The Odyssey (2026) is a Cautionary Tale on the Collapse of Morality

Christopher Nolan’s most anticipated film of 2026, The Odyssey, has finally hit theaters. After a year of waiting, I finally got to see the Greek epic on the big screen. What I saw surprised me for both better and worse. After the conclusion of the Trojan War, King Odysseus (played by Matt Damon) of Ithaca departs with his soldiers to return home to his wife, Penelope (played by Anne Hathaway), and his son, Telemachus (played by Tom Holland). However, the journey back home is much more perilous than he or anyone else could’ve expected. Back on Ithaca, twelve suitors vie for Penelope’s hand in marriage, including the cowardly nobleman Antinous (played by Robert Pattinson), who was originally supposed to fight in the Trojan War but tricked his servant, Sinon (played by Elliot Page), to take his place. During his absence, Telemachus travels to Sparta to seek news from King Menelaus (played by Jon Bernthal) and his wife, Helen of Troy (played by Lupita Nyong’o), on Odysseus’s whereabouts. Meanwhile, Antinous concocts a scheme to take the throne for himself by eliminating his only direct challenger: Telemachus.

Unsurprisingly, The Odyssey (2026) has Christopher Nolan’s fingerprints all over it, from the wide establishing shots to the non-linear storytelling. If you walk into theaters expecting a one-for-one adaptation of Homer’s epic, you will be sorely disappointed, as I was at first. There are no poems, no songs, no sex or nudity, and even the journey back to Ithaca itself was downsized to make room for the overarching message. Even the characters themselves are either modernized or completely deviated from to suit the film’s narrative. Take the cyclops Polyphemus, for example. In Homer’s epic, he was quite intelligent and articulate, spending much of his time conversing with Odysseus before the latter managed to trick him with the name “Nobody” and subsequently blind him. Meanwhile, in the film, he’s just a looming monster who eats Odysseus’s men. Nolan also significantly cut the journey back home short by compartmentalizing aspects of Homer’s epic to make it more film-friendly, such as eliminating the Isles of the Lotus Eaters (who fed Odysseus’s crew lotus flowers to erase their memories and make them want to stay on their island forever). Instead, Nolan depicted Calypso (played by Charlize Theron) feeding Odysseus the lotus flowers to make him stay on her island of Ogygia.

What it does make up for in any discrepancies from the source material is its overarching themes of regret and the collapse of morality. Throughout the film, we are constantly told about the importance of “Zeus’s Law.” For those unfamiliar with Greek mythology, Zeus is the king of the Olympian gods, lord of the sky, and the god of thunder and lightning. His law (“Xenia,” in Ancient Greek) entails that the Greeks treat strangers with hospitality—feasting, sheltering, and protecting them before asking for their names and business because they may possibly be a god in disguise. But much more than that, Xenia is about basic human kindness and decency. Zeus’s Law is disregarded by Penelope’s suitors when they gluttonously eat Odysseus’s food and drink his finest wine, much to the disdain of both Telemachus and his mother. Now this is where Zeus’s Law intersects with the film’s core motif of regret. The ancient Greeks didn’t win the Trojan War through brawn alone; Odysseus planned to build the Trojan Horse, which was death disguised as a gift. Upon entering Troy’s heavily guarded walls, Odysseus, Menelaus, and many more soldiers snuck out and opened the gate to allow King Agamemnon and his forces inside. Once inside, the Greeks lay waste to Troy, killing not just the men but the women and the children, too. They rape, pillage, and commit every atrocity imaginable.

We initially see these horrors spread throughout the journey through Odysseus’s reactions as he witnesses the final moments of the war. But upon reaching the third act, we soon learn from him that what he was witnessing wasn’t the end of the war; it was the end of a civilization. Even though the Ancient Greeks won the war, the means they used were never enough to justify the end. Odysseus recalls the horrors he witnessed, the screams of fear and death, the foul stench of burning bodies, even the ransacking and destruction of the Greek gods’ temples. This is commented on by the witch Circe (played by Samantha Morton) when Odysseus stumbles upon her island. After turning his men into pigs, she claims that she merely revealed what they are underneath their mortal coils; that they committed those atrocities not because he told them to but because they wanted to. Odysseus tries to convince her otherwise, that his men were merely tired and wanted to return home, but this doesn’t change what happened. It is said that history is written by the victors, and the victors never see themselves as the villains. I remembered when we learned about the Trojan War back in middle and elementary school, we were told about the genius of Odysseus and meant to sympathize with his men throughout their odyssey back home. It’s no surprise what Nolan was trying to say with his rendition; even though Homer’s “The Odyssey” was written 3,000 years ago, the message it carries is still as prevalent today.

At the end of the day, The Odyssey (2026) is more than just another cinematic wonder from one of Hollywood’s most influential and powerful directors; it’s a cautionary tale on the collapse of morality and one man’s regret. From Christopher Nolan’s adaptation, we see Odysseus not as the clever trickster and war hero of the Trojan War but as a deeply flawed man who brought about the death of a key aspect of ancient Greek culture and the compassion that spawned from it. And I think this is a deliberate choice to reflect the numerous war crimes committed throughout the age of man. How often we think we are in the right, only to realize that by gaining a killing stroke, we have sacrificed sure footing. And when the dust settles, the horrific means never justify the result.