The Odyssey is now London's BFI IMAX cinema's biggest ever film

This one will instantly check out for anyone who has tried to get hold of tickets to a screening: The Odyssey is now BFI IMAX’s biggest-grossing film of all time.

It has nudged past 2009 mega-blockbuster Avatar to become the London cinema’s top-charting movie, with 101,000 tickets sold and upwards of £2.63 million gross revenue in ticket sales.

This also makes the BFI the second-highest grossing IMAX screening room for the film globally, second only to the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. And that one’s a much more capacious space. While around 500 can fit in the BFI IMAX, 932 can fit into the LA room, according to the Chinese Theatres website.

Guess what? The entire The Odyssey run at the BFI IMAX is, once again, completely sold out.

Current listings show the last screening for the film on 17th September. But the next big film on the roster isn’t until December, with Dune: Part Three arriving on 18th December.

Could there be two more months of The Odyssey screening at BFI IMAX ahead of us? Stay tuned for news of further ticket drops.

The Odyssey is just one of six Christopher Nolan films on the BFI IMAX all-timer chart. Here’s the roll-call of the top 10:

1. The Odyssey (Christopher Nolan, 2026)
2. Avatar (James Cameron, 2009)
3. Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan, 2023)
4. Star Wars: The Force Awakens (J.J. Abrams, 2015)
5. The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008)
6. The Dark Knight Rises (Christopher Nolan, 2012)
7. Dune: Part Two (Denis Villeneuve, 2024)
8. Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan, 2017)
9. Interstellar (Christopher Nolan, 2014)
10. Avatar: The Way of Water (James Cameron, 2022)

Christopher Nolan made IMAX a central part of the The Odyssey story, as it’s the first film to be shot entirely on IMAX cameras.

It’s never been an easy task thanks to the sheer noise IMAX cameras generate, and even with the latest IMAX Keighley Film Camera tech, major practical concessions are required. It shoots on film, and a fully-loaded 1000-foot film canister only gets you up to around three minutes of filmed footage.

At the time of writing, The Odyssey has made $1.298 billion. It’s Christopher Nolan’s highest grossing film to date, at least before adjusting for inflation.

We’re in a summer of massive blockbusters, though. Spider-Man: Brand New Day has already made more than $2 billion, while horror smash Obsession has made $495 million, despite costing less than $1 million to make.

Perhaps all those years of claims saying cinema is in its death throes were overstated.

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