Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy was a box-office giant in 2004, opening at number one and eventually earning about $497 million worldwide, the biggest hit of his career. Critics were less enthusiastic, and the debate over its approach to Homer has never entirely settled. Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey brought ancient Greek storytelling back into the multiplex conversation in 2026, making this a particularly timely moment to revisit Petersen’s enormous, impressively expensive attempt to squeeze a ten-year war into a single film.

Screenwriter David Benioff, years before co-creating Game of Thrones, starts with a spectacularly bad romantic decision. Paris (Orlando Bloom, The Lord of the Rings) sails away from Sparta with Helen (Diane Kruger, Inglourious Basterds), much to the horror of his more responsible brother Hector (Eric Bana, Munich). Helen’s husband, Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson, In Bruges), asks his ambitious brother Agamemnon (Brian Cox, Succession) to answer the insult with war. The Greek army’s most formidable weapon is Achilles (Brad Pitt, F1: The Movie), a warrior whose chief loyalty is to the legend he intends to leave behind.

Petersen, who had already made Das Boot, built a production to match the mythology. Troy’s city sets rose in Malta, and massive outer walls were constructed in Mexico after war in Iraq altered the original Morocco plans. A hurricane damaged the Mexican location, and Pitt suffered an injury to his Achilles tendon, an irony the publicity department could never have invented. Pitt plays Achilles like a rock star who has grown bored with his own legend. Bana’s Hector provides the movie’s moral weight, while Peter O’Toole brings genuine sorrow to King Priam even though he later had harsh things to say about Petersen’s direction.

The production looks colossal, but size isn’t everything. Removing the gods from the story may make it more immediately accessible, yet the romance and political intrigue don’t always produce the heartbreak the battles are aiming for. The 196-minute Director’s Cut, first shown in 2007, improves the rhythm by restoring material, extending the violence, and giving the final act more room to breathe. It also revises portions of the music, eliminating some vocals and the Josh Groban end-credits song. The shorter theatrical cut has its defenders, but if you’re returning after years away, the longer version makes a stronger case for Petersen’s ambitions.