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The biggest movie of the year is an epic retelling of arguably the most influential story of all time, directed by one of Hollywood’s most celebrated filmmakers, and featuring one of the most star-studded casts ever assembled. So perhaps it is fitting that for “The Odyssey,” audiences embarked on odysseys of their own just to see it.
Promotional trailer for “The Odyssey” (2026). (Credit: Universal Pictures via YouTube)
On top of hearing first-hand accounts of my friends’ marathon road trips, my TikTok feed has been filled with users telling tales of their journeys to see “The Odyssey” (2026), Christopher Nolan’s nearly three-hour long adaptation of Homer’s epic poem. One influencer’s video begins with a timestamp of 7:30 am, and a voiceover saying “Come with me to drive an hour and a half to see The Odyssey in IMAX!” She then explains that the long journey is because she lives “in the middle of nowhere.” Another driving montage set to the film’s score was captioned “Drove 3 hours to sit for 3 hours… and I’d do it again!” Winning the record for longest distance traveled (at least on my social media feed) was a couple who documented their 4-hour drive to Dallas to see the film. (Although a commenter has them beat by writing that they were driving the 8 hours from South Texas to do the same.)
Notably, everyone in these TikToks traveled these distances to see “The Odyssey” specifically in the IMAX format. The long voyage isn’t only about finding the biggest screen. The specialty cameras and theaters involved in the IMAX spectacle create greater image clarity, expanded visual scope, and an immersive sound experience.
“The Odyssey” is the first feature-length narrative film to be shot entirely on IMAX 70 mm cameras. This means that the action-packed story, shaped around gargantuan mythical creatures, colossal battles, and sweeping landscapes, was filmed to be viewed at an astoundingly immersive level. While there are several hundred IMAX theaters in the country, there are only 26 theaters in all of the United States that can show “The Odyssey” in its “intended” format, IMAX 70mm. I’ll leave the more technical explanation of why the 70mm format is so desired to the experts, but the most basic reasoning is that since “The Odyssey” was shot on IMAX 70mm cameras, it’s the only format that fully captures the film’s massive scale and visual detail. Hence, the movie theater pilgrimages sweeping the nation.
Director Christopher Nolan on location with the speciality IMAX 70mm cameras. (Credit: Universal Pictures via IMDb)
“The Odyssey” does contain some interesting rural elements. From the sheep-herding Cyclops Polyphemus to the sorceress Circe’s isolated home, much of the story revolves around its fascination with the mystery of life beyond the cities. However, the off-screen cultural moment of this film – the record-breaking box-office numbers, massive IMAX demand, and the many tales of lengthy travel – add another rural dimension to the Odyssey.
Cinema Deserts in Rural America
For millions of Americans, seeing the latest blockbuster in theaters has always involved an odyssey. And for many, that journey has only gotten longer in recent years.
The movie theater industry has struggled to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and the rapid rise of streaming. Every once in a while, a cultural phenomenon like Barbenheimer (the 2023 same-day release of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer”) or surprise hits like “Obsession” (2026) spark declarations that moviegoing is back and better than ever. But despite these flashes of optimism, movie theaters continue to close. In 2025, North America had 5,691 fewer screens compared with pre-COVID times.
When rural theaters close, they often leave entire communities without a cinema. In April 2026, Dillon, Montana’s Big Sky Cinema closed, with the property changing ownership to a Missoula-based company that operates Taco Bell. The theater had served the community since 1973, and its closure left residents with no movie theater within roughly 50 miles. A month earlier, Cinema 33, the only theater in Ohio County, Kentucky, also shut its doors, forcing residents to drive about 30 minutes to the nearest theater.
An example from last year is even more striking. One of the biggest movies of 2025 was Ryan Coogler’s vampire film “Sinners.” The Oscar-winning film is set in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and celebrates the history, music, and culture of this Mississippi Delta town. But there is no movie theater in Clarksdale. To see their own town depicted on screen, residents had to drive more than an hour each way. Currently, the community is working on revitalizing the abandoned theater to address this cultural gap.
As audiences are documenting their expeditions to see Christopher Nolan’s epic, it’s worth highlighting how many rural Americans have been making similar journeys for years, not to see the most exclusive, premium format, but simply because the nearest theater keeps getting farther away.
Worth the journey?
Whether you’re choosing to travel the extra miles for “The Odyssey” in IMAX (or maybe even the elusive IMAX 70MM) or simply have to leave your town to find a theater at all, I hope to help guide your decision on whether any journey, near or far, is worth the trip.
Odysseus (Matt Damon) and his crew of soldiers on their long journey home back to Ithaca. (Credit: Universal Pictures via IMDb)
Composed over 2,500 years ago, Homer’s “The Odyssey” has had a cultural impact on countless media projects. The hero’s journey toward home, interrupted with trials and tribulations from a seemingly endless slew of unsavory forces, is a structure that storytellers have adapted for centuries. Some of my favorite adaptations of the epic include “O’ Brother Where Art Though” (a Coen Brother’s feature from 2000 set in 1930s Mississippi), “After Hours” (a 1985 paranoid, Kafkaesque, Martin Scorsese film about a man trying to get home one night in Manhattan), and, of course, “The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie” (the 2004 classic that sends SpongeBob and Patrick on a heroic underwater quest).
Christopher Nolan’s 2026 version of “The Odyssey” is a more straightforward remake of the original tale; there is no replacing Ithaca for Bikini Bottom or Polyphemus the Cyclops for a bible salesman.
The film follows Odysseus (Matt Damon) on his 20-year-long journey back to his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and his son Telemachus (Tom Holland) after the Trojan War. Along the way, he is advised by the goddess Athena (Zendaya) and faces numerous obstacles in the form of monsters, humans, and gods.
Odysseus (Matt Damon) and the goddess Athena (Zendaya) in “The Odyssey” (2026). (Credit: Universal Pictures via IMDb)
Audiences are thrown into this journey at a dizzying speed. The first act of the film hits viewers with an onslaught of action sequences and exposition, explaining the conclusion of the Trojan War and the tense situation back in Ithaca. The film also rapidly introduces a sprawling cast of characters, portrayed by a staggeringly star-studded cast who fight to shine (with varied success) in their limited amounts of screen time. This brisk pacing is overall helpful: the film never drags, despite its nearly three-hour runtime. It weaves effortlessly in and out of both time and place on Odysseus’s long journey home. The film’s stunning imagery (it was shot almost entirely on location across six countries from Iceland to Greece) and mind-boggling set pieces (which were achieved largely without the use of CGI), keeps every sequence captivating. Some of the best parts of my theater-going experience were knowing that, yes, that Cyclops really was a 60-foot mechanical puppet, and yes, they actually put over 20 actors, the camera, and the crew inside a very cramped Trojan horse. At times the dialogue is a bit corny and overwritten, but the film’s magnitude and overall storytelling techniques make up for these faults.
Nolan is not new to the themes he lays out in “The Odyssey.” In fact, most of Nolan’s filmography tells stories of complicated men who are driven by an overwhelming sense of purpose to do what they feel is necessary or noble. Perhaps one of the most compelling comparisons to “The Odyssey” is to Nolan’s last film, “Oppenheimer” (2023). Nolan’s version of Odysseus is racked with guilt and, similarly to J. Robert Oppenheimer’s role as “death, the destroyer of worlds,” defies the natural order – in this case, the gods. For millennia, Odysseus has been remembered as one of the greatest heroes in the Western canon. But in Nolan’s film, that heroism is less important than the psychological weight of his actions.
With subject material this well-known, there are, inevitably, mountains of discourse on Nolan’s interpretation of the epic. Whether or not you approve of his treatment of the themes and characters in this retelling, for me, it is this blending of modern anxieties with an ancient story – told powerfully through monumental filmmaking – that makes “The Odyssey” worth the journey to go see it in the theater.
As millions of movie fans head on their own odysseys (though hopefully with fewer man-eating monsters standing in their way), I hope this film is a reminder of the unique joy of seeing an epic story on the big screen. But I also hope it reveals that the ability to do so isn’t equally accessible. With any luck, this cultural phenomenon leads not only to more IMAX 70mm theaters, but, even more importantly, to the revival of movie theaters across the country. Everyone deserves to see Odysseus’s legendary on-screen journey without having to brave one of their own just to get to the theater.
This article first appeared in The Good, the Bad, and the Elegy, an email newsletter from the Daily Yonder focused on the best, and worst, in rural media, entertainment, and culture. Every other Thursday, it features reviews, recommendations, retrospectives, and more. Join the mailing list today to have future editions delivered straight to your inbox.
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