The first full trailer for Christopher Nolanโs The Odyssey has arrived, and it is changing expectations. Many thought the director would follow the blueprint of his biographical drama, Oppenheimer. Instead, the new footage reveals a movie with a different pulse. This ancient Greek epic feels less like a character study and more like a survival story shared by a group.
The trailer, which debuted in theaters and online in late December 2025, shows a focus on collective struggle. While stars like Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, and Tom Holland are featured, the camera spends much more time with Odysseus’s crew. The men are shown rowing through violent storms, clinging to ships, and facing monsters together. This approach is a sharp turn from Oppenheimer, which used famous actors to highlight individual historical figures. For his take on Homer’s poem, Nolan appears more interested in the shared, visceral experience of the journey.
The immediate reaction from viewers and critics points to a surprising parallel. The Odyssey is drawing more comparisons to Nolan’s 2017 war film, Dunkirk, than to his recent Oscar winner. The connection is not about the setting but the directorial approach. Dunkirk was celebrated for dropping the audience into a large-scale event through the ground-level perspectives of soldiers and civilians. It created tension by focusing on the group’s fight for survival rather than deep backstories for each character.
The new trailer for The Odyssey uses a similar method. Scenes of sailors battling the sea are filmed with intense, immersive closeness. The camera captures weathered faces and straining muscles, making the physical effort of the journey tangible. As one analysis noted, the film seems to “plunge the audience into their shared experience,” much like Dunkirk did. This suggests Nolan is adapting one of history’s oldest stories with the same “you are there” intensity he applied to a World War II evacuation.
The difference from Oppenheimer is clear in how the films use their actors. Oppenheimer featured a massive cast of recognizable faces, where each famous actor signaled the importance of a specific historical person. The film was a deep, talkative exploration of one man’s conscience and legacy.
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The Odyssey’s trailer suggests a different priority. Although it features a “stacked cast” including Lupita Nyong’o and Charlize Theron, these stars seem woven into the fabric of a larger ensemble. The story’s drive comes from the unit of men working together. One shot in the trailer perfectly shows this shift: instead of a heroic close-up, Matt Damon’s Odysseus is simply seen among his men, all pulling oars in unison against a massive wave. The spectacle comes from their combined effort, not from individual speeches or drama.
The trailer offers specific glimpses that reinforce this group-survival theme. It shows the crew entering the dark cave of the Cyclops, Polyphemus. This is not framed as a bold adventure but as a tense, terrifying sequence where the men move cautiously as a group. The feeling is one of dread and immediate threat, similar to the ticking-clock suspense in Dunkirk.
Other major sequences highlight the environment as the main enemy. Extended shots show the fleet being torn apart by colossal storms, with men fighting just to hold onto ropes. The naval combat scenes focus on the chaotic, collective struggle of steering and rowing the ships. These moments make the sea itself a central antagonist, just as the sea, sky, and land were constant threats to the soldiers on Dunkirk’s beaches.
While the style may recall Dunkirk, the story of The Odyssey will still bring back a key element that made Oppenheimer so talked about: complex moral questions. The epic puts its characters in impossible situations where there is no perfect choice.
A central scene involves Odysseus facing the monsters Scylla and Charybdis. To save most of his crew, he must choose to sail past Scylla, knowing it will cost the lives of several of his men. He even lies to them about the danger. This “lesser of two evils” dilemma mirrors the heavy decisions in Oppenheimer, asking the audience to consider what is acceptable in the name of survival or a greater goal.
Furthermore, this version of Odysseus, likely influenced by a modern translation, is not a flawless superhero. He is a complicated leader who makes severe mistakes. The film will reportedly not shy away from his infidelity, violence, and moments of failure. This sets him up as a Nolan protagonist similar to J. Robert Oppenheimer: a brilliant but broken man whose actions force viewers to grapple with difficult questions.
The Odyssey is scheduled for a worldwide release on July 17, 2026. It is produced by Nolan and his longtime partner Emma Thomas. The film reunites the director with key collaborators like cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema and composer Ludwig Gรถransson.
The trailer has generated significant excitement online, amassing millions of views quickly after its release. Discussions are focused on the surprising tone and the detailed glimpses of mythological elements like the Trojan Horse and a journey to the Underworld.
The movie will plunge the audience into their shared experience, from the strain of battling the sea in an oared ship to the terror of wandering into a cyclops’ cave.
With this first look, Christopher Nolan has signaled that The Odyssey will be an immersive, large-scale experience built on collective struggle. It combines the intense, visceral filmmaking of Dunkirk with the deep moral conundrums found in Oppenheimer. The result looks to be a unique epic that focuses on the men on the journey as much as the man leading it.
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