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The Odyssey · written by Christopher Nolan · 2026
Scene 176 of 199 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two
Twenty years after leaving for the Trojan War, Odysseus fights his way home across a hostile sea only to find his kingdom overrun — and must return in disguise to reclaim his wife, his son, and his throne from the suitors laying siege to his house.
Ithaca frozen in a decade of waiting: Penelope weaving, the suitors feasting, Telemachus unheard.
Telemachus needs proof of his father's fate; Penelope needs the throne secured before the suitors force her hand.
Telemachus sails from Ithaca in secret, crossing into the unfamiliar world beyond his mother's house.
Odysseus's remembered ordeal — Troy, the Cyclops, Circe, Hades, Charybdis — paid for in men, ships, and years, while Telemachus searches the courts of Sparta.
Odysseus makes landfall on Ithaca at last, alone but alive — what he wanted, stripped of everything else.
At Eumaeus's hut, disguised as a beggar, Odysseus begins quietly assembling the plan to reclaim his house.
Penelope announces the trial of the axes and the bow — whichever suitor can string Odysseus's bow and thread the axes wins her hand, forcing the endgame.
Flashback frame begins: Odysseus, narrating, imagines himself climbing down from the horse into Troy.
Flashback: Odysseus signals the gates open and Agamemnon's army floods into the city, unleashing a night of slaughter.
Present: Odysseus, eyes closed before Penelope, confesses the horror of what the Greeks did after violating the sacred offering — Athena weeping beside him.
This scene
Odysseus RUNS INTO THE TEMPLE...
ODYSSEUS (V.O.)
And turned a fight into a hunt.
Polites moves towards the STATUE OF ATHENA, SWORD DRAWN...
A GREEK SOLDIER THROWS A CRYING TROJAN WOMAN DOWN IN FRONT OF HIM...
SHE MAKES EYE CONTACT WITH ODYSSEUS -- SHAKING HER HEAD, GREY EYES PLEADING FOR MERCY...
IT IS THE PERSON WE HAVE SEEN AS ATHENA --
Odysseus sees the Greek Soldier SWING HIS SWORD TOWARDS HER NECK and WE MATCH-CUT TO:
POLITES DECAPITATES THE STATUE OF ATHENA, SPARKING, STONE HEAD TUMBLING ONTO THE FILTHY MARBLE FLOOR OF THE TEMPLE...
ODYSSEUS (V.O.)
To burn the walls of Troy was to burn the world entire...
Odysseus stands there, FROZEN, WATCHING THE STONE HEAD ROCK FROM SIDE TO SIDE AS IT COMES TO REST...
ODYSSEUS (V.O.)
Including his home.