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Hot off his Best Director Oscar for Birdman, Alejandro González Iñárritu delivers another astonishing directorial effort. The Revenant is shot entirely outdoors with available lighting, capturing the story of an 1820s fur trader (Leonardo DiCaprio) who is viciously mauled by a bear and left for dead by a traitorous fellow trader (Tom Hardy). DiCaprio and Hardy are both equally up to the task here, delivering Oscar-nominated performances, but the real triumph here is in the transporting of the viewer to another time and place. The film holds you hostage in a compelling way, forcing you to endure the wilderness, bitter cold, Native arrows, hunger, near drownings, near deaths, and crushing betrayals right along with DiCaprio’s character. Iñárritu gives us a dynamic balance of panoramic wide shots and extreme close-ups, utilizing camera movements and angles that boggle the mind. At two hours and thirty-six minutes I feel the film loses forward momentum for a while in the middle, but The Revenant is otherwise a grand movie-going experience and a rare kind of epic — one both visually grand and psychologically piercing.

Academy Awards: Best Actor (DiCaprio), Director, Cinematography

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Supporting Actor (Hardy), Film Editing, Costume Design, Makeup & Hairstyling, Visual Effects, Production Design, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing