50 Essential Sci-Fi Films of the 21st Century (So Far)

Jonathan Glazer never puts his name to anything he doesn’t believe has creative, artistic, and social worth, and while he has recently been off courting major international awards (and the audiences to boot) with grimly tense Nazi drama The Zone of Interest, we look to one of his quieter and more unsung pieces: Under the Skin.

Adapted from Michel Faber’s novel, Glazer’s arthouse sci-fi ignores much of the plot of the book and instead takes us for a ride-along around Scotland with Scarlett Johansson’s unnamed, alienated alien. She prowls the streets and coasts in mute silence, searching for male victims to take back to her lair, where - for reasons that are never explained - they are literally gutted in an otherworldly abyssal dimension.

The science fiction elements provide a jarring contrast to the broadly realist, and at times documentarian, style of the film, but the two disparate aesthetics unite in Johansson’s portrayal of her character. This is an alien on the edge of humanity, figuratively and literally, struggling with identity and understanding what she really is or where she belongs. As sci-fi movies go, it doesn’t get much more profound than this.