Short answer: Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey (July 2026, already past $1.1 billion) adapts Odysseus's twenty-year journey home to Ithaca: Polyphemus, Circe, the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, and the slaughter of the suitors. It's fairly faithful to Homer's skeleton — but it expands Telemachus, humanizes Circe, and adds a character, Sinon, who is not in the poem: he comes from Virgil's Aeneid.
Who's who: the cast and their myth
| Actor | Character | Who they are in the myth |
|---|---|---|
| Matt Damon | Odysseus | The hero who won Troy with a wooden horse and took 20 years to get home |
| Anne Hathaway | Penelope | His wife — weaves and unweaves a shroud to avoid choosing a suitor |
| Tom Holland | Telemachus | His son, a baby when his father left, now searching for news of him |
| Zendaya | Athena | The goddess who sponsors Odysseus — cunning recognizes cunning |
| Samantha Morton | Circe | The sorceress who turns the crew into pigs |
| Charlize Theron | Calypso | The nymph who keeps Odysseus on her island for seven years |
| Robert Pattinson | Antinous | The worst of the suitors — the first to fall |
| Bill Irwin | Polyphemus | The blinded Cyclops; his father Poseidon curses the whole voyage |
| Jon Bernthal | Menelaus | King of Sparta, husband of Helen |
| Lupita Nyong'o | Helen / Clytemnestra | The face that launched a thousand ships — and her sister, who killed a king |
| Benny Safdie | Agamemnon | The commander at Troy, murdered on his homecoming |
| James Remar | Tiresias | The blind seer Odysseus consults in the underworld |
What the movie changes
- Sinon (Elliot Page) is not Homer's. The Greek spy who convinces Troy to take in the horse appears in Virgil's Aeneid, written seven centuries later. Nolan fuses the two sources.
- Telemachus grows. The poem gives him four books; the film makes the father-son bond its spine.
- Circe, humanized. In Homer she's a threat who becomes an ally; here she gets an arc of her own.
- Argos the dog gets more screen time — and yes, the scene you're dreading is exactly the one you're imagining.
- The Helen–Menelaus reunion is more complicated than in the original.
The real journey, in order
Cicones → Lotus-eaters → Polyphemus → Aeolus and the bag of winds → Laestrygonians → Circe → the underworld (Tiresias) → the Sirens → Scylla and Charybdis → the Cattle of the Sun → Calypso → the Phaeacians → Ithaca. Twelve ships sail; one man returns.
The full version — no editing cuts — is told as a 9-chapter audio drama in our Odyssey.
Quick questions
Is the movie faithful to Homer's poem?
Structurally, quite: the journey, the monsters and the final revenge are all there. The liberties are of emphasis (Telemachus, Circe) and of sources (Sinon is Virgil's, not Homer's).
Who is Sinon and why don't I remember him?
Because he isn't in the Odyssey. He's the Greek who lets himself be captured to convince the Trojans to accept the horse — Virgil tells his story in the Aeneid. Homer mentions the horse only in passing.
Why does Poseidon hate Odysseus?
Because Polyphemus, the Cyclops Odysseus blinds, is his son. A furious father's curse fuels ten years of shipwrecks.
The complete Odyssey — 9 chapters, from the Trojan horse to the slaughter of the suitors — is told as an audio drama in MythologyNow.
