Drama
The Lobster
(2015)
Yorgos Lanthimos, Efthymis Filippou
Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 31 wins & 71 nominations.
A love story set in a dystopian near future where single people are arrested and transferred to a creepy hotel. There they are obliged to find a matching mate in 45 days. If they fail, they are transformed into an animal and released into the woods.
The Long Good Friday
(1980)
Barrie Keeffe
Nominated for 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 2 wins & 1 nomination.
Harold, a prosperous English gangster, is about to close a lucrative new deal when bombs start showing up in very inconvenient places. A mysterious syndicate is trying to muscle in on his action, and Harold wants to know who they are. He finds out soon enough, and bloody mayhem ensues.
The Lovely Bones
(2009)
Fran Walsh (screenplay), Philippa Boyens (screenplay), Peter Jackson (screenplay), Alice Sebold (novel)
Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 9 wins & 42 nominations.
Centers on a young girl who has been murdered and watches over her family - and her killer - from purgatory. She must weigh her desire for vengeance against her desire for her family to heal.
The Machinist
(2004)
Scott Kosar
7 wins & 13 nominations.
An industrial worker who hasn't slept in a year begins to doubt his own sanity.
The Man Who Wasn't There
(2001)
Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 24 wins & 41 nominations.
A laconic, chain-smoking barber blackmails his wife's boss and lover for money to invest in dry cleaning, but his plan goes terribly wrong.
The Manchurian Candidate
(1962)
Richard Condon (based upon a novel by), George Axelrod (screenplay)
Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 5 wins & 6 nominations.
A former Korean War POW is brainwashed by Communists into becoming a political assassin. But another former prisoner may know how to save him.
The Martian
(2015)
Drew Goddard (screenplay by), Andy Weir (based on the novel by)
Nominated for 7 Oscars. Another 37 wins & 185 nominations.
During a manned mission to Mars, Astronaut Mark Watney is presumed dead after a fierce storm and left behind by his crew. But Watney has survived and finds himself stranded and alone on the hostile planet. With only meager supplies, he must draw upon his ingenuity, wit and spirit to subsist and find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive. Millions of miles away, NASA and a team of international scientists work tirelessly to bring "the Martian" home, while his crewmates concurrently plot a daring, if not impossible, rescue mission. As these stories of incredible bravery unfold, the world comes together to root for Watney's safe return.
The Night of the Sunflowers
(2006)
Jorge Sánchez-Cabezudo
7 wins & 9 nominations.
While a speleologist is exploring a cave near a village in the north of Spain, his girlfriend is attacked in the nearby woods. His reaction leads to a tragic chain of events.
The Nines
(2007)
John August
2 nominations.
Gary, an actor who plays a cop on television, uses too much lighter fluid when he burns his ex-girlfriend's things, then he drinks and drives, uses crack, and crashes his car. He sobers up in jail and is placed under house arrest and the watchful eye of a publicist, the cheery and tough-minded Margaret. She moves him into the empty house of a writer who's away in Canada on a shoot. Gary meets Sarah, an attractive and seemingly-willing neighbor. His friendship with Margaret blooms and strange things happen: he finds notes he doesn't remember writing, he hears noises, and he seems to bump into himself in the kitchen. Two remaining chapters reveal what's going on.
The Number 23
(2007)
Fernley Phillips
5 nominations.
Walter Sparrow becomes obsessed with a novel that he believes was written about him. As his obsession increases, more and more similarities seem to arise.
The Omega Man
(1971)
John William Corrington (screenplay), Joyce Hooper Corrington (screenplay), Richard Matheson (novel)
1 nomination.
Due to an experimental vaccine, Dr. Robert Neville is the only survivor of an apocalyptic war waged with biological weapons. The plague caused by the war has killed everyone else except for a few hundred deformed, nocturnal people calling themselves "The Family". The plague has caused them to become sensitive to light, as well as homicidally psychotic. They believe science and technology to be the cause of the war and their punishment, and Neville, as the last symbol of science, the old world, and a "user of the wheel", must die. Neville, using electricity, machinery, and science attempts to hold them at bay.
The Orphanage
(2007)
Sergio G. Sánchez (screenplay)
32 wins & 39 nominations.
Laura, a former orphan, raises her adopted son Simón together with her husband Carlos in an old house and former orphanage where she was raised. While at the orphanage Simón tells Laura that he has five invisible friends which she believes are a product of his active imagination. Laura decides to reopen the orphanage to cater for disabled children and throws a party. During the party Simón tries to persuade Laura to go and take a look at his friends cabin but she's too busy. Later on she sees a mysterious masked boy and realizes that Simón has also disappeared. Laura feels the presence of other people in the house and months later Laura invites a team of parapsychologists to try to unravel the mystery.
The Place Beyond the Pines
(2012)
Derek Cianfrance (story), Ben Coccio (story), Derek Cianfrance (screenplay), Ben Coccio (screenplay), Darius Marder (screenplay)
3 wins & 18 nominations.
A motorcycle stunt rider turns to robbing banks as a way to provide for his lover and their newborn child, a decision that puts him on a collision course with an ambitious rookie cop navigating a department ruled by a corrupt detective.
The Prestige
(2006)
Jonathan Nolan (screenplay), Christopher Nolan (screenplay), Christopher Priest (novel)
Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 6 wins & 28 nominations.
Two stage magicians engage in competitive one-upmanship in an attempt to create the ultimate stage illusion.
The Proposition
(2005)
Nick Cave (screenplay)
13 wins & 26 nominations.
A lawman apprehends a notorious outlaw and gives him nine days to kill his older brother, or else they'll execute his younger brother.
The Recruit
(2003)
Roger Towne, Kurt Wimmer, Mitch Glazer
2 nominations.
A brilliant young CIA trainee is asked by his mentor to help find a mole in the Agency.
The Revenant
(2015)
Mark L. Smith (screenplay), Alejandro G. Iñárritu (screenplay), Michael Punke (based in part on the novel by)
Won 3 Oscars. Another 87 wins & 186 nominations.
While exploring the uncharted wilderness in 1823, legendary frontiersman Hugh Glass sustains injuries from a brutal bear attack. When his hunting team leaves him for dead, Glass must utilize his survival skills to find a way back home while avoiding natives on their own hunt. Grief-stricken and fueled by vengeance, Glass treks through the wintry terrain to track down John Fitzgerald, the former confidant who betrayed and abandoned him.
The Road
(2009)
Joe Penhall (screenplay by), Cormac McCarthy (based on the book by)
Nominated for 1 BAFTA Film Award. Another 5 wins & 31 nominations.
It's a post-apocalyptic world, several years after whatever the cataclysmic event, which has in turn caused frequent quakes as further potential hazards. The world is gray and getting quickly grayer as more and more things die off. A man and his pre-teen son, who was born after the apocalypse, are currently on the road, their plan to walk to the coast and head south where the man hopes there will be a more hospitable environment in which to live. The man has taught his son that they are the "good people" who have fire in their hearts, which in combination largely means that they will not resort to cannibalism to survive. The man owns a pistol with two bullets remaining, which he will use for murder/suicide of him and his son if he feels that that is a better fate for them than life in the alternative. Food and fuel are for what everyone is looking. The man has taught his son to be suspect of everyone that they may meet, these strangers who, out of desperation, may not only try to steal what they have managed to scavenge for their own survival, but may kill them as food. Although life with his father in this world is all the boy has known, he may come to his own thoughts as to what it means holistically to be one of the good or one of the bad. Meanwhile, the man occasionally has thoughts to happier times with his wife/the boy's mother before the apocalypse, as well as not as happy times with her after the apocalypse and the reason she is no longer with them.
The Rules of Attraction
(2002)
Bret Easton Ellis (novel), Roger Avary (screenplay)
2 wins & 3 nominations.
The incredibly spoiled and overprivileged students of Camden College are a backdrop for an unusual love triangle between a drug dealer, a virgin and a bisexual classmate.
The Runaways
(2010)
Floria Sigismondi (screenplay), Cherie Currie (book)
5 nominations.
A coming-of-age biographical film about the 1970s teenage all-girl rock band The Runaways. This film also explores the relationship between band members Joan Jett and Cherie Currie.