Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey' Becomes Highest-Grossing Film Ever at BFI IMAX, Overtaking 'Avatar'
Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey has overtaken James Cameron's Avatar (2009) to become the highest-grossing film of all time at BFI IMAX, Britain's biggest cinema screen. The film has sold more than 101,000 admissions and generated £2,683,987 in ticket sales at the single Waterloo venue, according to Deadline.
The numbers are striking for one screen. BFI IMAX — measuring 26 metres wide by nearly 20 metres high, roughly 280 square metres of projection surface — recorded a 95% occupancy rate across every showtime on sale. The film has been sold out for weeks. Its three-day opening weekend at the venue alone brought in £219,867, the top opening ever recorded there Deadline.
Demand was visible long before the film arrived. In June, BFI IMAX set a one-day presale record when 28,000 tickets sold in the first 24 hours, grossing £750,000. Four opening-weekend screenings sold out in under an hour — a full year before release. The venue had previously hosted a Nolan retrospective in the lead-up to the launch Deadline.
Globally, BFI IMAX is the second-highest-grossing IMAX screen for The Odyssey, behind only the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles, which has almost double the capacity. It ranks as the number-one IMAX venue for the film in both the UK and all international markets Deadline.
The film itself carries a technical distinction. The Odyssey is the first feature film shot entirely with IMAX film cameras — a format Nolan has pushed for two decades, working to bring the large-format technology into mainstream Hollywood production. The BFI's Sight & Sound coverage describes the project as the conclusion of that quest BFI Sight & Sound. Production spanned 91 days across six months and six countries, with a reported budget of $250 million BFI.
Beyond the BFI venue, The Odyssey has performed strongly across the wider IMAX network. IMAX announced a record-breaking $48 million second weekend in IMAX theatres globally IMAX.
The BFI IMAX all-time top ten now reads as a who's-who of the modern blockbuster era. The Odyssey (2026) leads, followed by Avatar (2009), Oppenheimer (2023), Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), The Dark Knight (2008), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Dune: Part Two (2024), Dunkirk (2017), Interstellar (2014), and Avatar: The Way of Water (2022). Nolan's name appears five times on that list — a reflection of how closely his filmography has been tied to the IMAX format's growth as a premium theatrical experience Deadline.
BFI IMAX is screening The Odyssey from a pristine IMAX 70mm print, a format that fills the venue's enormous screen edge to edge. The screen itself was part of a 2022 relaunch that introduced a 4K IMAX with Laser projection system, 12-channel sound, and a new 65-foot screen BFI.
