- Matt Damon is Odysseues in first look at new Christopher Nolan film
- Nolan will shoot on “Goat Island”
- The film will be shot using new IMAX technology
New Christopher Nolan film The Odyssey will be the filmmaker’s 13th project – and fans can’t wait to see it.
We got our first look at what Nolan is cooking up in late February. This simple production still showed star Matt Damon as Greek hero Odysseus, leader of Nolan’s new movie.
Matt Damon is Odysseus. A film by Christopher Nolan, #TheOdysseyMovie is in theaters July 17, 2026. pic.twitter.com/7a5YbfqVfG
— odysseymovie (@odysseymovie) February 17, 2025
While intriguing, it’s sadly where most solid details about The Odyssey end. However, a small handful of on-set photos have since leaked online, still not giving much away, but heightening anticipation for the epic hitting cinemas in 2026.
FIRST LOOK: Christopher Nolan’s Upcoming Film “The Odyssey” pic.twitter.com/kZ6qL8nB6q
— Cinema Tweets (@CinemaTweets1) February 25, 2025
eating all these the odyssey set pics up i’m so excited omggg pic.twitter.com/VuSwOKtHVq
— gio (@janemargclis) February 24, 2025
Christopher Nolan in Morocco on the set of ‘THE ODYSSEY’ pic.twitter.com/NvI10fMP4q
— Christopher Nolan Art & Updates (@NolanAnalyst) February 24, 2025
Like the mind-bending subjects that form the crux of his stories, trying to figure out where Nolan’s going next is full of cryptic clues and misdirection.
Plus, after his 2023 atomic bomb drama Oppenheimer won 2024’s Best Picture Oscar, the interest surrounding his next movie has only heightened.
Read more: Christopher Nolan loves to work with these stars
Thankfully, some nuggets of information have started to seep out. However, in true Nolan fashion, we’re still largely in the dark.
That said, if you’re looking for all the information we have about the latest film from the guy behind Inception and Tenet, you’ve come to the right place.
Here’s everything we know so far about Nolan’s next film, The Odyssey.
What is the plot of new Christopher Nolan movie The Odyssey?
The Odyssey will be an adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey, the One of the oldest forms of literature and an iconic Greek poem.
Penned by Homer, it follows a Greek hero named Odysseus and his journey home after the decade-long Trojan war. Upon arriving home, Odysseus finds that his wife and family had moved on after assuming he was dead.
At this early stage, it’s unclear how closely Nolan will stick to this core storyline. In a social media post issued on 23 December 2024, Universal confirmed that Nolan’s The Odyssey will be a “mythic action epic.”
Christopher Nolan’s next film ‘The Odyssey’ is a mythic action epic shot across the world using brand new IMAX film technology. The film brings Homer’s foundational saga to IMAX film screens for the first time and opens in theaters everywhere on July 17, 2026.
— Universal Pictures (@UniversalPics) December 23, 2024
The same post also revealed that the movie will be shot “using brand new IMAX film technology.”
This confirms earlier rumors that had swirled about Nolan’s new project.
Initial reports had suggested vague ideas, with The Hollywood Reporter claiming its setting wasn’t present day. These claims were ultimately dismissed in November 2024, with Deadline reporting that all suggested loglines that had made their way online to date were wrong.
Read more: Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey to shoot on “goat island”
Nolan isn’t one to tell a straight foward story, so we’re sure whatever plot he lands on will be full of twists and turns. What’s more, The film’s IMAX release suggests that the movie could be sweeping and visually epic in its scope and scale, as is the case with most of Nolan’s work.
In late January, it was revealed that Nolan plans to shoot in Sicily – specifically in Favignana, an island also known as “Goat Island.” It’s a place that scholars believed inspired Homer’s story and where Ulysses visited to stock up on food and goat mean before setting off to revisit his estranged family.
When is Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey released?
Nolan’s The Odyssey will get a theatrical IMAX release on 17 July 2026. It’s one of the few things we know for sure about the director’s next outing.
The date lines up with the release dates of many of his previous movies. Oppenheimer dropped on 21 July 2023 while Dunkirk arrived on 21 July 2017.
The film will once again be released by Universal Pictures, the same studio that backed Oppenheimer. This will mark the filmmaker’s second Universal film after he left a long-standing partnership with Warner Bros. He’d worked on all of his previous movies with the studio following 2000’s Momento.
According to reports, Nolan decided to jump ship after a disagreement with Warners’ decision to release their movies digitally on HBO Max simultaneously with their theatrical release. According to reports, Warner Bros. attempted to lure Nolan back but these efforts ultimately failed.
Who is starring in the new Christopher Nolan movie?
Damon was the first star confirmed to appear in Nolan’s latest, with Spider-Man actor Tom Holland joining shortly afterwards.
Holland’s real-life partner Zendaya was cast next. Nolan’s Interstellar star Anne Hathaway then boarded the mystery film alongside 12 Years a Slave’s Lupita Nyong’o. In November 2024, Nolan’s Tenet co-star Robert Pattinson was also confirmed to star. Charlize Theron jumped aboard shortly afterwards.
In late January 2025, The Walking Dead star Jon Bernthal joined the film’s starry cast. No details have been revealed about his role. Not long afterwards The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that Benny Safdie would be reteaming with Nolan for his latest feature. Safdie previously worked with the filmmaker on Oppenheimer.
John Leguizamo was the next actor to be confirmed, marking the first time the star has worked with Nolan. Shortly afterwards, four new stars rounded out Nolan’s supporting cast. These included his Inception co-star Elliot Page, Samantha Morton, Bill Irwin and Himesh Patel.
In late February, Infinity Pool star Mia Goth joined the cast in a mystery role. She was rounded out by additional stars, including Jesse Garcia, Will Yun Lee, Rafi Gavron, Shiloh Fernandez, Corey Hawkins, Nick E. Tarabay, Jimmy Gonzales and Maurice Compte.
As with most things about Nolan’s new film, we don’t know who any of these actors are playing.
Hathaway’s role will mark her third collaboration with Nolan following The Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar. The star recently commented on this working partnership, saying it “makes me feel like I’m doing something right.”
“It fills me with so much joy … I love Chris and Emma Nolan so much, and to be invited into their world [is] one of the best places you can find yourself, Hathaway told Woman’s Wear Daily.
“Getting to be invited twice really felt like something, three felt like it would’ve been greedy, so I never let myself hope that that would happen, and that it has makes me emotional, to be perfectly honest. It makes me feel like I’m doing something right”
