Things are a bit chaotic right now in the film world, as people are now legally and illegally, watching the five-minute prologue of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. The prologue is playing before re-releases of Sinners and One Battle After Another in IMAX theaters (The Odyssey is the first film 100% shot on IMAX), and reports are coming in about its quality. Here are a few:
- Andre Saint-Albin: “The Odyssey prologue is straight-up jaw-dropping. Being the first movie ever shot 100% on IMAX film cameras is already wild, but the way it looks on screen is next-level insane. The sound design will give you anxiety (in a good way) & that score build up hits you in the chest and ramps up the tension perfectly.”
- Brandon Norwood: “Saw THE ODYSSEY prologue. I’m even more excited. Somehow it’s bigger in scope and scale than DUNE. S–‘s wild. This may possibly be the biggest movie ever made. I don’t think there will ever be a movie this big again.”
- Dan Marcus: “The prologue for THE ODYSSEY promises the biggest scale and spectacle Christopher Nolan has ever attempted. From pulse pounding tension to Ludwig Göransson’s insane score, there’s no doubt THE ODYSSEY will be the cinematic event of 2026. I was gobsmacked.”
The complicating factor here is that now that this has hit some theaters, it has been recorded illegally and distributed online. Universal has been hunting down these leaks and obliterating not just the content but sometimes entire accounts posting it. But even a cursory scroll shows some versions still online. And even those watching a horrible quality bootleg version are still raving:
- Denis Vanilla: “I’ve just seen a bootleg of The Odyssey’s prologue and I can say that I have never been more locked in watching a leaked, low-quality footage. The best I can describe it is it’s the rawness of Dunkirk combined with the ever-building suspense of Tenet and Oppenheimer.”
While I’ve seen the videos circulating, I have opted not to watch the bootleg as that seems like a terrible way to experience something supposedly this epic for the first time. In addition to the re-releases of Sinners and One Battle After Another, there will be a shorter version of the prologue before Avatar: Fire and Ash when that releases on December 19, another IMAX favorite.
The Odyssey will release on July 17, 2026, and will mark Nolan’s first film since Oppenheimer in 2023, where that movie won Best Picture at the 2024 Oscars. The Odyssey seemed like an enormous undertaking as one of the most famous stories in history, but from these initial five minutes, it sounds like Nolan is once again the man for the job. I’ll take my first peek ahead of Avatar, most likely.
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