It’s the middle of the night on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, but outside AMC Lincoln Square 13, the line of moviegoers keeps moving. Some are in pajamas, others in themed headbands or wrinkled dress shirts from a day out on the town. Couples, siblings, groups of friends and solo fans all head up the escalator with the same goal: seeing Christopher Nolan’s new film The Odyssey in IMAX 70 mm, no matter how little sleep it requires.
For many, that meant setting alarms for 2 a.m. and treating a movie screening like a mission.
A midnight-to-dawn crowd for Nolan’s latest
“It’s been a bloodbath trying to get tickets,” sisters Morgan and Haley tell Rolling Stone. “We were willing to stay up as late as we needed to.”
They are far from alone. Though The Odyssey premiered just over 24 hours earlier, on July 17, demand for Nolan’s 13th film has stayed sky-high since tickets went on sale in June. Fans overwhelmed the AMC, Fandango and IMAX apps for hours, and ticketing sites were backed up by hour-long queues.
The $250 million project turns the classic Greek text into a large-scale theatrical event, with a cast that includes Matt Damon, Himesh Patel, Anne Hathaway, Lupita Nyong’o, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Zendaya, Jon Bernthal, Elliot Page and Charlize Theron. But the biggest draw for many moviegoers is Nolan’s technical ambition: the entire film was shot on IMAX 70 mm cameras.
That matters because only 25 theaters in the U.S. can screen the format, forcing audiences to choose between finding one of those venues or watching a version with about a third of the image cropped away at the borders. Nolan clearly intended the film to be seen in IMAX, and for this crowd, that became the point.
Why fans showed up at 3 a.m.
Nelson Aldama says he is not worried about nodding off on the way in. He had already watched a World Cup game with friends and attended a WWE wrestling match at Madison Square Garden before heading to the theater.
“I’m literally shaking,” he says, extending his hands in front of him. “I want to see everything that was captured. I want to see the background actors, I want to see the environments. I want to see the props. Top to bottom, I want to see everything.”
Pearl and Yitzy Leonorowitz say they felt the same pull. “We’re big Christopher Nolan fans and the opportunity to see it in IMAX 70 mm, the way it was intended to be seen, is just unmatched, and we needed to experience it,” Yitzy says. “Even if it was at 3 a.m.,” Pearl adds.
Daniel Sahi, 18, already had tickets for a showing next week, but a last-minute cancellation opened up a single seat for the 3 a.m. screening. He jumped on it.
“I’ve seen multiple films in 70mm and I’ve loved every experience,” he says. “I saw the Sinners re-release here and it was fantastic. This film is fully in IMAX 70mm and that is just insane to me. [Nolan] is one of the most talented modern directors out there.”
For another group of friends, the lengths they went to were financial as well as logistical. They say they bought their tickets on eBay for $80 each. Worried about getting scammed on the night of the screening, one member of the group went to the theater in person to have a worker physically print out their tickets.
“The 3 a.m. is the best screening to go to because every single person here that’s seeing this is a true cinema lover,” one of the friends says.
Fans travel for the experience
Some attendees did not just cross town for the screening — they crossed state lines and national borders. Scott, a 3 a.m. ticket holder, told Rolling Stone he planned a visit from Canada in hopes of getting a seat. Alinne, who had a 7 a.m. train booked to Ithaca, New York, said she picked the screening because she would rather be tired than miss out. Another couple said they came from Wilmington, Delaware, after failing to get tickets closer to home.
Tomas arrived with a Red Bull in hand and said the showing would be his second time seeing the film in 24 hours.
“It’s a must-do,” he says. “Christopher Nolan on the biggest screen in America. Why not?”
The demand tells its own story
The frenzy around The Odyssey has also pushed against the conservative backlash the film drew before release. Conservative and boosted accounts on X, including owner Elon Musk, criticized Nolan for casting Nyong’o, a Black woman, as Helen of Troy.
But the packed 3 a.m. screening, along with others across the country, suggests something else entirely: a strong appetite for filmmaking with a clear point of view, and for seeing that work exactly as the director intended.
