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The Revenant poster

Movies that feel likeThe Revenant (2015)

In the 1820s, a frontiersman, Hugh Glass, sets out on a path of vengeance against those who left him for dead after a bear mauling.

If you loved The Revenant, the closest films we have are Killers of the Flower Moon (2023), Spotlight (2015) and BlacKkKlansman (2018). All three share The Revenant's gritty and contemplative feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is True Grit (1969).

🍅 78% Rotten Tomatoes★ 8 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Alejandro G. Iñárritugrittycontemplativeepic
5 of 12 streaming nowApple TV · Paramount Plus Premium · Starz

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If The Revenant hit the spot, these will too

Killers of the Flower Moon poster
Killers of the Flower Moon
2023 · dir. Martin Scorsese
🍅 93%★ 7.5crime · history · dramaApple TV+

The American frontier as a crime scene, told at monumental scale

The difference: Methodical true-crime epic, no wilderness ordeal

When oil is discovered in 1920s Oklahoma under Osage Nation land, the Osage people are murdered one by one—until the FBI steps in to unravel the mystery.

Spotlight poster
Spotlight
2015 · dir. Tom McCarthy
🍅 97%★ 8.1drama · history

Same-year prestige about uncovering what powerful men buried

The difference: Newsroom procedural, quietly devastating

The true story of how the Boston Globe uncovered the massive scandal of child molestation and cover-up within the local Catholic Archdiocese, shaking the entire Catholic Church to its core.

BlacKkKlansman poster
BlacKkKlansman
2018 · dir. Spike Lee
🍅 95%★ 7.5crime · drama · historyRent or buy

Both land grit and stillness at once

The difference: Leans harder into crime than The Revenant does

Colorado Springs, late 1970s. Ron Stallworth, an African American police officer, and Flip Zimmerman, his Jewish colleague, run an undercover operation to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan.

Just Mercy poster
Just Mercy
2019 · dir. Destin Daniel Cretton
🍅 85%★ 7.6drama · crime · history

Grinding perseverance against odds designed to break a man

The difference: A courtroom, not a wilderness — quiet outrage over raw survival

The powerful true story of Harvard-educated lawyer Bryan Stevenson, who goes to Alabama to defend the disenfranchised and wrongly condemned — including Walter McMillian, a man sentenced to death despite evidence proving his innocence. Bryan fights tirelessly for Walter with the system stacked against them.

Black Mass poster
Black Mass
2015 · dir. Scott Cooper
🍅 74%★ 6.8drama · crime · history

A gritty true story of survival by ruthlessness

The difference: Boston crime procedural — cold and talky, no wilderness

The true story of Whitey Bulger, the brother of a state senator and the most infamous violent criminal in the history of South Boston, who became an FBI informant to take down a Mafia family invading his turf.

3:10 to Yuma poster
3:10 to Yuma
2007 · dir. James Mangold
🍅 89%★ 7.6western

Common ground in both: parents and children and wilderness

The difference: Trades the stillness of The Revenant for an angle of its own

In Arizona in the late 1800s, infamous outlaw Ben Wade and his vicious gang of thieves and murderers have plagued the Southern Railroad. When Wade is captured, Civil War veteran Dan Evans, struggling to survive on his drought-plagued ranch, volunteers to deliver him alive to the "3:10 to Yuma", a train that will take the killer to trial.

The Lone Ranger poster
The Lone Ranger
2013 · dir. Gore Verbinski
🍅 31%★ 6.4action · adventure · western

Common ground: native american

The difference: The scrappier of the two with critics

The Texas Rangers chase down a gang of outlaws led by Butch Cavendish, but the gang ambushes the Rangers, seemingly killing them all. One survivor is found, however, by an American Indian named Tonto, who nurses him back to health. The Ranger, donning a mask and riding a white stallion named Silver, teams up with Tonto to bring the unscrupulous gang and others of that ilk to justice.

J. Edgar poster
J. Edgar
2011 · dir. Clint Eastwood
🍅 44%★ 6.5drama · crime · history

An epic character study of an unforgiving, driven man

The difference: Decades of office politics — heavy makeup, no physical stakes

As the face of law enforcement in the United States for almost 50 years, J. Edgar Hoover was feared and admired, reviled and revered. But behind closed doors, he held secrets that would have destroyed his image, his career, and his life.

Gangs of New York poster
Gangs of New York
2002 · dir. Martin Scorsese
🍅 72%★ 7.5drama · history · crimeParamount+Starz

Revenge nursed for years in a merciless American landscape

The difference: Urban tribal warfare, theatrical register

In early 1860s New York, Irish immigrant Amsterdam Vallon is released from prison and returns to the Five Points, seeking revenge against his father's killer, William Cutting, a powerful anti-immigrant gang leader. He knows that revenge can only be attained by infiltrating Cutting's inner circle. Vallon's journey becomes a fight for personal survival and to find a place for the Irish people.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre poster
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
1948 · dir. John Huston
🍅 100%★ 8.2adventure · drama · western

The wilderness stripping men down to greed and grit

The difference: A 1948 classic — moral rot, minus the mud-and-blood realism

Two jobless Americans convince a prospector to travel to the mountains of Mexico with them in search of gold. But the hostile wilderness, local bandits, and greed all get in the way of their journey.

True Grit poster
True Grit
1969 · dir. Henry Hathaway
🍅 87%★ 7.4western · drama · adventure

Both lean on scale more than on western

The difference: 46 years apart, and the 1960s show

The murder of her father sends a teenage tomboy on a mission of 'justice', which involves avenging her father's death. She recruits a tough old marshal, 'Rooster' Cogburn because he has 'true grit', and a reputation of getting the job done.

Hostiles poster
Hostiles
2017 · dir. Scott Cooper
🍅 71%★ 7.2drama · western · historyStarz

A brutal frontier crossing where survival and conscience collide

The difference: Slower and talkier — penance, not payback, drives the journey

A legendary Native American-hating Army captain nearing retirement in 1892 is given one last assignment: to escort a Cheyenne chief and his family through dangerous territory back to his Montana reservation.

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The best-reviewed films that share The Revenant’s defining feeling.