After the yearly torture we have been endured anxiously watching the Oscars, the academy gods have finally answered our prayers. For years we have watched, only to find out time and time again that he was only rewarded by a Facebook meme that mocked his beautiful work.
The time has come where our Jack Dawson has been awarded a long awaited Oscar for his work.
It can be surprising to know that after a 25-year film career and over 30 films which he acted in, narrated, or produced, DiCaprio has only been nominated six times for an Academy Award. However, it has finally paid off with his latest role in “The Revenant.”
In “The Revenant,” DiCaprio plays Hugh Glass, an American frontiersman in 1823 who goes on a journey of survival and revenge for his son’s death. DiCaprio considers this one of his toughest roles.
In a CBS This Morning interview, DiCaprio stated, “we rehearsed meticulously all day long with [filmmakers] Chivo and Alejandro to pull off some very crucial and hard-to-do shots. And then we’d have an hour-and-a-half of natural light and it became like live theater at the end of the day, this frenetic pace and intensity that we needed to keep up with.”  
“The Revenant” was an incredible film that completely immersed the audience in nature. The fact that the filmmakers used very little Computer Generated Imaging (CGI), and actually spent nine months out in subzero temperatures capturing nature, is what makes this film so captivating.
While I completely admire Leo’s dedication and effort in this film, especially in his hard-fought battle with the CGI bear, I still do not think that Hugh Glass was his greatest role. Don’t get me wrong, DiCaprio is definitely my favorite actor and I was once again amazed by his acting, but he deserved an Oscar so much more for so many of his past roles.
University of Massachusetts Boston student Thibault Fournier gives his take on the film: “[it’s] not the movie DiCaprio should have been awarded for, but definitively a great film in terms of cinematography, on which it could have been impossible to turn a blind eye during the Oscars ceremony.”
While the role of Hugh Glass may not have been DiCaprio’s best work, the Oscar given to him was well-deserved.