Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ Becomes Biggest Film Ever At BFI IMAX

Christopher Nolan’s acclaimed epic The Odyssey is now the biggest film of all time at the UK’s largest cinema, the BFI IMAX.

To date, BFI IMAX has sold more than 101,000 admissions for the movie, generating £2,683,987 gross in ticket sales from a single screen and achieving a 95% occupancy rate across all showtimes currently on sale – making it the cinema’s highest grossing film ever.

The film has overtaken James Cameron’s 2009 ground-breaker Avatar to claim the crown at the venue.

BFI IMAX remains the number one IMAX venue in both the UK and international markets for the film, while the London cinema is also the second-highest grossing IMAX screen globally, behind the TCL Chinese Theatre, Los Angeles, which has almost double the capacity.

As the first feature film shot entirely with IMAX film cameras, the movie can be experienced at BFI IMAX in its intended presentation, screened from a rare IMAX 70mm print.

The BFI IMAX at Waterloo in London is the UK’s biggest cinema screen. It measures 26 metres wide by almost 20 metres high (spanning roughly 280 square metres), making it roughly the height of five double-decker buses. The Odyssey has been sold out for weeks at the venue and tickets even weeks in advance have been almost impossible to come by.

The complete top ten highest-grossing films of all time at BFI IMAX, including five more features directed by BFI Fellow Nolan, are:

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)

Last month, BFI IMAX was the number one IMAX venue in both the UK and international markets for The Odyssey’s opening weekend, with a three-day gross of £219,867. This put the film at the top of the all-time BFI IMAX opening weekend box office rankings. The movie also shattered BFI IMAX’s one-day presale record in June, selling 28,000 tickets in the first 24 hours for a gross revenue of £750,000. This achievement came after four opening weekend screenings sold out in less than an hour, a full year ahead of release.

In anticipation of the film’s launch the same venue hosted a popular Nolan retrospective.