Now that the summer box office has officially kicked off its final month, it truly wouldn’t be off-base to categorize 2026 as “the year of Anne Hathaway.” With three films already released to various levels of success (Mother Mary, The Devil Wears Prada 2, The Odyssey) and two more upcoming features scheduled to premiere before November (The End of Oak Street and Verity), movie-going audiences of all tastes are bound to encounter the performer at least once. Although this timing is a coincidence, it’s a welcome and well-deserved one that demonstrates the breadth of Hathaway’s skills — a quasi-comeback, even, given the absurd misogynistic backlash her rising fame received before, during, and after she won an Academy Award for Les Misérables 13 years ago.
Her biggest project of the five by far, Christopher Nolan‘s The Odyssey, has already positioned Hathaway’s third Oscar nomination as a near-done deal. Every ceremony includes at least one major snub, and even the most buzz-worthy projects can fizzle out right before the nomination cut-off, but Nolan’s generational event still feels like Universal Pictures’ awards-season golden goose.
The question of the year, then, boils down to which category Universal will submit Hathaway for: Best Actress or Best Supporting Actress. Both slots grant her a different path toward guaranteed recognition and a potential victory, but only one makes legitimate sense.
Anne Hathaway’s Penelope Is ‘The Odyssey’s Major Heroine in Every Way
Every “For Your Consideration” campaign is strategic. Studios can push for a lead acting slot over a supporting one based solely on an actor’s screen-time, presence and narrative importance. No one will suggest that The Odyssey‘s Matt Damon, for instance, plays second fiddle in an epic saga named in Odysseus’ honor. In less clear-cut cases, studios abide by conventional wisdom: they weigh their contenders’ odds against their likeliest competitors and submit to whichever acting category they believe they stand the better chance of winning. Case in point: Hathaway secured her Les Misérables trophy through the Best Supporting Actress path.
Where the long-suffering Penelope is concerned, her time onscreen, presence, narrative framing, and category strength all align. Since Nolan historically defaults to male protagonists, he places women characters in secondary capacities. Although Penelope technically falls into the same stereotypical pigeonholing (her lost husband’s North Star, the emotional centerpiece in his quest for home), in this case, it’s splitting hairs. Penelope is undeniably the piece’s leading woman in dramatic significance and impact. Nolan’s slight-of-hand transforms Homer’s ancient myth into an eminently modern-minded and philosophical cautionary tale. The cascading spectacle that drives the poem’s perilous adventures is the true Trojan Horse by which Nolan decries the systemic ways male violence destroys the world, and the women who are most disproportionately and routinely affected by this age-old brutality. Daughters, wives, witches, queens, priestesses — no social status is immune from being viciously torn asunder.
In Penelope’s case, The Odyssey‘s greediest and most narcissistic men — even the well-intentioned but far-too arrogant Odysseus — drag the Queen of Ithaca into a political and domestic cold war. She keeps the throne alive in her king’s absence yet receives neither credit nor respect. Predatory vultures turn her home’s beating heart into a battleground, intent upon using, abusing, and discarding her, not to mention murdering her only child (Tom Holland) to ensure their supplanted rule goes uncontested.
And no matter the suitors’ attempts to dehumanize her, a human with visceral emotional interiority, integrity, and vitality exists beneath Penelope’s steely exterior. Surrounded by threats on all sides, she fends off violation with clever tricks, discreet distance, and demure politeness. She commands with a single expectant word, but two decades of vitriolic rage still leaves her edges brittle. She aches with unspoken loneliness. She acknowledges the tragic reality of her family’s circumstances, yet still refuses to mourn — tirelessly assembling herself every day in defiant hope and silk gowns. Nolan’s script provides Hathaway enough runway to land the figurative plane, and she delivers some of her career-finest work.
Placing Anne Hathaway’s ‘The Odyssey’ Performance in Best Actress Contention Opens the Door for Her Co-Stars
Aiming for Best Actress also clears the Best Supporting Actress field for Samantha Morton, whose haunting turn as Circe has garnered universal acclaim. Circe conveys Nolan’s thematic point with no less urgency than The Odyssey‘s other central and staggeringly acted women players (Lupita Nyong’o, Zendaya), but she lacks Penelope’s prevalence both in screentime and in all-encompassing narrative importance. Best Supporting might be a traditionally safe bet, but pitting two towering performances head-to-head could very well split the votes and cost both viable candidates, and Universal, two golden statuettes.
All that said, Academy voters tend to favor compelling off-screen success stories more than technical stats. Universal would be Hathaway’s third nomination total and her first in over a decade — a fitting grace note for her 2026 resurgence. Right now, she has the siren song of industry buzz, career momentum, and past love from the Academy. When The Odyssey isn’t Damon’s movie, it’s Hathaway’s — the poetic saga of a survivor who’s resilient, weary, longing, regal, furious, and tender at once.
The Odyssey
- Release Date
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July 15, 2026
- Runtime
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173 minutes
