‘The Odyssey’ Just Surpassed One of the Greatest Movies Ever Made on Rotten Tomatoes

Few fantasy epics have carried the kind of untouchable critical reputation that Peter Jackson’s ‘The Lord of the Rings‘ trilogy has held onto for more than two decades. ‘The Return of the King’ in particular became the gold standard for how a sprawling mythological adventure could satisfy both critics and audiences at the same time, a benchmark that has quietly loomed over every large-scale epic released since.

Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ arrived in theaters this week carrying its own kind of untouchable reputation, backed by sold-out IMAX 70mm screenings and a marketing campaign built entirely around the promise of old-school, practical filmmaking scale. With reviews now rolling in and audiences finally weighing in themselves, the film has reached a genuinely rare milestone for a modern blockbuster.

According to current Rotten Tomatoes scores, ‘The Odyssey’ has officially overtaken ‘The Return of the King’ on the platform. Nolan’s epic currently sits at a 95 percent critics score, edging past ‘The Return of the King’, which has held steady at 94 percent from 306 reviews since its original 2003 release.

On the audience side, the gap widens even further, with ‘The Odyssey’ pulling a 97 percent Popcornmeter score from verified ratings compared to ‘The Return of the King’s 86 percent audience score built from more than 250,000 total ratings.

That audience number carries particular weight given Nolan’s own track record on the platform. According to Forbes, ‘The Odyssey’ has already set the record for the highest Rotten Tomatoes audience score of Nolan’s entire career, surpassing previous high water marks like ‘The Dark Knight’ and ‘Memento’, both of which sat at 94 percent.

As a director, Nolan has never had a single film register as Rotten on the platform across his whole filmography, making this latest peak an especially notable achievement.

On the critics’ side, the film has been just as strong throughout its rollout. Early reviews from top critics helped push the Tomatometer as high as 98 percent shortly after the embargo lifted, with reviewers like Anthony Breznican of Esquire Magazine describing the film as the work of a team of masters breathing new life into a 2,800-year-old story. That kind of across-the-board acclaim has helped the film earn both a Certified Fresh label from critics and a Verified Hot badge on the audience side.

It is worth noting that Rotten Tomatoes scores can shift as more reviews and ratings roll in over time, meaning the current gap between the two films could narrow or widen in the days ahead. Still, catching and surpassing a film as beloved as ‘The Return of the King’, long considered one of the most acclaimed blockbusters ever made, is a genuinely significant marker for any new release to hit this early into its theatrical run.

With ‘The Odyssey’ also posting a massive opening weekend at the box office and continuing to draw comparisons to some of the biggest theatrical events of the past decade, this Rotten Tomatoes milestone adds yet another data point to what is shaping up to be one of the most successful releases of Nolan’s career.

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