Every Movie Adaptation of ‘The Odyssey,’ Ranked by Rotten Tomatoes Score

Homer’s epic poem has been reinterpreted by filmmakers for nearly seven decades now, and Christopher Nolan’s new blockbuster is just the latest attempt to bring Odysseus’s journey home to the screen. With reviews rolling in for ‘The Odyssey’, it felt like the right moment to line up every notable adaptation of the poem and see how they stack up against each other on Rotten Tomatoes.

From Hollywood epics to Coen brothers comedy to one deeply strange haunted house movie, these six films all draw from the same source material in wildly different ways. Here is how they rank.

6. ‘Troy: The Odyssey’ (2017) – 44%

At the very bottom sits this low-budget effort from The Asylum, the studio best known for churning out quick, cheap genre knockoffs. The film retells events from the Iliad, set after ten years of fighting in the Trojan War, following Odysseus and his crew as they encounter sea sirens and other mystical creatures on their way home to Ithaca. Moria Reviews noted that the studio freely rearranged both the Iliad and the Odyssey, delivering what it considers one of the studio’s better efforts, faint praise as that may be. It is a far cry from Nolan’s $250 million IMAX production, but a reminder of just how many scales this myth has been told at.

5. ‘Keyhole’ (2011) – 70%

Guy Maddin’s surreal noir take on the Odyssey is easily the strangest entry on this list. The Canadian film stars Jason Patric, Isabella Rossellini, Udo Kier, and Kevin McDonald. It tells the story of gangster Ulysses Pick, who returns to his home and embarks on an odyssey through the house, one room at a time. Taking its cue from Homer, the film has Ulysses journeying from room to room trying to recall his past, with a ghost repeatedly whispering “Remember, Ulysses, remember.”

4. ‘The Return’ (2024) – 78%

Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche’s stripped-down drama ties with the Coens for third place. The film retells the second half of Homer’s Odyssey, marking the first time Fiennes and Binoche worked together since ‘The English Patient’. Odysseus washes up on the shores of Ithaca twenty years after leaving for Troy, haggard and unrecognizable, to find his wife Penelope hounded by suitors and his son Telemachus in danger. Its quiet, dialogue-light approach to the homecoming earned it a place among the best reviewed versions of the story.

3. ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’ (2000) – 78%

The Coen brothers’ Depression-era comedy remains one of the most beloved loose adaptations of the poem. The film transposes the action from ancient Greece to the American South during the tail end of the Great Depression, following three convicts who escape a chain gang to search for hidden treasure. It grossed nearly $72 million worldwide on a $26 million budget, and Rotten Tomatoes’ critics consensus calls it delightfully loopy even if it isn’t quite up to the Coens’ very best work. George Clooney’s Ulysses Everett McGill remains one of the more unexpected riffs on Odysseus ever put on screen.

2. ‘The Odyssey’ (1997) – 79%

This NBC miniseries has held up remarkably well in the decades since it aired. Directed by Andrei Konchalovsky, the two-part miniseries aired on NBC in May 1997 and starred Armand Assante, Greta Scacchi, Isabella Rossellini, Bernadette Peters, and Christopher Lee. Odysseus is called to service in the Trojan War after the birth of his son Telemachus, and after the war ends, the meddling of Poseidon turns his voyage home into a decade-long ordeal. Viewers still praise Armand Assante’s performance as an inspired choice for the role, decades after the miniseries first aired.

1. ‘The Odyssey’ (2026) – 96%

Christopher Nolan’s take on Homer sits comfortably at the top of the pack. The film is an epic fantasy action movie written and directed by Nolan, starring Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Zendaya, and Charlize Theron. Early reviews have called it one of the greatest epic fantasy films ever made, with critics praising its craftsmanship and emotional weight. Deadline’s review described it as a thunderous, anti-war screed and Nolan’s most humanistic movie yet, remarkably restrained compared to his other work.

Six adaptations, six wildly different budgets, and one very consistent source material. Where do you think Nolan’s new epic deserves to land once audience scores catch up to the critics?