Told in just two parts, it follows Odysseus on his dangerous 10-year journey home after the Trojan War, facing monsters, deadly temptations and seemingly impossible obstacles.

A miniseries dramatising Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey is hailed by a fan as better than Christopher Nolan’s new blockbuster adaptation. The Odyssey hit the small screen in 1997, and tells the story of Odysseus’ brutal decade-long voyage back to his island kingdom Ithaca following his heroics in the Trojan War.

Armand Assante stars as the wily warrior king, who faces numerous trials standing between him and a longed-for reunion with his wife Penelope (Greta Scacchi) and son Telemachus (played by Josh Maguire and Alan Stenson). The cast also includes Irene Papas, Isabella Rossellini, Bernadette Peters, Eric Roberts, Geraldine Chaplin, Jeroen Krabbé, Vanessa Williams, and late British film icon Christopher Lee. The two-parter was directed by Andrei Konchalovsky, who also wrote the screenplay, and aired on NBC in May 1997.

Though the series didn’t get the fanfare of a theatrical run, one fan says Konchalovsky’s handling of the narrative puts it above Nolan’s newly-released, critically acclaimed take on the classic story starring Matt Damon – which took in $264.1 million (arround £196.49m) in opening weekend ticket sales alone, as per Reuters.

Fans have taken to IMDb to laud the 1997 production, with one who gave the film a 10/10 score calling it a “more faithful retelling of the Odyssey”.

“After watching Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey with its terrible dialogue and story telling I can safely say that this is at this point the best interpretation of the Odyssey to date,” they added.

“It actually tries to tell a story and hits on every point in the poem, it doesn’t diminish Odysseus status of his heroism or his need for glory like Nolan’s film, for this it deserves 10 stars.”

Another said: “I’m not a professional critic, but this is pure excellence. Very easy to contrast against Nolans, but without regard to his version this is a wonderfully authentic adaptation.

“The color and filmmaking is fantastic for a tv miniseries. It is respectful to the source material and the performances help to immerse you into the world of ancient Greece.”

A third said: “I could make many easy criticisms of The Odyssey, but those criticisms would certainly feel unfair. What this production achieves is to give you full respect for what is being attempted here, and that if it fails to fully realise the story of Odysseus, it is not for want of trying but technological, budget and time restrictions.”

A fourth added: “If you have read The Odyssey, you will know what kind of challenge it would have been to adapt it into a coherent film and the filmmakers here did a superb job.

“In capturing all of the excitement, enticement and rollicking adventure of the epic, they brought to life a superlative story rich in imagination.”

A fifth, writing back in 2020, said: “It’s simply impossible to make a better film version of Homer’s eternal masterpiece of the first novel in history, and Homer himself would surely have smiled in contentment if he saw this, although much of his original has been rather liberally altered – not to gain popularity of an audience, mind you, but to adapt it to the media of the screen.”