The film The Revenant is about a frontiersman, Hugh Glass, who is mauled by a bear, betrayed by his companions, and then fights to survive in the frozen wilderness so he can take revenge on the man who killed his son and left him for dead.

Quick Scoop

In early‑1800s North American wilderness, scout and fur trapper Hugh Glass is gravely injured after a brutal grizzly bear attack during an expedition with a trapping party. Unable to carry him, the group pays a few men to stay behind with Glass until he dies and bury him, including the volatile trapper John Fitzgerald and Glass’s son, Hawk. Fitzgerald, eager to escape and protect his own interests, murders Hawk in front of a barely conscious Glass and then convinces another trapper, Jim Bridger, to abandon Glass, leaving him half‑buried and assumed dead.

Against impossible odds—shattered body, winter storms, hostile territory, and scarce food—Glass claws his way across hundreds of miles of snow‑covered wilderness, using his skills as a tracker and knowledge learned from Indigenous peoples to survive. The story follows his obsessive, grief‑driven journey back toward the fort, where he aims to confront Fitzgerald for the betrayal and his son’s murder. Along the way, Glass crosses paths with different groups, including Native nations and French hunters, witnessing the brutality of colonization and frontier life as much as the brutality of nature itself.

At its core, The Revenant is both a survival tale and a revenge story, but the drive for vengeance—what it does to Glass and what it means to finally face the man who wronged him—sits at the emotional center. The film is loosely inspired by real events surrounding the historical figure Hugh Glass and is known for its stark, immersive depiction of the landscape, minimal dialogue, and intense, often violent imagery.