The cinematic adaptation of Odysseus's decade-long journey home to Ithaca boasts a superstar cast including Matt Damon, Zendaya, and even Travis Scott as a bard at the court of the Phaeacians. Here's everything you need to know before heading to the theater on July 17.

The Odyssey is one of those classic works that everyone knows something about. The Trojan Horse, the song of the sirens, the blinded Cyclops: a few key scenes likely linger from school. Director Christopher Nolan decided to piece it all together for the screen. The result is The Odyssey, which hits theaters on July 17, runs 172 minutes, cost over $250 million to make, and is the first feature film in history shot entirely on IMAX film. It helps to come prepared with more than just a bucket of popcorn.

What it's about

Ulysses (Matt Damon) returns home from the Trojan War. It takes him ten years. It's not a vacation; it's a punishment: Poseidon keeps the sea in turmoil because Ulysses blinded his son, the Cyclops Polyphemus. Along the way, our hero encounters the sorceress Circe, who turns his companions into pigs; makes a descent into Hades; fights the song of the sirens; and survives the island of the nymph Calypso. Waiting for him in Ithaca are a teenage son who has never met him, a wife besieged by 108 suitors, and an old dog. Anyone even vaguely familiar with the epic already knows how it ends.