15 Most Groundbreaking Movies Of The Decade (So Far)

4. Under The Skin

What's it about? British director Jonathan Glazer adapts Under The Skin from the 2001 novel of the same name, in which a mysterious alien posing as a beautiful woman (Scarlett Johansson) who travels around Scotland in a white van attempting to seduce lonely men, whom she lures back to a black void where they are consumed in an abyss. What makes it groundbreaking? Several actors have braved the crowded throngs of the real world in cinema history - French superstar Michel Simon famously walked the streets as a tramp in Boudu Saved From Drowning while Dustin Hoffman went drag for Tootsie - but it's a rare thing indeed when a Hollywood star sets out onto the streets without some kind of disguise. The fact that Johansson wasn't recognised for who she was while secretly filming on Under The Skin is a huge surprise - that Glazer's exceptional film is the closest things we've had to Kubrickian "pure cinema" in many years is delicious icing on an impressively made cinematic cake.