Where to see Die Odyssee at full size, and where you cannot

Nolan shot Die Odyssee on IMAX film. The release then split into seven formats, and Filmdienst set out what separates them: not the cut, which runs 172 minutes everywhere, but the projector, the shape of the picture and whether anything analogue is involved at all.

The top of that list is IMAX 70 mm, projected from film onto a screen tall enough for the full 1.43:1 frame. No cinema in Germany can do it. Filmdienst names Brussels, London and Prague as the nearest houses that can.

The seven, in Filmdienst's order: IMAX 70 mm, IMAX, 70 mm, 35 mm, Dolby Cinema, Premium Large Format and standard digital. Only the first involves the format Nolan's cameras recorded onto, and only the first two are IMAX in the sense the marketing means.

Two German halls show the full frame

Digitally, the 1.43:1 image runs in exactly two places. The Technik Museum Sinsheim states on its own site that it is one of the two, on a screen of 22 by 27 metres, and gives the run to 2 September with German, OV and OmU screenings. The other is the Filmpalast am ZKM in Karlsruhe.

Everywhere else the IMAX version is 1.90:1, which crops the top and bottom of what the camera recorded. That is not a small trim. On a 1.43:1 screen the picture is nearly as tall as it is wide.

The distinction is worth holding on to, because a cinema advertising IMAX is not claiming the tall picture. Of the sixteen IMAX installations in Germany, fourteen are 1.90:1. Two of those still run the older 2K xenon generation rather than dual laser.

Four houses still thread 70 mm

Analogue 70 mm is not IMAX 70 mm, and it is the closest thing available here. Filmdienst points to the Zoo Palast in Berlin, the Savoy in Hamburg, the Schauburg in Karlsruhe and the Lichtburg in Essen, at around 15 euros in Essen and Berlin.

The Schauburg lists its 70 mm dates as 10 to 12 August on the curved Cinerama screen it installed in 2015, and marks individual shows OV or OmU. It is worth reading those labels rather than assuming: at that house the same print can run either way.

Filmdienst also points to the Traumpalast in Leonberg, which has the largest cinema screen in the world at 38.80 by 21.00 metres, confirmed by Guinness World Records in December 2022. It lists Leonberg separately from the four 70 mm houses, and the film runs there digitally in 1.90:1.

What to check before you book

Two labels decide what you actually get. The format tells you the shape and the projector. The version tells you the language: Sinsheim is running German, OV and OmU shows of the same film in the same hall, and the Schauburg marks its 70 mm dates individually.

Prices follow the format rather than the film. Filmdienst gives around 15 euros for the 70 mm shows in Essen and Berlin.