News from the ancient world
On Screen · the ancient world in films, series, documentaries and games · 15 stories
News on films, series, documentaries and games about the ancient world, and what archaeologists and historians say they get right and wrong.
The streamer is also adapting Assassin's Creed as a series set in ancient Rome around AD 64, which is not expected before 2027.
Alexander the Great in the Alexander Mosaic from the House of the Faun, Pompeii. Photo: Unknown author Unknown author, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
On Screen · c. 1200 BC (Late Bronze Age setting) · Ithaca, Ionian Islands, Greece
Christopher Nolan's R-rated, nearly three-hour adaptation starring Matt Damon as Odysseus had the biggest second weekend of 2026 and has not yet opened in China.
On Screen · Late Bronze Age, c. 12th century BC · Ithaca, Ionian Islands, Greece
Scholars quoted by ARTnews accept the costumes are anachronistic, but two argue that Homer's own poems already mixed objects from different eras in the same way.
On Screen · AD 79 · Pompeii, Campania, Italy
National Geographic's three-part series mixes scripted drama with archaeologists and geologists, and claims many people caught in the eruption had a chance to survive.
On Screen · c. 12th century BC (as set by Homer) · Ithaca, Ionian Islands, Greece
The Homer adaptation, shot entirely on IMAX cameras, took $124.5 million at the domestic box office and $139.6 million abroad, Nolan's largest global opening.
On Screen · Late Bronze Age, c. 1300–1100 BC · Ithaca, Ionian Islands, Greece
Nolan told Time magazine that the king's costume draws on blackened bronze Mycenaean daggers, while admitting the Bronze Age record is fragmentary.
On Screen · Late Roman Republic · Actium, Acarnania, Greece
The French franchise known for restored archive film moves to 31 BC, using artificial intelligence to imitate footage of a war nobody filmed.
On Screen · 1st century BC to AD 79 · Oplontis (Torre Annunziata), Campania, Italy
Ancient Pompeii - The Secrets of Villa Oplontis, made by Go Button Media and Autentic, is part of the Munich distributor's summer 2026 factual line-up.
On Screen · Antiquity · Ancient Mediterranean, Mediterranean and Near East
Eduardo M. García-Molina describes his course on the ancient world in video games, where students end by pitching games built on historical and archaeological evidence.
On Screen · c. 1323–30 BC · Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Upper Egypt, Egypt
Directed by Jeffrey Roth and filmed entirely in Egypt, the documentary follows the former antiquities minister and revisits Tutankhamun's death and the search for Cleopatra's tomb.
On Screen · 8th century BC to Middle Ages · Rome, Lazio, Italy
France Télévisions says the film had exceptional access to Rome's monuments and the building sites beside them, but its press page names no archaeologists or finds.