THE ODYSSEY TRAILER 2026: Christopher Nolan, Tom Holland & Robert Pattinson Breakdown

After years of war, I could stand between my men. That doesn't mean you will come back. But if I can't... Welcome back everyone, it's Charlie. Christopher Nolan finally released an official trailer for The Odyssey online. There's been one that's only been playing in theaters since this summer. And they just put the prologue, which is about 6 minutes long. And as you can see, pretty much every major actor in Hollywood is in this movie. That means if you're watching this video, there's a pretty good chance that you have a cameo in the movie. So if you were, congratulations. This new official trailer is actually quite different from the one that was playing in theaters earlier this year and the 6 minute prologue. Although there is some overlap with what happens during the Trojan War and the Trojan Horse that we see during this new footage. At the beginning of the trailer, the dead soldiers, graves, and armor on the beach seem like it's part of the same Trojan Horse speech that Matt Damon has across the entire trailer. That is mostly narrating the trailer and a couple different parts of the movie itself. It looks like they've taken their armor off on the beach at Troy as part of their ruse to try and win the war by dismantling their ships. Then constructing the Trojan Horse so that the Trojans are tricked into bringing it into the city and allowing them to sack it. When he talks about nothing keeping him from his home, they show his home. He's the king of Ithaca and Hathaway is playing his wife Penelope and Tom Holland is playing his son Telemachus. It looks like she's giving him the news about her suitors coming to the castle after his long absence. And he's pissed off about it, like he wants to go out and find his father. Based on the trailer footage, it looks like Christopher Nolan's doing his take on Homer's Greek Odyssey in the Iliad. Everybody remembers reading about that in English Lit class in school somewhere or in grad school somewhere. Hopefully you paid attention at least a little bit, but you probably remember the stories at least a little. Christopher Nolan's Iliad Cinematic Universe. There are a lot of questions about whether or not he was just going to be using the title and it was going to be set during a different time period. No, this is set during the 10-year epic Homer's Odyssey story as you remember it from school. There's a lot of references to things that happened during the Iliad and during Homer's Odyssey. But the Odyssey itself takes place after the Iliad. But the Odyssey basically covers the 10-year time period after the Trojan War. So there's a lot of references to a war, an unwinnable war that he somehow won. The he that they're referring to who won the war is Odysseus. So throughout the video I'm going to use this interactive map here just to show you his path over those 10 years. And it gives you a good idea of how Poseidon basically thwarts Zeus and Athena preventing Odysseus from coming home. And how close he came to actually making it home several times. Speaking of which, thank you to ZocDoc for sponsoring this video. I know I'm supposed to be invincible and post videos every single day no matter what. But no surprise there were a couple times in the last few years when I got so sick that I could not force myself to speak. I don't know if it was kryptonite poisoning, but I actually felt like I was going to die a couple times. I finally had to cave and find a new doctor. But since moving to a new area it was an absolute nightmare trying to find the right doctor to see based on my healthcare plan. It was almost worse than actually being sick. Figuring everything out sucked until I learned about ZocDoc. 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ZocDoc.com slash Emergency Awesome to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today. That's ZocDoc.com slash Emergency Awesome. Don't just get yourself help, get yourself the right help. And thank you to ZocDoc for sponsoring this. During some of the other footage we actually see Jon Bernthal is in the movie with Tom Holland. They're reuniting before Spider-Man Brand New Day. Sony and Marvel didn't sound like they planned that. But it's just a happy coincidence that they're going to be in two movies together next year. This looks like him and his men in the sea in the early part of their journey. Notice he's got three ships with him at this point. Over the course of his journey more and more of his men died. So you can gauge where they are in their journey by how many men he still has. He and his men enter the cave of the Cyclops and see it for the first time. Part of his crew running back to the ships. This might be after they tried to escape the Cyclops after blinding him early on in the journey. Which is really where his problems start to happen and Poseidon starts to act against him. When they reach the black sand this is supposed to be Hades. That's why the dead soldiers break through the surface and begin speaking with them. One of their men gets blown overboard during high seas. The storm is also Poseidon's doing. This seems like it's pretty early in the journey too. Then they end the trailer and it seems like he's talking to Anne Hathaway. Telling him he might not be able to come back before the Trojan War. This would be happening before the Trojan War. Because they're not sure whether or not they're actually going to die during the war itself. Which he obviously did wind up surviving. Now covering all the other footage that we've gotten so far. A little bit of time has gone by since the events of the Trojan War. And nobody has seen Odysseus. They think he's dead. They think he's lost. So Tom Holland's character has just gone looking for him. Trying to get help from Jon Bernthal's character. Jon Bernthal is playing Menelaus, the younger brother of Agamemnon. Who becomes King of Sparta after him. He is able to return home after the Trojan War. He was one of the troops who was inside that Trojan horse. As you can see in the trailer. Recounts the battle to Telemachus long after he's returned home. And what might have happened to Odysseus. They since confirmed that Zendaya is playing Athena. You can actually see her behind Odysseus in a couple scenes here. So remember Odysseus was the King of Ithaca. Notice on the map here how close Ithaca is to Troy where the Trojan War happened. So Odysseus initially after the Trojan War just had to cross this little area here to come home. It would have been super easy for most people. That's your home! Are you too good for your home? Then so many, so many bad things go wrong in the worst possible way. So when Jon Bernthal's character says, is he rich? Is he poor? Maybe he's been imprisoned. All these are things that happened to Odysseus during this 10 year time period in the course of the Odyssey. The overarching story is basically his life during that period while he's lost. And all the adventures he has over this 10 year period. It starts with Robert Pattinson's voiceover narrating the first part of the trailer. Robert Pattinson is supposed to be playing Antonius. One of Penelope's suitors who actively tries to thwart Telemachus from leaving to find Odysseus in the first place. So he is not a good dude. So Robert Pattinson doing another weird voice says, Darkness, Zeus's law smashed to pieces. A kingdom without a king since my master died. He knew it was an unwinnable war and then somehow he won it. The unwinnable war that he refers to is the Trojan War. If you remember the Brad Pitt movie, they cover the Trojan War. Troy. What he means when he says the kingdom is without a king, Odysseus is the king of Ithaca while he's missing. But people in Ithaca he's been missing for so long presume that he's dead. Zeus's law broken is a reference to Zeus's law of hospitality. Hosts were expected to provide shelter, food, and safe passage to their next destination or would be punished by Zeus for not doing it. But all of Penelope's suitors abused the crap out of that by loitering at Odysseus's palace. The reason why Odysseus was lost at sea in the first place at the Trojan War is because he angers the god Poseidon, god of the sea. When he's on his way home, Odysseus happens upon the lair of the Cyclops and blinds him. The Cyclops is the son of Poseidon and in his agony, the Cyclops calls out to his father, Poseidon, asking for revenge, requesting that Odysseus never be allowed to return home or if he did, that it be a long and difficult journey, thus the 10-year epic journey. While Robert Pattinson's voiceover is playing, you actually see Odysseus himself floating in the middle of the sea here. But even though it sucks that Poseidon, the gods, are being a dick to him, Odysseus, the Greek gods are just like that, they're very vengeful, Odysseus makes it worse for himself as well by boasting of his actions and spites Poseidon, almost goading Poseidon to act like he really did poke the bear. As revenge, Poseidon actively thwarts Odysseus' ability to return home, keeping him on this 10-year epic journey, causing him to stay lost at sea basically forever, indefinitely, feeling like he's justified in his actions. Then we get a longer trailer scene of Tom Holland's character talking to John Bernthal's character at a banquet with Lupita Nyong'o sitting behind him. You can see her, you can't see any of the other characters behind them, but it does seem like they're at the banquet that takes place at the beginning of the Odyssey story when Telemachus, Tom Holland's character, Odysseus' son, is inspired to go look for him finally. Like, what happened to my father? The whole idea is that in Odysseus' absence, the kingdom of Ithaca assumes that he's dead because he's the king, so a bunch of suitors for his wife Penelope, the queen, show up and start partying at the castle, and this is the banquet where this is happening. Also during this banquet, Athena, who's Odysseus' patron goddess, working to protect him always, knowing what Poseidon has done trapping him at sea, disguises herself, comes to the banquet, and tries to help set Telemachus on the journey to find Odysseus. There are a lot of rules that Zeus has created in how the Greek gods are allowed to interact with humans, so Athena can't just literally save Odysseus herself, like, just go down there and bring him home. We get John Bernthal's voiceover saying, I know nothing of Odysseus, not since Troit, the Trojan War basically has ended, a while has gone by, and then Tom Holland's voiceover saying, I have to find out what happened to my father. When did you last see him? And John Bernthal replies, interested in rumor, gossip, who has a story about Odysseus? Some say he's rich, some say he's poor, some say he perished, some say he's in prison. What say you? Then Tom Holland asks him, in prison? Like, what? What are you talking about? And John Bernthal starts chuckling, what kind of prison? So notice the rest of the map here, and the rest of Odysseus' journey. Seven-year affair with the nymph Calypso, big character, one of the other Greek goddesses Circe also becomes a big problem for him later. He eventually travels to the underworld and then has to come back. Even if you don't totally remember the entire Odyssey story, it's so big, it's so complex, you just feel like Christopher Nolan has gone out and made like a six-hour movie, which I would love to watch. I would love to see like a six, ten-hour version of the Odyssey. Especially if Christopher Nolan is gonna be the one to make it. And it seems like all of Hollywood, like the most powerful actors in Hollywood, are in this movie. But that's basically it for the teaser trailer. Like, it's very cryptic, and it's just sort of teasing the beginning of the Odyssey story. Like, Telemachus has just started to try and find out what happened to him. And you've gotten some teasers about him being lost at sea and the circumstances for how that wound up happening. So if you want to know what's gonna happen in the movie, just go out and reread the Odyssey story. Like, it's literally there. I don't know if Christopher Nolan plans on changing any parts of the story or moving things around, but like Christopher Nolan movies go, just expect it to be told in a very nonlinear kind of way. In this, you have flashbacks to an earlier time. Also, somewhere in there. So, I guess you could use the hairpin shape to represent the bulk of the film. Everybody post all your reactions in the comments below, and if there's any Easter eggs or references that you spotted that I didn't talk about during the video, just write them below in the comments. But I am stoked. Like, literally anything that Christopher Nolan does is S-tier. Like, whatever he wants to do, I will show up for it. Like, I am already seated. Even though I'm posting this Christmas week, there's a bunch of stuff coming. We have a Stranger Things finale. We also have new Fallout episodes. Be sure to enable alerts for my channel so you don't miss any of that. There also might be some mystery Avengers Doomsday teasers that leak online. Of course, I will do all the videos for that, too. We make all the jokes about Christopher Nolan locking a lot of his trailers to theaters. Marvel just did that with a lot of the Avengers Doomsday teasers, and there's supposed to be multiple ones over the next couple of weeks, so I will try to do videos for all of them. Everybody, click here for all those videos, and click here for all my Avengers Doomsday videos. Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you guys in the next one.