10 Reasons To Believe The Revenant Could Be The Best Film Of 2015

With 2015 now into its fourth quarter, it might seem foolish to single out one upcoming film and predict that it's the one to come out on top this year. After all, now is the time when we start heading into awards season, and all the movies that have been saved for this particular stretch will be released in the coming weeks and months, as they vie for entry into next year's Oscars. Coming up we still have Steve Jobs, Bridge of Spies, The Hateful Eight, The Big Short, The Danish Girl and Joy, as well as lower-profile efforts like Anomalisa and Carol, which are all bound to wow critics and feature in next year's Oscar race. Still, even amongst that lot, there's one movie that stands out as the one that could top the year: Alejandro González Iñárritu's The Revenant. Released on Christmas day, The Revenant would be one of the most anticipated movies of 2015 based on the talent involved alone. All anyone's seen of it so far is a couple of trailers and some official stills, but what the studio promises is something powerfully unique - an existentialist survival western made on big studio money. Here, then, are ten reasons to believe it could very well be the best film of the year. 10) The Story Is Incredible (And True) Despite a film adaptation having already been made prior to now (1971's Richard Harris-starring Man In The Wilderness), not many people have heard the story of Hugh Glass, the fur trapper who embarked on a revenge rampage after he was mauled by a bear and left for dead in 1820s South Dakota. It's an incredible story, ripe for a 21st century cinematic update and one that might be taken as pure fiction if it didn't also happen to be true. Yes, an actual Hugh Glass was in 1823 left in the wilds to die by two comrades, after a bear left him with a broken leg and his ribs exposed. Glass then picked himself up and traveled alone for hundreds of treacherous miles filled with enemy natives, with the intention of confronting his former brothers-in-arms over their betrayal. Seriously, the filmmakers must have been counting their blessings when they came across this story. 9) It's A Mixture Of Intense Survival Drama And Silent Movie With recent releases like The Martian, The Walk and Everest, 2015 has been feeling like the year of movies in which man tests his own limits against insane odds. Really, it's part of a wider current trend of survival stories in cinema, with other recent examples like Gravity and All Is Lost representing the peak of the newly flourishing sub-genre. Now, The Revenant is set to join them, as one of the greatest true survival stories of all-time is put to film by one of the finest creative teams assembled this year. Not only is The Revenant part of a recent trend of great survival cinema, but it's also set to become a part of the minor - yet significant - silent movie revival. Recent efforts like The Artist, Tabu, and All Is Lost have taken advantage of the opportunities offered by largely dialogue-free tales, and - according to Leonardo DiCaprio (he apparently says "almost nothing" in the film) - The Revenant will surely follow suit. 8) Emmanuel Lubezki Is The Best Cinematographer In The World Right Now As The Revenant is set to be largely dialogue-free, it needs to be visually strong to work. Thankfully, with two-time Oscar-winner Emmanuel Lubezki as DoP, the odds are good that this one will be very, very strong in the visual storytelling department. Not only is Lubezki arguably the best working cinematographer on the planet (see as evidence: Gravity, The Tree Of Life, Birdman), but he's one of the most ambitious, too. The preview footage from The Revenant reveals what looks like some of Lubezki's most striking work yet. According to reports from the set, he would only shoot in natural light, meaning some of his trademark continuous takes would take days to get right. Judging by the beautiful, grandiose, haunting shots we've seen so far, Lubezki's desire to get the "perfect shot" at all costs was most definitely worth it. 7) The Battle Scenes Look Astoundingly Visceral It's not just pretty framing that Lubezki appears to excelling at with his Revenant photography - it would seem as though he's going all-out in the action stakes, too. The story of Hugh Glass' cross-country trek doesn't exactly scream "action-packed" (bear mauling aside), but The Revenant appears to be also exploring Glass' life previous to the attack. And these, as you can see from the trailer, involved lots of battling with local Indian tribes. Apparently utilizing Lubezki's penchant for extended tracking shots, the action set-pieces glimpsed in the Revenant trailers are disarmingly visceral. The human settlements feel lived-in, while the natural environments are gorgeously alive, and they offer a perfect background for the muddy, gore-filled fights glimpsed in preview footage. You can practically feel the arrows whistling past your head, and smell the gun powder of rifles desperately trying to hold back the attacking horde. 6) Leonardo DiCaprio's On The Hunt For An Oscar Looking back, shouldn't it really have been Leonardo DiCaprio who won the Oscar for Best Actor in 2014? Having steadily improved role on role over the years, in The Wolf Of Wall Street DiCaprio was the best he'd ever been, proving he's only ever in a state of getting better. Now, for his next film, the actor has been more dedicated than ever in a bid to finally win that Oscar. For one, he grew the hair, beard, and belly over months before production even began to play Hugh Glass, while on-set he went a bit method and ate a bison's liver for one scene - despite being a vegetarian. The dialogue-free nature of the part could harm his Oscar chances somewhat (Academy voters tend to prefer actors who give emotive, wordy performances), but regardless, even on an off day DiCaprio is compelling. And met with a challenge like this, he's likely to be on peak form. 5) Tom Hardy Is One Of Best Actors Working Right Now Leonardo DiCaprio may be one of the best star actors around, but his Revenant co-lead is hands-down one of the best all-round, most chameolonic thesps in the world. Tom Hardy has, since breaking out in Bronson, been consistently terrific, even in bad movies, transforming himself with ease for each role he takes on. Every film fan is always on the lookout for the next Brando or De Niro, and with Hardy, we have it. So while DiCaprio's Oscar chances for The Revenant are good, no one should discount Hardy at this point, either. With average directors he's great, but with great directors - likeIñárritu - he's one of the best there is. As the man who betrayed Hugh Glass, Hardy will have the chance to get his chops around yet another foreign accent and play his first true villain since Bane. Expect something very special. 4) The Rest Of The Cast Isn't Too Shabby, Either With all the talk of Hardy dropping out of Suicide Squad to do The Revenant, and whether or not DiCaprio will finally win an Oscar for the movie, talk of the rest of The Revenant cast has been somewhat muted. Among some quality lesser-known international and domestic actors, Domhnall Gleeson, Will Poulter, and Lukas Haas will also star alongside the formidable duo of DiCaprio and Hardy in The Revenant. Haas, of course, has been doing solid work for years ever since breaking out in Witness as a child star and giving memorable turns in Brick and Inception, while Poulter is a BAFTA-winning rising talent. Gleeson, meanwhile, is fast becoming one of the most astute performers when it comes to picking solid material (see Frank, Ex Machina, Calvary, Dredd, True Grit). And they've apparently been no less dedicated in preparing for The Revenant than Hardy and DiCaprio - in particular, check out the impressive beard growth on Haas. 3) This Is Ryuichi Sakamoto's First Hollywood Score In Almost A Decade Ryuichi Sakamoto, Oscar-winning composer behind themes for The Last Emperor and Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, doesn't do Hollywood much these days. He's never really done that much movie composing full-stop, but lately we've heard very little from this Japanese master. His last score for a Hollywood movie came nearly a decade ago, for Silk, a film which critics were...unkind to. Even in that film, however, Sakamoto's work was still typically moving and profound. Thankfully, he's returning to the Hollywood fold this year to work with talent that matches his own, for a movie that - in its state of being near-silent dialogue-wise - will put the sound of Sakamoto front-and-center. After years away, here's hoping Sakamoto is returning fresh with the ideas to elevate The Revenant into being something more than just the next survival movie. 2)Iñárritu Is On A Roll Iñárritu has - from Amores Perros to 21 Grams to Babel to Biutiful - never really made himself a bad film. There are some who argue Babel isn't up to much, and others who dismiss Biutiful as mere poverty porn, but they're wrong. And besides, you could discount everything else Inarritu has made, because all you need as evidence of what a great filmmaker he is is his last movie: the pretty much universally-adored Birdman. Iñárritu It's a movie which provesIñárritu is currently on an upswing, having taken his first real steps into Hollywood moviemaking and found he's a better fit there even than in international cinema. Birdman saw Iñárritu reinvent himself, and he looks set to do the same again with a type of movie he's never tried before: an action-orientated thriller-survival flick. 1) An Enormous Amount Of Time And Money Has Been Spent On Getting It Right The Revenant began filming in October 2014. It wrapped in August 2015. That's ten months of shooting spent in Canada and - when Canada stopped being snowy enough - southern Argentina. The shoot should have finished in April, but days, weeks, months went by as Lubezki and Inarritu attempted to get certain shots right in their short daily window of appropriate natural light. Crew members came and went as Iñárritu dismissed those he considered "out of tune." CGI was out of the question, too - this is the rare period piece in which everything was done in-camera. Naturally, the film's price tag ballooned from an original $60 million to a now-estimated $135 million, as Iñárritu and team searched for perfection. So what you have now is a film made by a group of people who, with their high standards, wanted to make the best film they'd ever made. For some insane reason, Hollywood execs thought they were onto enough of a winner to give them the money to do it. Now all we have to do is wait and see the result.