Into The Wild, directed by Sean Penn and based on the book by Jon Krakauer, tells the true story (though elements are fictionalized) of Christopher McCandless. Escaping a dire home situation after graduation from college, McCandless, who goes by the name of Alexander Supertramp, embarks on more than two years of wandering across the United States, seeking more and more remote wilderness, until he ends up in Alaska where he, essentially, starves to death.
The closest analogue is probably Grizzly Man, and I have to admit that I watched this prepared to dislike it intensely. As with Grizzly Man, the lead distains human companionship (McCandless was befriended and helped by a number of apparently fine people who cared deeply for him), and believes that only in the wildest, most rugged parts of nature can he find himself. His death is, in a sense, inevitable. But the movie is actually very touching (with the occasional mis-step from Penn) and ultimately powerful. You can read it as a critique of McCandless’ if you like, in that his human companions — played almost uniformly superbly by Catherine Keener, Vince Vaughn, Hal Holbrook and others — demonstrate the importance of social relationships.
But the film works ultimately because it, and the country and scenery, are simply gorgeous. The Colorado river, Salton Sea and mountains of Alaska are the stars, and just occasionally you can see why McCandless gave his life to get closer to them.