History Main / TheHomewardJourney

* ''Anime/Ulysses31'', which is basically ''Literature/TheOdyssey'' InSpace. he Gods of Olympus are angered when Ulysses, commander of the giant spaceship ''Odyssey'', kills the giant Cyclops to save a group of enslaved children, including his son. Zeus sentences Ulysses to travel the universe with his crew frozen until he finds the Kingdom of Hades, at which point his crew will be revived and he will be able to return to Earth.

* ''Film/Strays2023'' is about a Border Terrier who is abandoned by his abusive owner, and with the help of fellow strays, makes his way back home... to get revenge and [[GroinAttack bite his owner's dick off]].

This differs from HomeSweetHome in that the focus here is on ''the journey'' to get back. [[Film/BackToTheFuture Marty McFly]] wants to get back to his own time, but he stays in the same town the whole movie; [[Literature/TheOdyssey Odysseus]] wants to get home, and he travels [[{{Determinator}} all over ancient Greece]] ([[ToHellAndBack and beyond]]) to get there. [[Literature/TheSevenBasicPlots Structurally]], the Homeward Journey is closer to ''The Quest'' than ''The Voyage and Return''. It's common for works using this plot to be a WholePlotReference to ''Literature/TheOdyssey''. Another oft-stolen plot is the {{Literature/Anabasis}}, where a military unit is TrappedBehindEnemyLines and has to fight and negotiate its way back home.

* ''Series/LandOfTheLost'' (both TV series) details the adventures of the Marshall family (father Rick and his children Will and Holly), who are trapped in an alternate universe or time warp inhabited by dinosaurs, a primate-type people called Pakuni, and aggressive humanoid/lizard creatures called Sleestak. The episode storylines focus on the family's efforts to survive and find a way back to their own world.

%%* ''Series/{{Lidsville}}''.
%%* ''Series/LostInSpace''

* After the first season finale sees Luz destroying the portal door to keep [[BigBad Belos]] from getting it, the second season of ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'' has this as one of subplots as she researches ways to travel back to the Human Realm.

%%* ''Anime/Ulysses31'', which is basically ''Literature/TheOdyssey'' InSpace.

* One part of DC's ''ComicBook/FiftyTwo'' mini-series follows ComicBook/AdamStrange, ComicBook/{{Starfire}} and ComicBook/AnimalMan, who were stranded in an unknown galaxy at the end of ''ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis''. Before they can return to Earth, they have to ally with some questionable folks and survive dangerous encounters.

[[folder:Films — Animation]]

[[folder:Films — Live-Action]]

%% ''Film/TheAdventuresOfMiloAndOtis''

* ''Film/TheWarriors'' is about a Coney Island gang traveling through New York to get home while the entire city's street gangs are hunting for them. It's based loosely on ''Literature/{{Anabasis}}''
* A [[MadeForTVMovie made-for-cable movie]] called ''Film/HecksWayHome'' is about a lost dog (named "Heck") who tries to find his way back home.
* ''Film/SesameStreetPresentsFollowThatBird'' involves Big Bird walking back to Sesame Street after deciding he's not happy living with a bird family in Illinois.
* ''Film/Alpha2018'' is about a young tribesman in the Ice Age who, after being left for dead by his family and tribe, must make his way back home... making friends with a savage wolf and turning it into the world's first dog in the process.

* ''Literature/TheOdyssey'': UrExample and TropeMaker. Although in actual fact Odysseus returns to Ithaca at the beginning of Book 13 — halfway through the epic — and the first four books detail his son Telemachus' journey to find news of him, rather than Odysseus' journeys themselves. Which means that only a third of the poem's twenty-four books are a journey home story, the rest deals with the impact of his absence on his family and his quest to regain his position as king and dispose of the suitors in the palace.
* A lost epic, the ''[[Literature/TheTrojanCycle Returns]]'' deals with the journeys home of other important Achaeans.

** The science fiction ''Literature/PrinceRoger'' series is largely an homage to the Greek story; the title of the first book, ''March Upcountry'', is a literal translation of "Anabasis". It begins with a military unit stranded on a primitive planet; they have to fight their way to a base on the other side of the world, to get to a ship that will take them home.
** Another science fiction series, ''Literature/TheLostFleet'', begins with a defeated star fleet [[TrappedBehindEnemyLines deep behind enemy lines]] after a battle. Their admirals tried to negotiate a surrender, and are summarily executed by the victors. The fleet escapes and fights its way across the enemy empire, mortally wounding it in the process.
* Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''Literature/JobAComedyOfJustice''. While being beset by random shifts into {{Alternate Universe}}s, Alexander Hergensheimer tries desperately to get home to his home state of Kansas.
* Jack Vance's ''[[Literature/DyingEarth The Eyes of the Overworld]]'' starts with the, er, "[[VillainProtagonist hero]]", [[HeroicSpirit Cugel]] falling foul of the wizard Iconnu and being flown thousands of miles northward by a demon to a desolate beach. The core of the story is his quest to return home. [[spoiler:Painfully, Cugel muffs the final confrontation and while trying to target Iconnu for the same fate manages to get himself send right back to the beach, mere feet from where it all began. Getting home ''again'' is the meat of the next book, a SurprisinglyImprovedSequel.]]

* In ''Ribsy'', a Creator/BeverlyCleary book, Henry Huggins's dog gets into the wrong family's car in a mall parking lot and has to find his way home.
* ''Moonrise'' in the ''Literature/WarriorCats'' series. The journey to the sea was hard, but the journey home is just as dangerous ([[spoiler:In fact, one of them didn't make it back.]])

* Primo Levi's ''Literature/TheTruce'', which details the author's journey home to Italy after surviving Auschwitz. Not such a simple task with the UsefulNotes/ColdWar looming and anti-Semitic sentiment still running high in much of Eastern Europe.
* ''Literature/ADogsWayHome'' is about a dog's journey to get back to her owners after running away from her temporary foster home. Bella goes on a two year journey until she makes her way back to Lucas.

%%* ''Series/HRPufnstuf''.
%%* ''Series/LandOfTheLost'' (both TV series).

* ''Film/Apollo13'': In 1970, the Apollo 13 was launched, headed for the moon. But this ill-fated flight would never reach its goal. BasedOnATrueStory of the astronauts' earth-bound counterparts guiding them back from space.

* ''Series/TheFantasticJourney''. A group of travellers use portals from one dimension to the next hoping to find the one that leads home. With only 10 episodes, they never got home.

* ''Anime/Ulysses31'', which is basically ''Literature/TheOdyssey'' InSpace.

* ''Film/Apollo13'': In 1970, the Apollo 13 was launched, headed for the moon. But this ill-fated flight would never reach its goal. BasedOnATrueStory, obviously.

* ''Film/TheAdventuresOfMiloAndOtis''
* ''Film/OBrotherWhereArtThou'' is a [[WholePlotReference modern day take]] on Literature/TheOdyssey, following the struggles of an escaped prisoner's long journey home.

* Also a lost epic, the ''[[Literature/TheTrojanCycle Returns]]'', which deals with the journeys home of other important Achaeans.

* ''Literature/ArabianNights'': Sindbad does this seven times.

* ''Series/QuantumLeap'' has this OpeningNarration:
-->"... And so Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time that his next leap... will be the leap home."
** In the GrandFinale it is revealed [[spoiler: that he never returned home.]]

* ''Literature/TheBible'': The ''Literature/BookOfExodus'': the return of the Exiles, and the parable of The Prodigal Son.

* ''VideoGame/BitTrip Flux'' has that as one of the main themes.

* ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'' uses this trope a ''lot'', given its love affair with TrappedInAnotherWorld stories.

* The ''Literature/{{Anabasis}}'' by Creator/{{Xenophon}}, where a Greek mercenary army finds itself leaderless in the middle of the Persian empire. The unit elects its own leaders and fights and negotiates its way to the sea to sail home. Oh, and it really happened--one of the soldiers in the unit was Xenophon, who wrote our history of it. The Greeks of his day took it as evidence that the Persian empire was [[PaperTiger sicker than it looked]], which might have encouraged Alexander to try (successfully!) to conquer them.