Oscars 2015: 10 Movies That Should Be Nominated For Best Picture

5. Under The Skin

Despite being one of the most critically acclaimed movies of the year, Under The Skin is a film the Academy wouldn't touch with a ten-foot barge pole. Part movie, part Candid Camera episode, Under The Skin stars Scarlett Johansson as an alien seductress roaming the streets of Scotland, luring unsuspecting men back to her residence where they are vaporized into alien fodder. The film, which was partially done with hidden cameras capturing Johansson's interactions with unsuspecting men, never spells out its plot so explicitly, but rather relies on its own imagery to tell the story. Director Jonathan Glazer gives you a view of humanity like no other before. Detached and apathetic, this is truly humanity with total and uncompromising objectivity. Under The Skin is no piece of human-hating science fiction though, but rather the realistic view a predator species would have of us poor homo sapiens. No love, no malice, no nothing. It's as unsentimental as it gets and, with the help of the year's best film score, the effect is scary as hell. What's amazing about Under The Skin though is the film's total reversal halfway through. After an emotional encounter with a horribly disfigured human being, Johansson's character begins to yearn to be human herself. Like a homicidal version of Pinocchio, Johansson begins to imitate human actions in hopes that she might someday become a real girl too. It's an incredibly touching turn for what was previously starkly indifferent, but the change unequivocally works and makes Under The Skin one of the year's best films.