Film

The Lost City of Z

Name: The Lost City of Z
Genre: Adventure, Drama, History
Released: 2017
Cast: Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson, Sienna Miller, Tom Holland, Angus Macfadyen

James Gray's obsessive epic about a British explorer convinced he'll find a lost Amazonian civilization. It's a film about the difference between ambition and vanity, shot with painterly precision and a restless, uneasy beauty. For viewers who love historical adventure but crave depth, character work, and an honest reckoning with what drives men to sacrifice everything.

TMDb rating

3.2

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you are drawn to obsessive, real-life quests where the pull of the unknown matters more than conventional rewards, and you don't mind a slow-building ache beneath the adventure.

Skip it if you want jungle set-pieces and brisk momentum, because much of this is patient, talky and built around a man's stubborn self-regard rather than the expedition itself.

What it asks of you: Settle in for a 141-minute, unhurried stretch with a sombre, drawn-out rhythm and attention spent on family strain as much as on the jungle.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Revenant2015

Another epic about a man driven by purpose into hostile wilderness. Iñárritu's brutal landscape work and practical commitment to realism echo Gray's approach—grief as the plot's true subject.

But Revenge narrative is more conventionally dramatic than Lost City's ambiguity. If you want catharsis, you'll get it; if you want questions, less so.

Burden2018

Andrew Dominik's psychological frontier drama also dwells on masculine fixation and the gap between myth and man. Quieter than Lost City but pursuing the same haunting uncertainty.

But Arthouse Western sensibility means it's even slower and more oblique. Demands patience and willingness to sit with dread.

Fitzcarraldo1982

Herzog's mad, magnificent film about a man dragging a steamship over a mountain in Peru to fulfill a dream. The same obsession, the same jungle, the same question: what justifies this?

But Utterly bizarre and genuinely exhausting. The spectacle can feel like torture. Nothing like a traditional adventure film.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Lost City of Z

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Aguirre, the Wrath of God1972

Both are films about European men convinced they'll find a lost civilization, using the Amazon itself as a character and a judgment. Herzog's version is the myth; Gray's is the autopsy.

Herzog's black-and-white nightmare about Spanish conquistadors seeking El Dorado in the 1500s Amazon. The Lost City's true ancestor—same obsession, same jungle, same collapse. Visionary and utterly unhinged.

But Shot on no budget with nonprofessional actors, the craft looks deliberately rough. It's a fever dream, not a drama; if you want coherence, you'll fight it.

The African Queen1952

Huston's classic adventure pairs obsession with actual chemistry and humor. Bogart and Hepburn navigate both river and romantic tension with wit Gray doesn't quite allow himself.

But The tone is romantic-adventure rather than elegiac. If you're hungry for Gray's tonal melancholy, this tilts too far toward entertainment.

The English Patient1996

Another Minghella romance nested in historical catastrophe and desert exploration. Sweeping, gorgeously shot, and equally interested in how passion blinds us to consequence.

But The romance dominates the frame in ways Lost City avoids. If you found Fawcett's marriage subplot thin, you'll find this indulgent.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre1948

Huston's masterpiece tracks how obsession corrodes men. Gold instead of a lost city, Mexican mountains instead of Amazon, but the moral weight is identical and devastating.

But Black-and-white and 1948 pacing feel distant compared to Gray's lush cinematography. Bogart's paranoia reads as performance rather than interior.

The Water Diviner2014

Russell Crowe directs and stars in this post-WWI drama about a man's desperate search for his missing sons. Quiet grief and obsession, similar visual restraint and period authenticity.

But Less ambitious in scope and more conventionally emotional. The resolution offers comfort Gray deliberately withholds.

The Emerald Forest1985

Spielberg cinematographer John Boorman directed this Amazon-set drama about a man searching for his abducted son. Same jungle, same ambiguity about civilization versus wilderness.

But 1980s action-film DNA shows; it's earthier and more pragmatic than Gray's philosophical approach. Doesn't share Lost City's tonal gravity.

The Ballad of Little Jo1993

Both films use historical obsession and the frontier as a way to interrogate identity and what we're willing to become. Both are about people caught between who they are and who the world needs them to be.

Maggie Greenwald's extraordinary Western about a woman who disguises herself as a man to survive the frontier. It shares Lost City's period detail and obsession, but inverts the gender and genre—quiet, strange, morally complex.

But Intensely low-key and unconventional. Looks like a restoration print and moves at its own pace. If you want adventure plot momentum, you won't find it here.

Stalker1979

Both are journeys into an unknown place structured as spiritual quests. Both use landscape and obsession to ask whether what we're searching for matters less than the searching itself.

Tarkovsky's science-fiction epic about a guide leading two men into a mysterious forbidden zone toward a room that grants wishes. Hypnotic, philosophical, about desire and the futility of seeking. Utterly unlike Lost City in form, identical in theme.

But 163 minutes of meditative Soviet cinema. No action, minimal plot, long takes of corridors and water. Requires submission to a completely different cinematic language.