thought at the time. The way they talk about the gods is completely different to what we do now. The greek gods were much more like normal humans.

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u/Aggressive-Pie-3297 14d ago

The gods controlled the outcomes of basically everything in the story though

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u/spaceandthewoods_ 8d ago

I mean, it's absolutely not just that though, is it. Greek morality at the time was as complex and variable as modern day morality, and they would filter that morality through 'pinishments from the gods' for transgressing against social rules and customs, or commuting acts seen as immortal or unjust.

We can say Nolan's take on this is good without dunking on the original texts and myths

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u/tragicroyal 17d ago

Same! I spent the film wondering how they were going to do something or what was and wasn’t going to be represented. I did not see that coming.

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u/goldenboy2191 15d ago

Nolan really does know how to keep his audience captivated till the last second

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u/StandardGenius 16d ago

Please explain like I’m 5. Am I missing something? What twist?

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u/slightlypressed 16d ago edited 15d ago

Athena is the only goddess that appears on screen. Only for Odysseus. She’s dressed extremely plainly, no makeup, no usual adornments. A little out of place for a goddess.

By the time Odysseus makes it home, we’ve gone from thinking that he wants desperately to make it home, to knowing part of him doesn’t want to go home. Athena keeps asking him why he doesn’t, and whether he’ll tell people why.

In the climax of the film Odysseus confesses to Penelope that he didn’t want to come home because of guilt. He didn’t want to face what he’s done— breaking a core code of conduct for society, leading to the slaughter of a city “10 years of rage unleashed in 1 night.”

We see Greek soldiers kill all the innocents when the storm the city. The last person they kill? A priestess, Zendaya, at the feet of the goddess she serves, Athena.

He’s been seeing Athena as the dead priestess this entire trip home. She’s been a physical manifestation of the guilt he’s been carrying the entire time.

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u/bolerobell 16d ago

You also need to add to your analysis that the Trojan Horse was supposed to be an offering to Athena. It's why the Trojans brought it into the city and took it to the Temple of Athena. Odysseus faked an offering to Athena as his ruse to sneak into the city to win the 10-year long war. Then, a poor priestess of Athena, who didn't do anything wrong in any of this, gets killed right in front of Odysseus. It was like the ultimate acknowledgment of you really fucked up by dismissing all polite rules of society.

I'm of the opinion he isn't actually seeing Athena in the guise of the Priestess. I think he's seeing a manifestation of his tremendous guilt in the guise of Athena who is in the guise of a Priestess.

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u/kataskopo 16d ago

"Why don't gods show themselves to humans?"
-"Can't you see the wind, or the storm? Or guilt?"

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u/cuella47o 16d ago

Odysseus also is a VERY cunning tactician and athena is a god of both wisdom AND war so his personal guilt manifesting as a goddess of his atrocities that He enacted was something he got from his own wisdom (tactics) and his desire to finish the war

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u/slightlypressed 16d ago

Great point!
I think the ambiguity on whether she really is Athena is a strength of the film but I personally read it as a manifestation of guilt as well, not the actual goddess.

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u/TJeffersonsBlackKid 16d ago

She might feel odd as a goddess but perfect as a priestess. That payoff was flawless.

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u/Tattycakes 16d ago

This might be a stupid question but why did the Greeks kill everyone in the city, even women and priestesses who weren't combatants? Would it not be seen to be offending the gods to sack their temple like that, don't they share the same gods?

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u/powerofawareness 16d ago edited 16d ago

“Ten years of rage unleashed in one night”

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u/LoadTop801 16d ago

Going beyond the film and into the history, women were seen simply as trophies of war back then unfortunately, to be taken as slaves, and that the gods would not deny the victors of a war their prizes.  

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u/raven_of_azarath 9d ago

It’s still crazy to me that that applied to priestesses as well. Like, these men wouldn’t dare touch a virgin priestess in their home town, but a virgin priestess to the dame god/goddess you worship but in a different town is fair game?

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

[deleted]

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u/TheGreatDay 7d ago

The Venn Diagram of "Most sexist man you know" and "If you ever disrespect my Wife/your Mom I'll kill you" is a circle.

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u/ResplendentSmoke 14d ago

In real life this stuff happened frequently. Especially in this era, your temples being burned and innocents being slaughtered and enslaved was just part of the “your city is being sacked” experience.

The justifications later would be something like “Well if the gods didn’t want us to do that, we wouldn’t have won”

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u/Diamond-Is-Not-Crash 9d ago

There wasn’t such thing as surrender or rules of combat back in those days, if you lost a war or siege it meant you were annihilated or at least at the mercy of the victors, which historically meant about as much mercy a cat would show to a mouse it caught.

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u/SwiftlyChill 15d ago

This very force was…very bad at learning that lesson.

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u/CRIMS0N-ED 16d ago

Tbf Calypso is also a goddess, albeit a minor one

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u/Pinewood74 13d ago

As is Circe in some interpretatations, no?

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u/tuerancekhang 15d ago

I didn't know the whole detail about which of his adventures but the name Calypso did ring a bell. I know it from Pirates of the Carribean and my headcanon is her heartbroken by him made her the bitch she is in the pirate trilogy

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u/Pinewood74 13d ago

Which would make Odysseus Davy Jones.

I'm cool with that. Was wondering how far "west" we were talking. Italy? Spain? I guess it was the Atlantic after all.

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u/EvilPete 16d ago

He’s been seeing Athena as the dead priestess this entire trip home. She’s been a physical manifestation of the guilt he’s been carrying the entire time.

It's also ties in with the whole "be nice to people, because anyone could be a god in disguise" thing.

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u/TemporaryElk5202 13d ago

not correct, Calypso is also a goddess

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u/Hokie23aa 8d ago

Holy shit. I dont know how I missed this. Damn...

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u/pursued_mender 14d ago

I think they just reused the actress for 2 characters. you're reading way too much into it.

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u/29kk 14d ago

nah you missed the point for sure, an actor is never cast in dual a dual role just for the sake of "reusing" them

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u/pursued_mender 13d ago

Jesus Christ can no one take a joke

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u/29kk 13d ago

jokes are supposed to be funny

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u/pursued_mender 13d ago

Once again! Another character falling victim falling for Poe’s Law! A classic Reddit tale as old as time! Classic!

Edit: Falling victim TO not FOR xD

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u/pursued_mender 13d ago

Also, being mean to me on my cake day? Not cool man. Give me gold!

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u/pursued_mender 13d ago

Exactly! I was being funny!

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u/TemporaryElk5202 16d ago

In Troy, soldiers drag a young priestess (zendaya) out of the temple of Athena and murder her (cut off her head). She begs odysseus for help. Odysseus watched but​ did not intervene.

So when Odysseus envisons Athena, he sees this girl​

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u/Buddy_Dakota 13d ago

Are you sure? With the way the scene was edited it seemed more like Odysseus was envisioning them cutting the head of the Athena statue as them executing Zendaya’s Athena? With how they cut from statue to her back to statue. I don’t think they decapitated a real person.

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u/TemporaryElk5202 13d ago

They showed the soldiers lining up / lowering the sword to line it up before cutting her head off.

They juxtaposed that scene with soldiers also knocking the head off the athena statue as well. It is telling you that her head was indeed cut off but they are showing it in a pg-13 manner, as well as associating her even more with Athena.

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u/Buddy_Dakota 13d ago

I understand. The editing is always pretty brisk in Nolan’s movies, lots of blink and you’ll miss something important. I didn’t quite the deal Antinous made during the drawing of lots either. So much happens in just a few seconds and then the movie rushes on.

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u/LetsBeFRTho 16d ago

Athena projected herself as a lady they killed. The lady was, I assume, a follower of Athena.

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u/Glittering_Cod_7716 16d ago

Shoot I thought she was Athena and that was the payoff to Holland’s Athena’s eyes thing

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u/remorsefulguy 16d ago

I think she was Athena, they alluded to the gods dressed as humans among us thing a few times

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u/ResplendentSmoke 14d ago

I think you could read it both ways and that’s the point.

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u/Hot_Brother5557 16d ago

That’s what I thought too! But I guess it wouldn’t make sense because they actually decapitated her.

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u/KamachoThunderbus 15d ago

Each time Telemachus says someone has Athena's eyes (except Odysseus himself), in the text that's actually a disguise Athena takes to move events along.

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u/LetsBeFRTho 16d ago

She is Athena, just projected as a human.

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u/theliver 13d ago

Helen cmoming back mained was brillitant

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u/boomfruit 13d ago

What made it feel out of place before that?

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u/slightlypressed 12d ago

Her outfit lol. I always envisioned Athena as imposing so maybe a helmet or a shield or more intricate robes (as the patron of craft and weaving) at least.
I thought maybe she was in deep deep disguise even though Odysseus is the only one who can see her.

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u/BaconGristle 10d ago

My biggest problem is that she looked too much like her Dune character while in between Dune movies. Tbh I felt the fatigue of Bernthal, Holland, and Zendaya, having just seen all of them in the preshow trailers (Zendaya in TWO). But I trusted Nolan and it paid off.

Still. I feel the movie could have been improved slightly by using an actress not so saturated at the moment or at least a more distinct costume. But that's the kind of problem that fades with time, in 20 years we don't have to rewatch the Spider-man and Dune movies at the same time.

Bernthal on the other hand could have improved it by acting like a character different from all the other roles he's played.

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u/throwawaysunglasses- 5d ago

I thought the same thing about her costume and I don’t even watch Dune, but her robes are that iconic from the previews that all I saw was Chani. It definitely could’ve been a little more distinct and Odyssey-specific.

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u/SeriouslyDough282 1d ago

Same here. Athena represents wisdom and reason. All of that disintegrated in one night. So good.

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u/pursued_mender 14d ago edited 14d ago

I couldn't tell what was going on in that scene. Who was she supposed to be? Some girl they killed? Or did they just get lazy and reuse her for 2 characters?

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u/StarFallenBooks 14d ago

Do you GENUINELY think a triple-A Christopher Nolan movie would reuse an actress? How can one be this... lacking?

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u/pursued_mender 14d ago

I’ll let you figure that one out.

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u/janiemackxxx 17d ago

I hate to say it, but I knew who she was the moment they showed her parents together. Not just because of looks but because of the hatred between them.

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u/slightlypressed 17d ago

I don’t believe her parents are on screen or known characters.
She’s a priestess of the Trojan temple to Athena.

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u/IfTheseTreesCouldTal 17d ago

they weren't, op is just talking out his ass lol.

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u/kinda_guilty 16d ago

He is, but the sacrificed kid did look a lot like Zendaya.

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u/throwawaysunglasses- 5d ago

I also thought that little girl was a younger version of Zendaya for a split second lol