The Odyssey trailer finally arrives online and it’s ‘like Gladiator but on steroids’

After months of patiently waiting, the first trailer for The Odyssey, arguably the biggest film of 2026, has finally been shared online.

A first proper look at Sir Christopher Nolan’s ambitious next film – with a reported budget of $250,000,000 (£218.6m) – had initially been confined solely to cinemas, with a six-minute cut of the prologue airing before certain IMAX 70mm screenings earlier this month.

Fans had also been chomping at the bit since July, when a cinema-only first-look trailer was shown in front of Jurassic World Rebirth, Universal’s big summer blockbuster, which was never posted for online consumption.

But now film fans at home are able to get a glimpse of the esteemed director’s vision, while a new trailer is also showing ahead of screenings of James Cameron’s newly-released Avatar: Fire and Ash, with Nolan’s film the first shot entirely with IMAX film cameras.

The Odyssey is rooted in Ancient Greek history and mythology, based on Homer’s epic poem which is dated to around the 8th century BC.

‘Hellllll yes, like the original Gladiator but on steroids… thank you thank you thank you, the world needs this!!’ posted Timothy Sykes on X.

Rumi, meanwhile, predicted that the Oppenheimer director’s new film ‘is going to be generational’, while there were the usual (for Nolan’s work) ‘masterpiece’ declarations.

Echoing many people’s thoughts, @saverinstamp tweeted that the director was ‘the last real filmmaker whose every movie now just feels like an event’, as Abby quipped: ‘I will drive uphill in a blizzard for 63 hours to see this in IMAX.’

Many were also thrilled to catch the briefest of looks at the Cyclops in hot pursuit as Odysseys (a transformed Matt Damon) and his men run into a cave, as well as hear composer Ludwig Göransson’s ‘absolutely incredible’ score, with Mayank predicted that ‘we’re all about to levitate above our IMAX seats’.

The trailer begins with a pan over a desert graveyard before Odysseus bows before a foreboding figure in black armour, assumed to be Ares, God of War (Josh Safdie).

‘After years of war, no one could stand between my men and home – not even me,’ the Greek hero’s narration starts, as shots are shown of the Ithacan force walking through a forest, as well as of their home island’s palace and Odysseus’s waiting wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway), and son, Telemachus (Tom Holland).

We also see Odysseus and his men sailing on the ocean as well as the famous Trojan horse plot their king concocted, with one man in agony as he is stabbed while they hide in the belly of the wooden horse.

There are also first looks at some of the perils they will face on their journey home, including the Cyclops and the monster Charybdis, personified as a whirlpool.

The final snippet is a tender scene between Penelope and Odysseus, with the queen holding her husband’s face and saying: ‘Promise me you will come back.’

‘What if I can’t?’ he responds, establishing that ominous atmosphere for which Nolan is so well known.

The Odyssey’s star-studded cast also includes Zendaya, Charlize Theron, Robert Pattinson, Elliot Page, Jon Bernthal, Himesh Patel and Lupita Nyong’o.

This is a breaking story with updates to come.

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