Here’s what you need to know about the Homeric epic before Christopher Nolan’s film adaptation hits cinemas in 2026.
There’s been a lot of hype surrounding Christopher Nolan’s next film: an adaptation of Homer’s Greek epic The Odyssey, which has attracted the curiosity and excitement of everyone from English teachers to casual moviegoers. And there’s a lot to look forward to—if Nolan and his team stick the landing. The work is a hefty one, and one of the oldest, most influential classics ever produced.
Expectations are high, but we can probably put a little more faith in the man who created the recent Oscar-winning masterpiece Oppenheimer and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from University College London. One thing’s for certain, the film boasts a star-studded cast that keeps growing, including Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Charlize Theron, Benny Safdie, John Leguizamo, Elliot Page, Himesh Patel, and Mia Goth.
As more behind-the-scenes content is released, you might find yourself diving into Wikipedia and YouTube to get a crash course on the famous tale, if you’re not already familiar with it or a fan. We’ve compiled a few resources and tidbits in this guide to help you with that. By the time the film hits theaters in 2026, you’ll be ready to appreciate the epic in all its glory—or sniff, hold your head high, and declare that the movie doesn’t hold a candle to the source material (if that’s your thing).
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What Is The Odyssey?
Today, most people access The Odyssey through written translations of the Greek epic poem. But Homer, the blind poet who’s credited as the author of both The Iliad and The Odyssey, most likely recited the piece while moving from place to place. Back then, the oral tradition was very much alive—so The Odyssey we know today is really a transcription of one version of the poem, passed down by scholars who copied and studied the work for centuries.
The tale is divided into 24 books (in today’s terms, you can probably view them as long sections or chapters), and chronicles the journey of its titular character Odysseus, king of the Greek island of Ithaca. The plan is supposed to be simple, but like any good story, conflicts make the path towards these goals all the more complicated. Odysseus wants to get back home to his wife and son, preferably with all his men or soldiers, after serving in the Trojan War; but a host of problems, from enchantresses to sea monsters and angry gods, prevent the hero from returning for 20 years. In other words, it’s the longest and most harrowing road trip (or rather, ocean voyage) you can think of.
Odysseus’s son, Telemachus, goes on a journey of his own in search of his father, with the aid of the goddess Athena. The stakes are high at home, as a horde of male visitors take over the hero’s palace and overstay their welcome. They plan to murder the young prince, marry queen Penelope, and usurp Odysseus as the ruler of Ithaca, which makes the king and his son’s voyage home all the more urgent. Odysseus eventually returns disguised as a beggar, killing the suitors in cold blood and taking his place as the rightful king.
“The Odyssey is in some ways like a fairy tale. ‘Bad’ people are killed and the ‘good’ hero triumphs. But the poem is surprisingly clear-sighted about both the problematic tendencies of its own hero and its own dominant fantasy,” writes British-American classicist Emily Wilson in the introduction of her The Odyssey translation. “Everybody likes the idea of a radical reversal of fortune, a surprising and long-delayed final victory, a settled, forever home. This is a text that allows us to explore our desire for power and for permanence, in the world of imagination, while also showing us the darker side of these deep human dreams, hopes, and fears.”
The Story Behind The Telling
Like many Greek epics of its kind, The Odyssey starts in media res—in the middle of the narrative, rather than the beginning. “It is not the start of the Trojan War, which began with the Judgment of Paris and the Abduction of Helen and was fought for ten years. Nor does the poem start at the beginning of Odyssseus’ journey home, which has been in progress for almost as many years as the war,” explains Wilson. “Instead, it begins when nothing much seems to be happening at all; Odyseus, his son, and his wife are all stuck in a state of frustration and paralysis that has been continuing for years and is becoming unbearable.”
Is it a factual representation of historical events? Not quite, since the poem mixes the fantastical or mythological with reality. Scholars are still not sure if the Trojan War—which incited the events in The Iliad and The Odyssey—actually happened, though there’s enough evidence to suggest that it did. To make a very long story short, the war was a conflict between the Mycenaean Greeks and the city of Troy, and happened after prince Paris of Troy abducted or took Helen, the wife of Menelaus (Greek king to Mycenaean Sparta). The Greeks eventually won after Odysseus came up with a plan to invade Troy by surprise through the famous Trojan Horse.
Who’s Odysseus?
“Tell me about a complicated man,” writes Wilson in her translation of the epic. It’s the first line of the book, and the one that sets the tone for what’s to come, carrying layers of nuance when describing the protagonist Odysseus. While he’s referred to as a “hero,” the word in this context has less to do with a good moral standing, and more to do with the accomplishment of extraordinary feats. And Odysseus, as The Odyssey makes clear, is one of the most intelligent and cunning men to have ever existed—so much so that he became the favored hero of Athena, Greek goddess of wisdom, war, and handicrafts.
That said, the king of Ithaca is certainly no do-gooder. He’s willing to lie, trick, and cheat his way through situations, pillaging cities, murdering those who pose a threat to him (including the infant child of enemy warrior Hector), and going as far as sacrificing his own men to prevent further bloodshed (these aren’t really spoilers considering the tale is more than 2,000 years old).
Of course, Odysseus has his admirable traits. Aside from being a whip-smart strategist, he’s also a dedicated ruler to his kingdom—this commitment to his role being one of the primary reasons why he needed to return to Ithaca.
As for being a faithful husband, there’s still a lot of debate on that. Some believe his implied dalliances with the enchantress Circe and goddess Calypso during his journey made him a philanderer. However, close reading of the text will show us that, in these specific situations, there was always something more to the hero’s decisions. Sleeping with Circe was part of a plan to set his men, whom she transformed into pigs, free. Likewise, despite being trapped in the island of Ogygia as the goddess Calypso’s lover—promised a life of no pain and everything he could ever want—he chose to go home.
Odysseus is indeed a complicated man who contains multitudes, but that’s what makes The Odyssey such a compelling tale, and one pop culture continues to fixate on, even years after it was first spoken.
Other Important Characters To Remember
Now that you have a general overview of The Odyssey, here’s a cheat sheet of important characters and monsters to look out for in the story:
Telemachus: The son of Odysseus, prince of Ithaca.
Penelope: Odysseus’s faithful wife, who looked after her son and the kingdom throughout his absence and stalled the scheming suitors until his return.
Antinuous: One of the suitors waiting to usurp Odysseus; leads the plan to kill Telemachus.
Athena: Plays a crucial role in the story as a mentor figure and friend to Odysseus and his son, Telemachus.
Polyphemus: The cyclops (one-eyed giant) child of the sea god Poseidon, who lives in a cave with his sheep and goats. He attacks Odysseus and some of his crew when they steal food from him; the hero manages to trick and injure the monster, which leads to Poseidon becoming angry and vengeful over his son’s mistreatment.
Poseidon: God of the sea, storms, earthquakes, and horses. After Odysseus mistreats Polyphemus, Poseidon makes it his mission to constantly jeopardize his journey back home, calling on storms and causing turbulent waves that kill members of the hero’s crew.
Hermes: The messenger of the gods (and a deity himself), who aids Odysseus throughout his journey with advice, especially when he encounters Circe.
Circe: An enchantress who lives on the island of Aeaea, and has the power to change people into animals. She turns Odysseus’s crew into pigs after drugging them through enchanted food.
Tiresias: A dead, blind prophet Odysseus meets in the Underworld, who guides him on his journey by revealing the obstacles he will come across during the path home.
Calypso: A goddess living in the island of Ogygia, who hopes to keep Odysseus there forever as her husband.
Charybdis: A goddess who takes the form of a monstrous sea monster that summons giant whirlpools.
Scylla: Another monstrous sea goddess who lives in a cave near Charybdis; she possesses six heads that are described to have the voice of a hungry dog. Odysseus had to sacrifice six of his men to her, opting to pass through her cave to avoid being swallowed by Charybdis.
Sirens: Monsters that Odysseus and his crew also encounter. They take the form of winged creatures with the upper bodies of women and lower bodies of birds, who lure sailors to their deaths through singing. Odysseus outsmarts them by having himself tied to the mast of his ship, then asking his crew to plug their ears with beeswax while they steer out of their territory.
Zeus: King of Olympus, god of the sky and lightning. He kills the rest of Odysseus’s crew with a storm as punishment for slaughtering the sacred cattle of Helios, Titan god of the sun. Odysseus returns to Ithaca alone, without the 600 men who once accompanied him.
The Odyssey’s Relevance Today
The Odyssey has been adapted multiple times across pop culture, taking on the forms of faithful adaptations and re-imaginings for new audiences. Stanley Kubrick’s critically-acclaimed classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, which sends astronauts on a strange mission through space and time, takes inspiration from several short stories by sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke and The Odyssey (hence its title). The Coen brothers’s 2000 comedy-drama musical O Brother, Where Art Thou?, which follows three escaped convicts in search for hidden treasure, is another loose re-telling of The Odyssey.
The logo and vanity card of American film finance company TSG Entertainment (which frequent theatergoers have probably seen at least once) even depicts a critical part of the story where Odysseus shoots through 12 axe heads with one arrow: a practically impossible feat only he can do.
Countless pieces of literature have also been lifted from the Homeric epic. Take James Joyce’s novel Ulysses, whose title is the Latinized name for Odysseus. The novel is meant to be a modern version of The Odyssey, following the characters Leopold Bloom (who parallels Odysseus), Molly Bloom (Penelope), and Stephen Dedalus (Telemachus) through a stream-of-consciousness narrative. Nobel Prize in Literature-winner Louise Glück’s poetry collection, Meadowlands, also painted the epic in a new light, depicting a crumbling marriage between two characters, paralleled with poems from the perspective of Odysseus, Penelope, and Telemachus.
The title of the epic itself has become a word in the English lexicon denoting “a long and eventful or adventurous journey or experience” —and if that’s not proof of the immense legacy of Homer’s epic, I don’t know what is.
Where To Start?
If you’re looking to immerse yourself deeper into the world of The Odyssey, here are some good introductions to the work.
The Odyssey, translated by Emily Wilson
The books are always a good place to start if you want to have something to compare everything else to. But even translations come with their own subtle differences in the manner of telling. Recently, people have even been arguing about which translation of The Odyssey is “the best.” But each iteration has its appeal, and really, there’s no truly faithful version of Homer’s tale because the story itself has been re-told countless times throughout history.
So whatever version you find easiest to read, understand, and enjoy is probably the version you should start with. (And if you’re up for a challenge, and have enough time to kill, why not read all translations?) The more popular ones are those of Robert Fagles and Emily Wilson, both of which are lovely and poetic in their own right. Wilson herself wrote a piece comparing the different translations and their processes. But I would personally recommend Wilson’s translation, because it’s also quite a trailblazer. It’s the first written version of The Odyssey to have been translated by a woman, and Wilson breathes new life into the tale through language that’s concise and easy to digest without losing the source material’s substance.
Even more interesting, Wilson renders the poem in iambic pentameter (10 syllables arranged in five metrical feet, consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable)—the English equivalent of the dactylic hexameter, the story’s traditional meter of verse, which does justice to the musicality of the Greek version. Try reciting the story out loud, as it was meant to be performed, and you’ll understand the joy that comes with reading an epic of this scale.
Epic: The Musical by Jorge Rivera-Herrans
Epic: The Musical isn’t an actual, live musical (yet), but a collection of concept albums divided into “sagas.” Created by composer, musician, and singer Jorge Rivera-Herrans—and performed by an amazing cast of singers—it’s an absolute dream for many musical theater fans.
While Herrans takes some creative liberties (the musical is considerably lighter than the source material, though it still gets pretty dark), Epic is a must-listen introduction to the classic story. Its songs take time to explore the motivations and emotions of the tale’s many characters, painting a vibrant picture of Odysseus’s transformation from a headstrong soldier to a considerably more broken man. It might look at the harsh world through a more romantic lens, but it’s still a fun ride nevertheless.
There’s also something beautiful about the tale being presented through songs, paying homage to its roots as a performance piece meant to be accompanied by instruments. The entire musical has a runtime of roughly two hours and 15 minutes, and can be found on Spotify and Apple Music—perfect for a quiet evening of binging (be prepared to play the songs on repeat once you’ve finished).
