Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ Is About to Disappear From IMAX 70mm Forever, and New York Fans Are Scrambling
Movie theaters don’t often feel like the site of a farewell tour, but that’s exactly the mood surrounding Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey‘ this week. Ever since the film opened in July, its run in true IMAX 70mm has taken on a life of its own, with sold-out showtimes, overnight screenings, and a fanbase treating every ticket like a relic.
That intensity hasn’t cooled off as summer turned to fall. If anything, the scramble for seats has only gotten more frantic as the format’s limited engagement nears its final days, turning ordinary showtimes into must-attend events for Nolan devotees across the country.
Now the clock has officially run out in one of the format’s most iconic homes. According to a widely shared post from the fan account Christopher Nolan Archives, the final IMAX 70mm screening of ‘The Odyssey’ at AMC Lincoln Square in New York takes place Wednesday night, with only a handful of seats left in the historic 13-story auditorium.
The stakes behind that scarcity make sense once you look at the numbers. ‘The Odyssey’ is the first feature ever shot entirely on true 15-perforation IMAX film cameras, and only twenty-five theaters across the United States, and just forty-one worldwide, are equipped to project it the way Nolan intended. That bottleneck has made the film something of a phenomenon within a phenomenon, with IMAX ticket sales alone surpassing $450 million globally and 70mm showings pulling in $66 million on their own despite playing in a tiny fraction of the world’s screens.
The final IMAX 70mm screening of ‘THE ODYSSEY’ at AMC Lincoln Square in New York takes place on Wednesday night.
— Christopher Nolan Archives (@NolanAnalyst) September 27, 2026
Only a few seats remain. pic.twitter.com/8OIAw2cO8I
What began as a standard theatrical window has already been extended multiple times to meet that demand, stretching from an initial closing date in August all the way through the end of September. AMC Lincoln Square, alongside a small handful of sister venues, became ground zero for the frenzy, at one point adding 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. screenings just to keep pace with fans unwilling to miss the format.
Much of that devotion traces back to how the film was made and who signed on to make it. Matt Damon leads the ensemble as Odysseus, with Tom Holland playing his son Telemachus alongside Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Charlize Theron, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Jon Bernthal and Elliot Page rounding out the sprawling cast.
Holland, in particular, has been vocal about the experience of working on the project long before audiences ever saw a frame of it. Speaking about the script during an interview with Agence France-Presse, the actor called it the best one he had ever read, adding that Nolan struck him as a genuine collaborator on set rather than a director who simply dictated instructions.
That kind of enthusiasm from the cast mirrored what critics and audiences would later say once ‘The Odyssey’ finally opened, with the film becoming Nolan’s biggest global debut and a rare instance of a three-hour, R-rated historical epic dominating the box office in a franchise-driven era.
As dramatic as this week’s send-off feels, it isn’t quite the end of the road for the film itself. A digital and physical home release for ‘The Odyssey’ is already scheduled for November 17, giving fans who missed the 70mm window a chance to revisit Odysseus’s journey on a smaller, if less awe-inspiring, screen.
The IMAX 70mm slots being vacated this week won’t sit empty for long either, with reports pointing to Tom Cruise’s upcoming film ‘Digger’ as the next major release set to claim those same screens. It’s a familiar pattern for the format, which has previously rotated blockbuster after blockbuster through its limited real estate whenever demand justified the disruption.
A film by Christopher Nolan shot entirely with IMAX film cameras. Watch The Odyssey trailer and experience the film in theaters 7 17 26. pic.twitter.com/Lqap9dFI09
— The Odyssey Movie (@odysseymovie) December 22, 2025
Still, there’s something fitting about the way ‘The Odyssey’ is closing out this chapter, given how much of the film’s identity was built around scale, patience, and the kind of theatrical event that can’t quite be replicated on a laptop screen. For the fans lining up at AMC Lincoln Square this week, it may be the last chance to see Nolan’s vision exactly as it was meant to be projected.
How are you planning to experience Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey?
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