The Revenant at 10: Leonardo Dicaprio’s divisive Oscar-winner is better than you remember

The last time pretty much anybody heard about The Revenant was January 14, 2016 when Leonardo DiCaprio won his overdue Oscar for Best Actor. The consensus at the time was that, because of the harrowing filming process, which included things like eating raw bison liver, risking hypothermia in the Canadian wilderness and, most notoriously, sleeping in a realistic-looking horse carcass prop, DiCaprio had earned his Academy Award through sheer grit.But just like Martin Scorsese winning Best Picture for The Departed instead of for the superior film Goodfellas, the narrative around DiCaprio’s win was that it was also conciliatory, to make up for his previous losses for great performances in films like What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, The Aviator, Blood Diamond, and The Wolf of Wall Street. Because he was such an accomplished actor by that time, and because he hadn’t already won, the Academy essentially “owed him one.” The Revenant’s filming challenges allowed him to Fear Factor his way into a win for a performance that maybe didn’t deserve it.