You know those stories about people who spent months of their time in the most remote places on Earth, time and time again? Ever wondered what mindset drives them to do this over and over, in near-impossible conditions? The Lost City of Z, available on Prime Video, explores that urge, by way of the story of Percy Fawcett and his search for a South American ancient city that’s he’s certain hides deep in the growth of the Amazon forests. It’s an adventure movie of sorts, a thriller in moments, and a magnifying glass held up to a certain kind of person who can’t let their addiction to the hardship and the imagined reward of exploration go.

Charlie Hunnam plays Fawcett, an Army major who’s tasked with creating accurate maps of a portion of the South American landscape in order to help solve a dispute over a border location. The film’s early scenes show us how unbelievably hard just doing this was back in 1906, with a few men dragging hefty metal and wood surveying equipment through difficult and dangerous jungle. It’s this journey that leads Fawcett to believe that there’s a great lost city somewhere in the jungle, and once the potential for discovery is in his head, he’s fallen down the slippery slope – the metaphorical one, though this terrain is not lacking in literal ones.