There are movies you can comfortably watch at home. Then there are movies such as Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, which remind you that cinema can still be an event.
I visited Sydney’s rebuilt IMAX cinema at Darling Harbour at the weekend and rediscovered an art form that has been in danger of disappearing: the genuinely large-format movie.
The Odyssey is purpose-built for it. Nolan’s retelling of Homer’s epic was the first feature film shot entirely using IMAX film cameras. Its battles fill your field of vision, while its stormy oceans appear almost as immense, threatening and unknowable as they must have seemed during the late Bronze Age, when man was a tiny speck, and the world was filled with one-eyed cyclopes.
The film covers the closing stages of Odysseus’s 20-year absence from Ithaca. He spent 10 years fighting in the Trojan War and another decade wandering the seas, encountering gods, monsters and temptations as he struggled to return to his wife, Penelope, and son, Telemachus.
On television, this would be a story. At IMAX Sydney, it’s a physical experience.
A cinema experience on an epic scale
The screen occupies an extraordinary 692 square metres and is around 29 metres wide and 24 metres high. It is ranked as the third-largest IMAX screen in the world. Melbourne’s IMAX retains the crown for the world’s largest 1.43:1-format screen, measuring 32 metres by 23 metres, but Sydney’s giant canvas hardly feels like second best.
Indeed, when a wooden ship is being thrown around by the ocean, it feels less as though you are watching it than clinging to the side.
The 430-seat auditorium is equipped with IMAX’s dual-laser projection system. For audiences, that means a brighter, sharper 4K image, deeper blacks, stronger contrast and colours that retain their richness even across such an enormous screen. The tall 1.43:1 format can also reveal up to 40 per cent more picture than a conventional cinema presentation.
Then there is the 12-channel sound system. It does not simply make the film louder. Sound moves around and above the auditorium, giving waves, battle cries and the clash of weapons a sense of direction and scale. You feel the soundtrack as much as you hear it.
Seat selection is key
Seat selection, however, matters. We chose seats around the middle of the auditorium, which provided a commanding view without forcing us to constantly move our heads. The safest choice is in the central columns, from the middle rows towards the back third.
My advice: avoid the first few rows unless you enjoy craning your neck and watching actors appear several storeys tall. The extreme edges can also distort the perspective.
Reviewers on Reddit have been scathing about the lower seats.
The film frequently mentions Zeus’s law. The God of Gods said hosts should welcome and care for strangers. Putting them in seats where they leave with crooked necks would appear to be risking Zeus’s wrath.
Those wanting more comfort, however, can book full recliners or couples recliners towards the rear. There is even an elevated Coca-Cola Private Box for groups of up to four, offering leather recliners, additional space, an exclusive menu and service to your seat.
The cinema also has an attractive bar and lounge where audiences can buy drinks and snacks before the film—a welcome touch that makes the outing feel more like a night at the theatre.
Sydney first gained an IMAX cinema in 1996. The original standalone building closed and was demolished in 2016 to make way for The Ribbon, the extraordinary curving development that now also houses the W Sydney hotel. After years of construction delays, the new IMAX Sydney finally opened inside the building in October 2023.
It may have taken seven years to return, but Sydney once again has one of the world’s great cinemas.
And The Odyssey is exactly the film with which to rediscover it: immense, occasionally overwhelming and impossible to reproduce at home. This is not merely a bigger way to watch a movie. It is a reminder of what cinema was always meant to be.
Sydney’s IMAX Cinema
Where: The Ribbon, 1/35 Wheat Road, Darling Harbour, Sydney. The cinema is beneath the W Sydney Hotel.
When: Open daily, with hours determined by the film schedule. Current The Odyssey sessions run from 10 am, with later screenings at 1:50 pm, 5:40 pm and 9:30 pm.
Price: Prices vary by film, session and seating category. As a guide, standard tickets start from about $25 for children, seniors and students and $38 for adults.
