Skin

2019 0h 20m EN

👍

6.6

SOLID

★6.6TMDB · 146

Drama

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

In a small supermarket in a blue collar town, a black man smiles at a 10 year old white boy across the checkout aisle. This innocuous moment sends two gangs into a ruthless war that ends with a shocking backlash.

“Some stories are better left unspoiled.”

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Where to watch · US

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Cast

Danielle Macdonald
Christa
Jackson Robert Scott
Troy
Jonathan Tucker
Jeffrey
Ashley Thomas
Jaydee
Lonnie Chavis
Bronnie
Maliq Johnson
Lonnie
Johnse Allende Jr.
Idris
Zeus Campbell
Malik

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Guy Nattiv
Writers: Sharon Maymon, Guy Nattiv
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 7

RUNTIME

Did you know

Tight 20-minute runtime — shorter than most television pilots.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 7

ERA

Did you know

Released 7 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 7

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Guy Nattiv, shot by Drew Daniels. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 7

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Brian McOmber. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 7

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Yuval Orr shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 7

CAST

Did you know

Danielle Macdonald and Jackson Robert Scott and Jonathan Tucker carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 7

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt7332306 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Guy Nattiv directs. Drew Daniels behind the camera. Brian McOmber scores. Yuval Orr cuts. Runs lean at under 100 minutes. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Tight 20-minute runtime — shorter than most television pilots.
2Released 7 years ago.
3Directed by Guy Nattiv, shot by Drew Daniels. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
4Original score by Brian McOmber. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
5Editor Yuval Orr shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
6Danielle Macdonald and Jackson Robert Scott and Jonathan Tucker carry the top of the cast.
7IMDB entry: tt7332306 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
8Classified under 20 themes, including "tattoo", "supermarket", "gun", "aggression".

The technical file

Cinematography: Drew Daniels
Original score: Brian McOmber
Editing: Yuval Orr
Production design: Jason Thirlaway
Costume design: Olivia Miles
Makeup / hair: Kelly Capoccia
Sound: Ronen Nagel
Stunt coordinator: Brian Avery
Runtime: 20 min · 0h 20m
Status: Released
Original language: EN
Certification (US): R
IMDB: Skin (2019)

Awards

Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film

Individual records documented via Wikidata; the summary above may count more.

Also by

Guy Nattiv

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

Community reviews

What people are saying

Notesoncinema2025-08-04
Between Violence and Fantasy: The Brutal Allegory of Skin Some films make you look away. Skin (2018), Guy Nattiv's Oscar-winning short, makes you keep watching even when you want to-need to-turn your head. It presents a world so charged, so extreme, so grotesquely cruel that it might feel fictional. And yet, deep down, you know it's real. That's what makes it so terrifying. At just 20 minutes, Skin compresses an entire cycle of hate into a tightly wound parable. It begins with a disturbingly ordinary scene: a white, working-class family laughing in a grocery store parking lot. Their young son is playful, the father (Jonathan Tucker, in a quietly menacing performance) is loud but charismatic, and everything feels deceptively mundane. Until it isn't. What follows is a slow slide into horror-the kind grounded in American soil. The plot turns on a violent hate crime committed in front of the boy, and the surreal retribution that follows. To describe the narrative twist would be to spoil the impact, but suffice to say the film fuses realism with grotesque poetic justice in a way that feels like fable, nightmare, and newsreel all at once. Nattiv plays with genre here-there are moments where Skin flirts with fantasy or even body horror-but his use of it isn't decorative. It's structural. The film invites us to believe in a kind of mythic justice, only to expose the deeper rot beneath that fantasy. In doing so, it implicates both the system and the cycles of revenge that feed it. The acting is remarkable across the board. Jonathan Tucker brings a chilling authenticity to the father: he's not a cartoon bigot, but something more insidious-charming, familiar, protective. His performance suggests how hate can be inherited not just through ideology, but through love, loyalty, and pride. Meanwhile, the child actor (Jackson Robert Scott) is heartbreakingly effective-his wide-eyed observation of violence is the film's emotional anchor. Technically, Skin is tightly made. The cinematography feels uncomfortably close at times-handheld, urgent-but controlled. It mimics a documentary realism without sacrificing narrative rhythm. The score is subtle, letting silence and ambient sound carry much of the dread. What struck me most, though, is that the film operates as both cautionary tale and indictment. It doesn't offer redemption, but retribution-twisted, shocking, and not necessarily satisfying. You leave it not with catharsis, but a kind of sick clarity: this world may be exaggerated, but it's only just barely removed from ours. As a programmer, I find films like Skin hard to place. They're not easy watches. They leave audiences unsettled, morally bruised. But that's the point. Skin doesn't want to be palatable. It wants to confront. It wants to linger. And it does. In a time when social commentary in cinema often pulls its punches to avoid offending, Skin goes straight for the jugular-then asks who taught you how to bleed.

Production companies