07/23/2026
For nearly three thousand years, Homer’s Odyssey has continued to find new audiences.
The ancient Greek epic follows Odysseus as he attempts to return home after the Trojan War. Along the way, he encounters shipwrecks, monsters, temptation, divine intervention, and years of separation from his family. Its influence can be seen not only in direct adaptations, but also in the many writers and filmmakers who have reimagined its characters, structure, and central idea of a difficult journey home.
In literature, James Joyce used The Odyssey as a major framework for his 1922 novel Ulysses, transforming Odysseus’s voyage into one day in the life of Leopold Bloom in Dublin. Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain similarly draws on the homecoming structure of Homer’s epic, following a wounded Civil War soldier on a dangerous journey back to the woman he loves.
Margaret Atwood revisited the story from another perspective in The Penelopiad, which retells the events surrounding Odysseus’s return through the voices of his wife, Penelope, and the twelve maids who are executed at the end of the original poem.
In film, the Coen brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou? openly acknowledges The Odyssey as a source. Set in the American South during the Great Depression, the film includes playful parallels to Homer’s story, including a one-eyed character, seductive singers, a man named Ulysses, and a long, unpredictable journey home.
On television, Homer’s epic has also been adapted directly. The 1997 miniseries The Odyssey, starring Armand Assante as Odysseus, brought the poem’s gods, monsters, battles, and homecoming story to television audiences.
The story’s presence in video games is more complicated. Games such as Assassin’s Creed Odyssey immerse players in the history and mythology of ancient Greece, but they are not direct adaptations of Homer’s poem. Their popularity nevertheless demonstrates how strongly the world of Greek myth continues to inspire modern interactive storytelling.
Not every adventure, quest, or homecoming story comes directly from The Odyssey. But its characters, episodes, and narrative structure have been repeatedly adapted and reinterpreted across literature, film, television, theater, art, and other forms of storytelling.
Now, the Barrymore invites you to experience a new cinematic interpretation of this enduring story, presented in 35mm.
See the epic that storytellers have returned to for centuries, projected from real film on the big screen.
