For the second year in a row, director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu has delivered the year’s best film. The best movie of 2015 is The Revenant, an eye-popping western thriller that gives Leonardo DiCaprio the role that should finally score him that first Oscar.

The innovative Inarritu was also responsible for last year’s Birdman. DiCaprio gives it everything he’s got as Hugh Glass, a scout working with some fur traders on the American frontier in the early nineteenth century. Glass, while doing his job, gets a little too close to a couple of bear cubs, and Mama Grizzly is not all too happy about such an occurrence. What follows is a lengthy and vicious bear attack where Glass tangles with the nasty mother not once, but twice.

Inarritu, DiCaprio and some amazing visual technicians put you in the middle of that bear attack, minus the searing pain of actually having a bear’s claws and teeth rip through your flesh. Trust me when I tell you, it’s an unforgettably visceral moment when that bear steps on DiCaprio’s head. DiCaprio is incredible here, as are Tom Hardy as a villainous fur trapper who wants to leave Glass behind, Domhnall Gleeson as the commander forced to make horrible decisions, and Will Poulter as the compassionate man who makes a big mistake. It’s a revenge tale amazingly told.