In this article, I will look at Gus Van Sant’s Gerry (2002) as a privileged example of a realist trend in contemporary world cinema defined by excessive adherence to spatiotemporal integrity through allegiance to the long take, eliciting, as a result, sensory-contemplative cinematic experiences embedded in physical presence and duration. In so doing, I hope to shed some light on the main aesthetic principles governing this tendency, including its distinctive reconfiguration of cinematic realism as exemplified by Gerry. I will start by contextualizing Gerry within Van Sant’s career, move on to investigate the ways in which the film adheres to, and departs from, traditional notions of realism, and finally analyze its contemplative long takes in light of a landscape painting tradition and American avant-garde, “visionary” cinema. As I will argue, Gerry’s hyperbolic focus on the natural world is designed to enhance the phenomenology of the viewing experience, testifying to cinema’s ability to revitalize perception in its full sensory dimension.