Matt Damon is by no means the first leading man to don the armour of Homer's nomadic monarch, despite the fact that Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey has already shattered box office records. Odysseus has sailed across screens for more than a century, from flickering silent films to expansive miniseries from the 1990s. This is a retrospective of six actors who played the part long before Damon's IMAX debut.
The very first screen Odysseus wasn't just an actor — he was also one of the film's three directors. De Liguoro cast himself in the lead for this Italian silent production, shot to coincide with Turin's 1911 World's Fair. At a then-eye-popping budget and a 44-minute runtime, it was considered a genuine spectacle for its era, complete with an on-screen Cyclops and Sirens. It's remembered today as one of early cinema's boldest attempts at mythological epic.
A decade later, German silent cinema took its own crack at the material. Italian strongman-turned-actor Luciano Albertini, known for his athletic action roles, played the hero in this Phoebus-Film production. Like most silent epics of the period, the film leaned on physical presence and grand sets to sell its ancient-world drama.
The role's first true movie star moment. Douglas headlined this glossy Italian-American co-production (released under Odysseus's Latin name, Ulysses), battling the Cyclops and outwitting Circe with matinee-idol swagger. Co-starring Anthony Quinn as chief suitor Antinous and Silvana Mangano in a dual role as Penelope and Circe, the film was a massive box office hit in Italy and remains one of the most fondly remembered sword-and-sandal adaptations of the story.
This eight-episode miniseries, which was produced by Dino De Laurentiis for the Italian network RAI, instantly made Yugoslav actor Bekim Fehmiu famous throughout Europe. Fehmiu's sombre, muscular portrayal of Penelope, opposite Irene Papas, contributed to the show being one of the first real blockbusters on Italian television.
Best known for meeting grim ends in Boromir and Ned Stark, Bean actually got a rare survivor's arc as the wily king of Ithaca in Wolfgang Petersen's star-studded war epic. Amidst the spectacle of Eric Bana's Hector and Brad Pitt's Achilles, his Odysseus served as the brains behind the Trojan Horse and was one of the film's more subdued and perceptive characters. Given that The Odyssey effectively continues where Troy left off, several fans even advocated for Bean to play the part again in Nolan's movie.
The most recent Odysseus before Damon, Fiennes took a quieter, more introspective approach in this 2024 drama, focusing on the king's difficult homecoming rather than the fantastical monsters of his journey. Opposite Juliette Binoche as Penelope, Fiennes leaned into the psychological toll of war and exile — a stark contrast to the effects-driven spectacle Nolan is bringing to theatres now.