10 Best Performances In Western Movies
3. Leonardo Di Caprio As Hugh Glass - The Revenant (2015)
DiCaprio's seemingly never-ending quest for an Academy Award finally reached its conclusion in 2015, as the Hollywood golden-boy was finally recognised for his exceptional acting chops with a win in the Best Actor role in The Revenant.
Taking place almost 50 years before the American Civil War, Alejandro González Iñárritu's second best picture nominee in as many years (following Birdman's success just one year prior) is a somewhat obtuse western tale. DiCaprio is Hugh Glass, a frontiersman who is left for dead by his comrades following a vicious attack.
The film's presentation is gritty and grounded in the harsh realities of frontier survival, and DiCaprio's performance wonderfully serves the film's intentions.
There's a whole host of unfortunate events that plague Hugh Glass' quest for vengeance of those who betrayed him, and DiCaprio's commitment to the role had him undertaking some less than desirable acts in the process of delivering one of his best performances to date, including eating a raw bison liver, as he believed the original prop simply didn't look authentic.
If his role as witty, silver-tongued business man Jordan Belfort in Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street wasn't enough to garner suitable recognition from the Academy, this one most definitely was.