The Return (2024)
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Where to watch
Source: JustWatch
This "Odyssey" came out in 2024, starred two Oscar nominees (one winner), and played to near-empty theaters despite critical acclaim.
While Iphigenia (1977) gave us the beginning of the beginning of the journey, THE RETURN (2024) gives us only the end - the part after the monsters. No Cyclops. No Sirens. No Circe. No gods at all.
Director Uberto Pasolini cut every supernatural element out of the poem and kept what was left: a soldier washing up on a beach after twenty years of war, so wrecked by it that nobody on his own island knows his face.
Ralph Fiennes plays Odysseus, war-weary and starved to the bone. Juliette Binoche plays Penelope, holding a house full of men circling her husband's throne. It is the first time the two have appeared onscreen together since The English Patient (1996).
Pasolini shot it in Corfu and the Peloponnese with almost no visual effects. Real coastline, real stone, no army of digital ships.
The screenplay was the last thing Edward Bond ever wrote. Bond wrote Saved in 1965, the controversial play whose banning ultimately helped end theatre censorship in Britain. He also wrote the English dialogue for Antonioni's Blow-Up (1966). Bond died in March 2024, six months before this film reached its first audience.
Physical media
Blu-rayA ContracorrienteSpainRegion B2026UPC 8436597564243
DVDA ContracorrienteSpainRegion 22026UPC 8436597564236
Blu-rayModern FilmsUnited KingdomRegion B2025UPC 5060568950488
Blu-rayBleecker Street / Decal ReleasingUnited StatesRegion A2025UPC 843501043394
DVDUnited KingdomRegion 22025
DVDBleecker Street / Decal ReleasingUnited StatesRegion 12025UPC 843501043387
About the film
Some legends are more than myths.
- Directed by
- Uberto Pasolini
- Runtime
- 116 minutes
- Released
- November 28, 2024
- US theatrical
- December 6, 2024
- Certification
- R
- Country
- Greece, Italy, United Kingdom, France
- Starring
- Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Charlie Plummer, Marwan Kenzari, Claudio Santamaria
More credits
- Genres
- History, Drama, Adventure
- Language
- English
- Origin
- FR, GR, IT, GB
- Studios
- Picomedia, RAI Cinema, Redwave Films, Heretic, Kabo Films, Marvelous Productions, Ithaca Films, Greek Film Centre, ERT, UK Global Screen Fund, MiC, CNC
- Written by
- John Collee, Edward Bond, Uberto Pasolini, Homer
- Produced by
- James Clayton, Uberto Pasolini, Roberto Sessa, Giorgos Karnavas, Konstantinos Kontovrakis, Stéphane Moatti, Romain Le Grand, Vivien Aslanian, Marco Pacchioni, Andrew Karpen, Kent Sanderson, Ralph Fiennes, Keith Kehoe, Torsten Poeck, Linda Vianello
- Cinematography
- Marius Panduru
- Music
- Rachel Portman, Goffredo Gibellini
- Also starring
- Ángela Molina, Nikitas Tsakiroglou, Tom Rhys Harries, Jamie Andrew Cutler, Moe Bar-El
- Budget
- $20,000,000
- Box office
- $3,300,444
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Thankyou!!
Thanks for this recommendation!
An outstanding movie. This might be the first time that Penelope was given the opportunity to show that her time without her husband was its own kind of localized epic.
It’s pretty damn good. Watched it yesterday via Kanopy. It’s as if the story was real.
Love this, thank you for sharing. Didn’t know about this film!
If there isn’t multiple radical chase scenes 🎬 and/or explosions, it doesn’t sell to the masses.
A poignant film like this will find its audience over time, with home viewing. 🔥
Eilish Carney exactly! And it has! Remarkable movie and cast.
Eilish Carney True…but the film industry is a business and it has to attract the Gen Z demographic and the youth are the ones willing to spend their disposable income on entertainment.
Eilish Carney Are there chase scenes and explosions in the Nolan version? News to me.
Eilish Carney it was a great film.
But there is a film before Fiennes-Binoche starrer and it stars Armand Assante.
Siegfred Santillan that’s Hallmark TV mini series rather than movie.
Definitely an adaptation worth watching though.
This was great!
The Return is beautiful.
It’s my favorite rendition of Odysseus and Penelope. The suitors are much more menacing so you get a better feel for what Penelope had to deal with for years. 
The Return is an AWESOME movie
The recognition of Argos. At the long vigil of the faithful does the king return.
Amazing film
Yes, but I loved both The Return and The Odyssey. Not either or.
You know, you’re allow to like both
John Whitcomb thats just crazy! How can you even suggest such a thing??? What would all these trolls do that are attacking Nolans movie?? But yeah, you are 💯 correct
Love both movies
It played to near empty theaters because there was zero marketing for it. I don’t understand why that colleration is never considered. Playing to near empty theaters doesn’t mean it was bad. It means no one even knew it existed.
Ben Beesley This is my first time even hearing about it.
Fiennes is long overdue for an Oscar, but so far has not one yet … So who is the second winner?
Peter Van Camp You’re right! Thanks for the correction – I updated the text. Actually I’m kind of shocked that Fiennes has never won.
Anywhere But Hollywood tnx for reminding me to see this movie!
Anywhere But Hollywood same thought he won for English Patient
Peter Van Camp Binoche for The English Patient if I recall correctly.
That’s right.
Peter Van Camp he should win it for 28 Years Later alone
WHAT ABOUT ARMAND ASSANTE ending was phenomenal in that version as well
Joseph Melius Hallmark TV mini series rather than movie though.
Definitely an adaptation worth watching though.
It’s really well done and definitely a wonderful addition to the canon. I thought the suitors in this were much more menacing than Pattinson and the rest in Nolan’s Odyssey (which I still loved and am going to see in the theater again next week because there’s just so much to absorb!)
Nic Hannel it really dives deep into that part of the story. It’s fantastic
Very good movie
That reunion with Argos…😶
Brilliant movie. Fiennes really showcased Odysseus’s loneliness and yearning for home. This was always going to be sidelined by the bigger budget film but I really enjoyed this.
Mike Burns I enjoyed it until the Congolese palace guards in Ithaca.
Incredible movie. Which I watched in a completely empty theater. It is streaming now.
I still need to see this
i thought the return was excellent, he is a great actor
I’d rather watch this movie
Every person who is angry that there are no Greek actors speaking Greek in The Odyssey should rent Iphigenia and see if that really is the problem with Nolan’s movie.
Eric Furlong I would imagine the bigger problem would be that it is a Nolan movie, loud, big feels, superficial women who are mere adjuncts to the men.
Comparing even good Nolan to Cacoyannis would be like comparing Rupi Kaur to Elizabeth Bishop.
Robert Krishnaop you sound like someone who didnt bother to see the new film
It’s an odd choice to make a movie that appeals to the largest number of people possible. He could have made a movie that would satisfy a few thousand university professors but he blew it.
It’s a slow burn but worth a watch for the final act alone. The bow scene is just perfect. Fiennes and Binoche are excellent but the film slumps when they’re not on screen.
This is an excellent film and gut wrenching tension among the antagonists
This was better than Nolan’s
Altaire Gural it has some great qualities, but it doesn’t capture what Homer wrote at all OTHER than Oddysseus’ desire to be home. Nolans film is a masterpiece.
The movie was fantastic
Such a great film
It’s a good movie, watched it the other night on Paramount Plus. Sad it got overlooked, great performances by Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche.
Loving this one!
I streamed it on my laptop when it became available; I really, really, liked it.
Far superior film to the big mess currently playing.
Saw it in theaters and feel it is very underrated.
No cyclops and no gods, so not historically correct 🤣🤣🤣
Dan Barbier it was just his arrival back at Ithaca
As if any of it is “historical”… 🤦♂️
Great film.
This was an outstanding film!
It’s fantastic!
For some reason it was limited release and never had a chance to few it.
Great movie!
I really enjoyed this movie. Too bad more folks haven’t seen it. It’s up on Hoopla and/or Kanopy if you have a library card and I recommend seeing it without commercial interruptions. Thanks to this site, I’ve seen The Trojan Women which was really good but hard to watch, and Iphigenia, which was also great but I had issues with the way the writer let certain guilty people off the hook. Electra is next but I need a bit of an emotional break first!
I love this film.
I saw this one in theaters. I enjoyed it. Ralph Fiennes here is fantastic and he literally looks like he’s been through Hell.
I love this movie 👏👏🙌
The Return is a great film
Great film.
Arthouse Movie 🎥 still good but sometimes boring 🥱
The “grown-up” versions I guess. Both Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes is such great actors.
BRILLIANT.
It’s probably better than Nolan’s or at least Fiennes makes a better Odysseus
Marc Chomel he says….without seeing either one.
Damon absolutely killed it as Odysseus. Might be his best performance. Or up there at least. Loved the movie.
Kevin Culp I shall see. I saw The Return
Kevin Culp Is it possible to love both?
Deborah Griffin-Sadel absolutely. I thought the Return was decent. A bit slow and it removes MOST of what makes Homers poem so good.
“Director Uberto Pasolini cut every supernatural element out of the poem”
Never played in a theater remotely close to me. Had to find it streaming and pay. Good but quite violent. Very different than Nolan’s.
excellent film!!
Greate movie – and a MUCH better portrayal of the human beings in the story….something Nolan continually gets wrong in his movies.
I want to watch that
Buy the Blu-Ray: it is gorgeously photographed, and the two leads are great.
Far, far, far better of a film than The Odyssey 2026.
It was good.
This is The Return, which is only near the end of Odyssey
I adore both Ralphe and Juliette, but this movie was a letdown…
Susan Sitki gotta disagree. I really enjoyed it.
Probably empty theaters because of the nonexistent marketing budget they evidently must’ve had, as I’m pretty sure these posts are the first any of us are hearing about it – even from some of us who go to a *lot* of movies.
Braeden Roesler it didn’t get a wide distribution. I guess it helps to have a big-name director attached to it. I recently watched it and it was very good
The Return was awesome. I thought the axe scene was the definitive translation.
Excelente movie.
I thought that movie was great! It should have gotten more attention than it did.
God knows how I missed this. I saw reviews but had no idea the screenplay was Edward Bond’s work. He was phenomenal.
Such a great movie
“The Return” is Odysseus. Not the cunning warrior, not the King of Ithaka, not the seaman facing supernatural powers, but the broken man returning home after 20 years. of war and wandering. The movie is made of the rugged landscape and a man trying to find his way. It is the story of Penelope and Telemachus and the ‘suitors’ who make a mockery of his home. It is in the most primordial way, the story of homecoming. Ralph Fiennes is superb, he is utterly believable as the old warrior-King reduced to nothing.
It’s amazing the amount of movies that get made and put out that go under the radar. I’ve never even heard of this movie, but I’ll check it out now for sure
I keep mentioning this movie when it comes to comparisons with Nolan’s version, but everyone else has never heard of it, or they’re comparing other versions and Oh brother where art thou..
The return was beautiful
… i wish Ralph Fiennes made Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, but it would have taken 20-years to make, and 2-months to watch.
Great film. I saw it a the cinema in Dallas.
I saw it twice in the theatre, I thought it was brilliant and I loved it.
Excellent movie.
It’s silly to compare the two. One is played/scaled as Greek tragedy, the other as Greek epic adventure. There’s always been room for both approaches.
great movie!
The Return is one of the greatest adaptations for the part of The Odyssey where Odysseus returns.
Manuel Sisneros
One of my favorite movies
To be fair, Nolan avoids digital effects, so the coastline with ships was done with practical effects.
Oh that’s right nobody showed up for that. It was on my list but I didn’t get in theater. Shame on me
I saw this movie being talked about at the same time they started talking about Nolan’s going into production…. Then it disappeared, & I’ve still yet to see it!
10/10
Sounds like Troy: Part 3, but nobody ever made Part 2, hah.
It was so good I can’t bear to watch the Nolan movie