The Return (2024)

The homecoming, stripped of every monster and god.

The Odyssey is a story about war trauma: what it does to the man who comes back, and to the wife who waited.

You want the quiet, devastating one, where a wrecked man walks back into the life he left.

What it keeps and what it changes

Keeps: only the homecoming: the ragged return, the disbelieving reunion, the slaughter of the suitors.
Changes: deletes the fantasy entirely. There is no Cyclops and no Olympus, just a hollowed-out survivor.

Keeps only the homecoming, the back half of the poem: the ragged return, the disbelieving reunion, the slaughter of the suitors. Deletes the fantasy entirely. There is no Cyclops, no Circe, and no Olympus, just a hollowed-out war survivor.

Whose story is it?

Odysseus and Penelope both; Binoche’s Penelope is a full second lead.

The feminism angle: Binoche's Penelope is a co-lead with her own grief and rage, not a prize to be reclaimed. The reunion is a mutual reckoning.

How much time does it ask?

≈116 min. Fiennes + Binoche, dir. Uberto Pasolini.

The scarred, silent reunion, with Fiennes’s Odysseus unable to say who he is.

Where to find it

Stream (Paramount+ / Hulu) or rent →

Pairs well with: The Penelopiad — Margaret Atwood, if you want a chaser in another medium.

Common questions

Where can I stream The Return?

As of mid-2026 it streams on Paramount+ and Hulu, with rentals on Apple TV, Prime Video, and Fandango at Home.

Does The Return have the monsters and gods?

No, and that's the point. It covers only the homecoming: no Cyclops, no Circe, no Olympus. Just Ralph Fiennes as a hollowed-out Odysseus and Juliette Binoche as Penelope.

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More ways home: Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey (2026) · O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) · The Odyssey — NBC Miniseries (1997)