Where to see 'The Odyssey' in IMAX 70mm across California
For California moviegoers outside of Los Angeles, Sacramento or the Bay Area metro regions, seeing "The Odyssey" in its intended format may require a road trip.
Director Christopher Nolan filmed the entire movie using IMAX cameras - a first for a major feature film. Traditionally, filmmakers reserve IMAX for select action scenes because the cameras are large, expensive and notoriously noisy, making dialogue difficult to capture. Nolan and his team overcame that hurdle by housing the cameras in specially designed sound-dampening casings, allowing both dialogue and action scenes to be shot in IMAX while maintaining the expanded aspect ratio throughout the film.
That makes "The Odyssey" one of the most ambitious IMAX releases ever, and California is home to eight of the limited theaters nationwide showing the film in IMAX 70mm, widely considered the premier way to experience Nolan's latest epic. Here's where Californians can catch it on the biggest screens in the state.
Where can you see 'The Odyssey' in 70mm IMAX in California?
California has an outsized share of the nation's IMAX 70mm screens, making these California locations some of the most sought-after destinations for moviegoers hoping to experience the epic on the largest screens with the highest image quality.
- Regal Hacienda Crossings & IMAX – Dublin
- TCL Chinese Theater IMAX – Hollywood
- Regal Irvine Spectrum + IMAX – Irvine
- Regal LA Live & IMAX – Los Angeles
- Regal Edwards Ontario Palace & IMAX – Ontario
- Esquire IMAX – Sacramento
- AMC Metreon 16 & IMAX − San Francisco
- Universal Cinema AMC at CityWalk Hollywood & IMAX − Universal City
What is 70mm IMAX?
In the simplest terms, 70mm IMAX is the way to see "The Odyssey" both in the highest resolution and on the largest screen possible.
A standard film strip is 35mm, so 70mm film is physically bigger, making for a higher resolution picture. Showing the movie in IMAX allows for an expanded image. So by seeing "The Odyssey" in 70mm IMAX, you're seeing more of the frame than you would in a normal theater, and the image itself also looks better.
This is how Nolan recommends watching "The Odyssey," but securing a seat in one of those screenings, particularly on opening weekend, will be tough. The tickets are so in demand that 70mm IMAX screenings started going on sale in July 2025, one year before the movie's release. At the famed Lincoln Square IMAX theater in New York City, even showings at 3 a.m. are fully sold out.
What's special about seeing 'The Odyssey' in 70mm IMAX?
Nolan has shown his films in 70mm IMAX before, including his most recent movie, "Oppenheimer." But "The Odyssey" marks a historic first, both for Nolan and for movies in general: It's the first narrative film to be shot entirely using IMAX cameras.
Typically, films will shoot only select sequences in IMAX, because IMAX cameras are loud, bulky and expensive. The cameras make so much noise that it has been difficult to film dialogue in this format, which is why most movies have only used IMAX cameras for big action sequences.
But with "The Odyssey," Nolan solved this by placing the camera inside a casing dubbed a "blimp" to reduce the noise, allowing him to film both action and dialogue scenes for IMAX and maintain the expanded frame throughout the entire movie.
What other premium formats is 'The Odyssey' available in?
If you can't get into an IMAX 70mm showing, there are a few other premium-format options that are the next best thing.
One is standard IMAX, which benefits from a larger screen and a wider image than in a regular theater. You'll be missing out on the 70mm film experience, but the image will still "fill your entire field of vision on the floor-to-ceiling screen," according to the movie's official website.
At select locations, "The Odyssey" will also be available to watch on non-IMAX 70mm film. With this format, you'll be getting a high-resolution picture, but without the full, tall image available with IMAX.
Dolby Cinema is another option that offers vivid imagery and is more widely available than 70mm. "The really fun thing with Dolby Vision is you're looking at a very, very high contrast ratio: incredible blacks, very, very high, peak whites, peak brightnesses," Nolan explained to Letterboxd, pointing to a nighttime storm sequence in the film that looks great in this format.
You can see a helpful comparison of how the image in "The Odyssey" varies by format on this page of the movie's website.
Contributing: Patrick Ryan
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Where to see 'The Odyssey' in IMAX 70mm across California
Reporting by Brendan Morrow and James Ward, USA TODAY NETWORK / Palm Springs Desert Sun
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
Copyright Reuters or USA Today Network via Reuters Connect
This story was originally published July 18, 2026 at 3:38 PM.