Set in the late 19th century, the film stars Elliott Crosset Hove as Lucas, a Lutheran priest from Denmark who is sent to Iceland to oversee the establishment of a new parish church, only to have his faith tested and challenged by the harsh conditions of rural life, including his inability as a monolingual Danish-language speaker to communicate with his assigned Icelandic guide, Ragnar (Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson).

[3] He takes a camera to document the land and travels by boat with several Icelandic laborers and a translator, who is Lucas's only ally and connection to the rest of the group.

Later, the group is shown to have arrived at the settlement where Lucas is nursed back to health by a man named Carl and his daughters, Anna and Ida.

During the wedding reception, traditional wrestling games are played and Carl chooses to go against Lucas, who wins and is then made to fight Ragnar, where there is a palpable tension.

[8] In the opening of the film, a title card states "A box was found in Iceland with seven wet plate photographs taken by a Danish priest.

The website's consensus reads: "Necessarily bleak but shot through with moments of humor, the beautifully filmed Godland serves as a gently absorbing meditation on mortality.

"[18] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 81 out of 100, based on 21 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

[19] Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave it five out of five stars, calling it "an extraordinary film... breathtaking in its epic scale, magnificent in its comprehension of landscape, piercingly uncomfortable in its human intimacy and severity".

He wrote that it brings to mind such films as Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Roland Joffé's The Mission, among others.

[16] Paul Byrnes of The Sydney Morning Herald called it "bone-chilling, eye-dazzling, heart-wrenching... and one of the best films of the year".