An odyssey is a journey of homecoming, but the trek to the AMC Lincoln Square on the Upper West Side of Manhattan to watch this summer’s blockbuster in the wee hours of a Sunday morning was closer to a pilgrimage. Filmgoers were driven by a need to see the adaptation of Homer’s epic, “The Odyssey,” as its director, Christopher Nolan, had intended: in IMAX 70-millimeter film, a format optimized for both detail and scale. AMC Lincoln Square’s fourth-floor theater has the largest IMAX screen in the United States and accommodated the surging demand by offering screenings at 2 a.m. and 6 a.m.

There are plenty of tickets available to see “The Odyssey” in standard format across the city — the film hauled in $124.5 million at the box office in its first weekend. But the IMAX 70-millimeter screenings are all but sold out, which is why around 450 New Yorkers dragged themselves to the theater when they might otherwise be calling it a night.

“It’s definitely an event,” said Ellis Tan, a photographer and videographer who had traveled from Westchester County.

Dash Suarez, a student at the Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics, felt it was worth it. “I don’t think there’s a compromise in any section of his storytelling,” said Suarez, who attended the 2 a.m. screening with five pajama-clad friends. Two of them had read “The Odyssey.”

Amanda Quinonez, who was sitting in a front-row seat, said she too had read “The Odyssey” — “too many times” by her estimation. The first time Quinonez read it, she was in high school in Texas — but she can’t recall which translation.