Apocalypto

Set in the Mayan civilization, when a man's idyllic presence is brutally disrupted by a violent invading force, he is taken on a perilous journey to a world ruled by fear and oppression where a harrowing end awaits him. Through a twist of fate and spurred by the power of his love for his woman and his family he will make a desperate break to return home and to ultimately save his way of life.

Critics met Apocalypto with genuinely divided reactions: admirers found it a viscerally crafted, relentlessly propulsive survival epic, while skeptics argued that Gibson's filmmaking gifts could not be separated from the tabloid spectacle surrounding his name. The film's brutality was rarely disputed, but whether that brutality served serious artistic ends or amounted to spectacular excess was very much in question — and audience enthusiasm has run consistently warmer than critical consensus ever did.