Film

The Revenant

Name: The Revenant
Genre: Western, Drama, Adventure
Released: 2015
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson, Will Poulter, Forrest Goodluck

Alejandro González Iñárritu's frontier survival epic follows a fur trapper crawling back from near-death and betrayal in the snowbound wilderness of the 1820s American frontier. Shot in punishing natural light with long unbroken takes, it plays less like plot than ordeal — wordless stretches of pain and endurance broken by sudden violence. DiCaprio won his Oscar carrying it. Watch for the suffering and the craft, not for subtlety.

TMDb rating

7.5

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The Grey2011

Liam Neeson leads oil workers stalked by wolves after a plane crash into the Alaskan wild, and it's the same stripped-down man-versus-nature-versus-grief machinery as The Revenant, minus the Oscar prestige. Brutal, bleak, oddly moving.

But Grimmer and less visually showy, with a nihilistic streak; the 'Neeson punches a wolf' reputation undersells how sad it actually is.

Apocalypto2006

Mel Gibson's Mayan chase-thriller is pure adrenaline: a man fleeing captors through jungle, using terrain and wits to survive. Same relentless physical punishment as The Revenant, dialled up to action-movie speed.

But Gibson's politics and the film's brutality, including some queasy stereotyping, may be dealbreakers for some viewers.

The Last of the Mohicans1992

Daniel Day-Lewis in frontier America, wilderness chases, colonial violence and a score that gets under your skin — the romantic, swoony cousin to Iñárritu's grimmer vision of the same period.

But More conventional and crowd-pleasing than The Revenant; if you want misery and mud rather than sweep and romance, it'll feel soft.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Touching the Void2003

Like Glass, its subject is left for dead by a companion after a climbing accident and has to crawl, alone, back to life — The Revenant's central betrayal and endurance, except true and narrated by the man who lived it.

A documentary that reenacts a real mountaineering catastrophe using the actual survivor's own testimony, and it's more terrifying than any fiction because you know every second of it happened. The crawl is real.

But No fictional gloss to soften it, and the low-budget reenactments look nothing like blockbuster cinematography — raw rather than beautiful.

Unforgiven1992

Eastwood's elegiac western strips away the myth of the gunslinger the way The Revenant strips away the myth of the mountain man — old age, guilt, and violence with real consequences instead of glory.

But Slower and more talk-driven than DiCaprio's ordeal; if you came for physical spectacle, this one is interior instead.

Jeremiah Johnson1972

Robert Redford as a mountain man drifting deeper into wilderness and further from civilisation — the original slow-burn frontier-survival mood piece, and a clear ancestor of Iñárritu's film.

But Very 1970s pacing — contemplative, sparse, light on plot — which can test patience next to modern spectacle.

The Northman2022

Robert Eggers' Viking revenge saga has the same bone-deep, near-mythic commitment to physical suffering and vengeance as The Revenant, but trades the frontier for fjords and adds a streak of the supernatural.

But Stranger and more ritualistic, closer to folk-horror than western; the tone can feel deliberately alienating.

Dances with Wolves1990

Kevin Costner's frontier epic shares the sweeping, awestruck relationship with landscape and a genuine reckoning with Indigenous life that The Revenant only gestures at.

But Gentler and far longer on dialogue and romance; the pace is measured rather than punishing.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World2003

Swap the frozen forest for the open sea and you get the same commitment to procedural detail, physical hardship, and stoic male endurance under a magnificent, dangerous natural world.

But Naval warfare and shipboard hierarchy replace vengeance and wilderness; if you want blood-feud intensity, this is calmer.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World poster

Into the Wild2007

A young man's solo trek into the Alaskan wild examines the same fascination with self-reliance and nature's indifference, but from idealism rather than survival-at-all-costs desperation.

But Reflective and melancholy rather than tense; expect voiceover and folk music, not chase sequences.

Man in the Wilderness1971no page yet

This is literally the earlier film built on the same real Hugh Glass legend — same mauling, same abandonment, same crawl — made cheap and cold decades before Iñárritu had Oscar money to burn on it.

Richard Harris plays the Hugh Glass figure in a scrappier, meaner version of this exact story, stripped of prestige-cinema gloss — fascinating to watch the same myth handled with 1970s grit instead of IMAX bear attacks.

But Threadbare by comparison — the effects and pacing show their age, and it lacks the visual spectacle that makes The Revenant a theatrical experience.

Dersu Uzala1975

Kurosawa's Soviet-funded film follows a surveyor's bond with an old hunter-guide in the Siberian wild — the same awe and terror at nature, but built on friendship and tenderness instead of vengeance and gore.

A quiet, deeply humane portrait of a man who has made peace with a wilderness that could kill him any day, told with a patience and warmth that reframes everything The Revenant treats as an enemy.

But Slow, subtitled, and almost entirely without violence — the opposite of an adrenaline hit, and some will find it too gentle.