What makes an independent film? The question has never had a definitive answer, and the cultural process of defining indie has evolved over the past decades. But for the most part, it's always been something that can't be done within the Hollywood system. In our effort to compile a list of the most important American indies, we have included works by maverick, grammar of film school, and foreign journalists; products with multi-million dollar budgets and charity jobs supported by temporary jobs; movies have played the arthouse, the grindhouse, or not at all.
Some have been big office hits, and some have been disabled for decades. Not all of our choices will be between good American independent movies were ever made. Instead, the films on this list are the ones that break new ground, create genres, or begin by introducing artistic words and important themes into American film.
While there have always been independent filmmakers and independent filmmakers, for our purposes the American indie movement began in the 1950s. This is why we have decided to start our list with Morris Engel's Oscar nominations A little sweet. We also do not include documentaries (but not hybridbrids), full-screening movies, and any films that are funded by studio fees (though not the films that were later distributed by major studios). And although the decisions are often difficult, we limit ourselves to one film per director.
A little sweet (1953)
One of the earliest forms of literary fiction, A little sweet It apparently tells the story of a 7-year-old boy fleeing his home after mistakenly believing he killed his older brother. When the kid arrives on Coney Island, the movie follows the story, following him as he wanders off the road. Local shootings were rare at that time, and few films of any kind had seen the mere sight of people at such a high level; among the attendees was a party Cahiers du Cinéma critics, most recently the French New Wave. (Mike D & # 39; Angelo)
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John Cassavete will continue to put so much pressure on the private sector that any number of his films (including that later victory as Face, Woman Under the Influence, again Opening Night) can make the list accordingly. But as we limit ourselves to one movie per director, we'll go with his first casting feature, a drama about the lives of his three Black brothers during New York's hitnik-era. Developed from a classroom-based exercise and shot at 16mm by amateur staff, Shadows fight the challenge theme with experimental, anti-Hollywood style, and build a template for future generations of filmmakers. (Ignatiy Vishnevetsky)
Edit 9 From External Location (1959)
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Edward D. Wood Jr.'s magnum opus is a triumph of perseverance: its guest star has died, its locals and its staff are baptized to please reborn entrepreneurs, its spectacle with a bizarre movie. about raising the dead as a warning of living life. Wood's belief in a "great license" means that no one can plead that chiropractor Tom Mason was a poor match for the late Bela Lugosi – the kind of mysterious confusion he makes Edit 9 From External Location to live in thought. Such staying power enabled the film to spread the word on late-night dinners, elevating the late-night television thriller to the endearing and humorous level of the 1980 & # 39; s pages. Gold Turkey Awards, announcing Edit 9 "The worst movie ever made." For the next Tommy Wiseaus and Neil Breens, the quintessential bad-bad – & # 39; s good movie still shouts, "Future times like this will affect you next time!" (Erik Adams)
Communication (1961)
In the early 1960s, experimental filmmakers worked with some of America's most unconventional cultural organizations, from avant-garde art and theater scenes to the slow and drugstore line. Shirley Clarke is back with many of these lines together in her debate Communication: Familiarity with Jack Gelber's game about hepcat junkies by shooting heroin in an apartment. The film's use of story – and its occasional blasphemy – has made it difficult to make a reservation, whatever the best in NYC. But when I was struggling Communication in court, Clarke and his producer, Lewis M. Allen, helped launch a conversation that transformed cinema, arguing that movies should be more honest about the way people live and speak. (Noel Murray)
A bloody army (1963)
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Giant studios would never touch the light exit of Herschell Gordon Lewis, so-called “Father of the Year” and the founder of red-light stores such as spatter photos. He pierced the first product such as saliva, elle grease, and liters into the blood of a true blood-he ordered to get the canal right. (“Bigger Than Ever in BLOOD ColOR!” Advertised poster.) From a humble $ 25,000, Lewis and the new horror genre shocked $ 4 million from crowds of motorists coming up and down their accounts with an accountant serving human corpses as a gift of an Egyptian goddess. The stab wounds will never be the same. (Charles Bramesco)
Nothing But Man (1964)
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None of the excellent 1960s films of director Michael Roemer—The Plot Against Harry and Nothing But Man—It was widely released until the 1990s. This has been especially fortunate in the past, starring firstHogan & # 39; s Heroes
Roger Corman started his career & # 39; 50s sci-fi, but by the time the space race had given way to the Summer of Love, the B-movie pension needed a new shtick. He was always flexible, looked at the hippies on the SunA Strip Strip and threw in some acid to get some energy. With Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda writing on the lead, The journey he made $ 6 million in a $ 100,000 budget and pulled out a wave of equality with his Corman colleague Samuel Arkoff whom he dubbed the "dope pictures." Corman is unrealistic about psychedelics, say in 2017, “I had such a wonderful trip. If I had taken a picture from my trip, it would have been LSD propaganda. ”(Katie Rife)
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George Romero's awesome work of art is not even considered on this list — and not because the gambling zombies contained within can eat them all. Making it back over 250 times its $ 114,000 budget (and that's about theater runs), this black-and-white tale of people running out of undread remains the most influential feature of the genre, the National Film Registry inductee where every zombie film has been in debt. . Sadly, it also has an impact as a cautionary tale: The original distributor failed to put copyright on prints, meaning it had been redeployed across the public domain – and Romero didn't see a dime from most of them. (Alex McLevy)
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In 1967, a NYU film student filmed his first feature in the Chicago International Film Festival: a black-and-white drama about a non-Little Italy man struggling with guilt and mistrust that escalated by his dating a college girl. “It's the best moment in American movies,” says young Roger Ebert – strong words, but the next 50 years of Martin Scorsese films bring them out. Scorsese only protected the distribution after the sex scene and the title entry, but those who saw it Who's Knocking On My Door I can still see what Ebert has done in the long run, the pop songs in the sound system, the guessing machine, the tendency to control the masses with the cy-mo group, and full Catholicism. In a concert with his collaborators Thelma Schoonmaker and Harvey Keitel, the classic doo-Wop songs were borne of the once-in-a-generation voice. (Erik Adams)
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Fifty years later, the cultural impact of Rider Easy he is still extremely threatening to the original film. Dennis Hopper's road movie about two drug-dealing bikers traveling across the United States enhanced the image of national unity from acid to acid, sparking a new wave of independent cinema (supported by the Hollywood establishment, and) modern pop sounds. Hell, Hopper even voiced a new American love for cocaine. That's a big burden on the shoulders, but the film deals with a story much smaller than the reputation of the zeitgeist suggests: Two men, trying to live life on condition, understand little that liberty is just another prison. (Vikram Murthi)
The film is too early for its appreciation. Besides taking the prize in Venice, Wanda he was ousted by critics for the unintentional, unintentional hero, who abandoned his family before taking over the bank robber. Anti-Bonnie and Clyde, all Polaroid dances except for one gender, there is no guarantee of a woman or a plug – a big part of what would extend its small but important base of celebrities over the coming decades. "I really hate weird pictures," said one-time Braffin Loden of the film he wrote, directed, and starred in. "They were too perfect to believe." (Laura Adamczyk)
Baadasssss Sweet Fun Song (1971)
Advertising posters proclaimed, "X-rated by All-White Jury!" Baadasssss Sweet Fun Song he glows with humility. She is disgusted by the Hollywood system after directing her one and only movie, 1970 The White Man, Director Melvin Van Peebles has rejected a three-picture deal with Colombia to make money Sweet Sweetback, which he explained like a movie about "getting a man's foot out of your ass." The feeling must have been moving around, as the film shattered records everywhere Peebles screened it. And in time Sweet Sweetback often enlightened by the boomploation boom, it is more accurate to say that those films were biting the director's style – evoking evolving fury. (Katie Rife)
Budget issues coupled with the desire to consolidate money confirm that the story of American indies has been one of rebellion, paring, undermining the foundation. An odyssey is in the world of Montana Hellman, where two consecutive young men (James Taylor and Dennis Wilson – yes, a folk singer and a Bear Boy) in the & # 39; 55 Chevy deduction dude against a middle-aged young man (Warren Oates), pressed -minimalism has become new, and excessively mismerizing. Down at the edges of the cars and high on the existential anxiety, the film is so well-known that it ends up looking like it was hot on a projector. (Mike D & # 39; Angelo)
John Waters is surprised as anyone becomes a respected character of pop culture. He tried for decades to shock and offend people as often and as aggressively as possible, a promise that culminated in one of the most famous moments in film history: God's new dog food comes into play Pink Flamingos. Aside from that sad act of Coprophilia, the films are similar Gummo and Brown Bunny they would not be screened in the mainstream theater – which might have been better, in your opinion. However, as the Water puts it, "Even if you hated it" Pink Flamingos, "You couldn't tell anyone about it," is a subtle glance that speaks of her gifts as a sweet, sweet bite of her imagination. (Katie Rife)
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Tobe Hooper's terrifying show was originally featured as a William's grindhouse production, with unpleasant accounts of sneak previews causing vomiting and strokes. But this low-budget shock lies in the public imagination, with the re-releases of the year & # 39; 70s and 80s turning audiences into their view of the endless Americans who harm their well-known enemy. (Do you sound right?) Texas Chain Saw it has never been properly regarded as a traditional Frontise of culture; Their influence goes deeper than its sequels, prequels, and standouts, down to the mind, sometimes a funny look. Despite the excellent cinematography, the movie still feels uncontrollable and raw today. (Jesse Hassenger)
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Before David Lynch became David Lynch, he was just another dreamy-precision idea of urban decay, parental responsibility, and sexual provocation, translated into a black-and-white expressionist. She started a student project at the American Film Institute, Eraserhead you’ve spent years in the making and continues to be one of the real mouth-to-mouth movies of the night. The film has attracted high-profile photographers, but despite Lynch being briefly anointed with an unpleasant Hollywood career (leading to a commercial failure of Dune), he will eventually become one of the few filmmakers and grow into something like a complete household name in his own terms. (Ignatiy Vishnevetsky)
Publish more than a year over the first weekend of Charles & # 39; s Burnett, a collection of vignettes focused on a Los Angeles neighborhood slaughterhouse worker in Watts – he actually didn't get official stadium releases until the mid-2000s, due to problems with the sound. But by then it had been circulated for decades on 16mm footage and bootlegs, influenced by many indie filmmakers about its obvious American lifestyle. It's always a well-known and well-known work to come out of an embarrassing collection of black filmmakers known as L.A. Rebellion. (Ignatiy Vishnevetsky)
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John Carpenter & # 39; s babysitter-in-peril thriller was not the first movie to blow the minds of young teenagers on a big holiday. (Black Christmas, its Canadian cousin on suspicion of the past, got there a few years ago.) But it was Halloween, including 19-year-old Jamie Lee Curtis, has proven to be a huge benefit for the building: The scattering activist made $ 80 million, taking over the frame still holding today and the importance of the screenwriter's biggest killer calendar to save the mask. Removed decades from the slasher sun, HalloweenThe influence still shines like a jack-o-lamp in the window; you can see it in any horror movie with a good idea of the wide space and hear it with the softness of every castback synth. (A.A. Crowd)
No one is less expert than Richard Linklater credits Secuucus Restoration Seven "By creating a new template for indie films." John Sayles (The Lone Star, Matewan) made ($ 60,000), a character-driven movie as a form of money-laundering, told dozens of your college friends who reunited and a decade after graduation, voiced various adherence issues to their activist activists. It's been a surprise event, attended by many of the 10 critics of the year, and directed independent films far from their "16 mm projector in the living room of their director" (as The New York Times put it) and intermittent interlocking. (Gwen Ihnat)
Loss of Place (1982)
Like other indie fashion cutters who focus on something other than white lives, past director Kathleen Collins suffers the woes of distribution, and was praised for her time. The difference is that Collins' time was the early 1980s, when the movie was as romantic and endearing as it was Loss of Place it should attract more attention. The story of a philosophy professor and her artist husband facing a problem at their summer wedding in the country, Loss of Place A colorful and intriguing story about the Black mind, and unlike anything produced in its time. Sadly, Collins died in 1988, just when American cinema was beginning to unveil a talent similar to his own. (Noel Murray)
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In that case parts of it were shot with five people escaping El Salvador in a van during a civil war, ironically it is Gregory Nava's refugee drama El Norte until it was completed, let alone made it to the stadiums. But the wonders don't stop there. There is also a light cinematography for the film, which was not impressive even on a budget with a large budget, as well as great performances from the leads of David Villalpando and Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez, both newcomers at the time. However El NorteThe most surprising impact has been in the debate on immigration to the United States, which triggers changes in American foreign policy regarding Central American refugees. How many independent brands can claim that? (Katie Rife)
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Formerly premier at Cannes and the first US Film Festival of the Sundance Institute (still some years since changing the official name), Jryusch's wry deadpan joke, at its best, was far worse, and more difficult than this, and was excellent – a model for any a number of subsequent success stories of over-achieving, rearranged characters and growing hip expressions. Not that these films accept the minimum of Zen Stranger Than Paradise. While Jarmusch himself is a member of the punk generation, his previous films have helped set the stage for a video-filled theater and a long line of indie directors who see movies as a way to create their own worlds of their own. (Ignatiy Vishnevetsky)
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Imagine two brothers who have never set foot in a feature film that just came to your door and said, “Hi, we have this cart, can we put it on your wall? And then you will probably invest in our dark comedy of fun that includes a character you have never heard of. Can you say no? If so, you just missed it Simple Blood. This trailblazing neo-noir may have been significant with not only its fundraising strategy, but also presented the works of Carter Burwell, Barry Sonnenfeld, Frances McDormand, and, of course, the Coen brothers. All the movie trailer power was missing. It's mind-boggling. (Allison Shoemaker)
Hearts of Desire (1985)
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In a just world, Hearts of Desire it would be illegal. But in 1985, it was still thought that an American movie told the story of love between two women and introduced its love as a full-blown loneliness between classmates. Funded by backers with the help of original supporters like Gloria Steinem, Donna Deitch's intimate drama has penetrated every moment of longing, shocking releases, and happy discoveries between the middle-class couple. Sadly, it gave a happy ending. "Confident ones end up with a self-proclaimed triangle or suicide," Deitch said marked
You have it (1986)
Although Spike Lee has never been one of the most amazing and inventive filmmakers of his generation, his feature of success, You have it, will still be important. This story of a disgruntled, proud Brooklyn woman herself looks less sexually developed now than Lee originally intended. But the busy view of black lives in New York City – made at a time when almost every African American in New York movies was a low-cost actor or drug dealer – is still fascinating to watch. With its beautiful markings, its worthy black-and-white sculpture, and its intertwining of poetry, dance, and humor in one liner, You have it has shown that even films that are referred to as "issues" can be fun. (Noel Murray)
Dirty Dancing (1987)
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No one wanted to do it Dirty Dancing. Writer Eleanor Bergstein and producer Linda Gottlieb bought it all over Hollywood before getting Yes Vestron Pictures, a Connecticut-based studio recently created by Vestron Video producer as a way to produce their original VHS content. However Dirty Dancing– With its subterranean title and abortion theme – it surprised supermarkets when it took effect in August 1987, becoming one of the biggest idols of the year and earning $ 213 million worldwide. The Vestron Photos completed its demise in 1991, but its immense jewelry remains one of the most quoted & # 39; 80s films. (Patrick Gomez)
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Cowboy drug It was Gus Van Sant's second film after a low budget Mala Noche. As he she remembers, "The independent film scene was getting bigger," everyone relied on trying to "make a film that mimicked Hollywood where the budgets were huge." Translated from an unpublished James Fogle novel, moody, green-hued Cowboy The attested audience was ready for such films as unapologetic, enthusiastic, and humorous looks in the life of drug critics, complete with the soundtrack of the season, Matt Dillon's re-enactment of sound, and the delicate sequences that show off the relief. Van Sant would continue to build the line between the mainurb and the arthouse – in exchange for guessing or within one. (Gwen Ihnat)
The element of the creation of Hal Hartley, the delicate romance between the rise of genius and the fashion model built on the nuclear apocalypse, laid the foundation for one independent work in American cinema. Starring Adrienne Shelly, a character who fits easily with her films, An Unbelievable Truth illustrated Hartley's masterful mix of anti-Semitism, modern formal play, and emotional resilience. Over the years, Hartley became something of an out-of-character character, but the film's signature, lively exchange used in a diary in which the dialogue consumes about four times, remains the best illustration of his perseverance, of negative appeal. (Lawrence Garcia)
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The one who changed everything. Steven Soderbergh's dut character (if you don't count the Yes concert film he directed) won the Palme d & # 39; Or at Cannes, helped transform Miramax into a Powerhouse distributor, and embarked on a great career that will be solid 30 years later. However Romance, Lies, and VideotapeThe real legacy of the legacy is its epic impact of the small regional show in which it worked, called the US Film Festival. After two years, as a tsunami of inexpensive budget movies hoped to replicate the success of Soderbergh poured into Park City, Utah, the event changed its name to Sundance. (Mike D & # 39; Angelo)
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For example Brian Eno, not many people saw it Slacker, but almost everyone has ever tried to make a movie. Richard Linklater's second feature – Joyther's Austin tour of the late '80s, characterized by a series of bohemian misadventures – all but bolstered the 90s & # 39; s 90s independent film movements and cemented the cheaper label in the media to explain the genre of X – everywhere. After its rise to the film's sectarian nature, authentic and audible dialogue with the natural world became a currency for creativity among a particular category of filmmakers. While many try to capture the spirit of the film, Slacker it perseveres precisely because it never gets into those qualities. They have come naturally from a hyper-personal view of an eccentric, multidimensional society in flux. In other words, the film illuminated the bottle. (Vikram Murthi)
Daughters of Dust (1991)
Disgustingly, 1991 was the first year an African American woman's movie received a major circulation. That movie was the art of director-director Julie Dash, an inspiration to the different culture she grew up in: The Gullah District of South Carolina & # 39; s Lowcountry. In its time, Daughters of Dust was praised by critics but largely ignored by viewers. Its coverage was extensive, however: Beyoncé & # 39; s It is a male The visual album is heavily influenced by movie posters, while filmmakers like Ava DuVernay have mentioned Dash as promoting their careers. (Katie Rife)
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Todd Haynes & # 39; Poison they reached the crisis of AIDS and partly introduced the New Queer Cinema. By transferring three separate stories to the formal informal registers, Haynes redefined the pressures while expressing an enlightened identity and desire. Despite the controversial opposition the film has since conservative lawmakers, Poison a critical claim was met at its Sundance Film Festival prime minister, noting the proliferation of independent films promoted by queer life on the fringes of society and anticipating Hollywood's emergence of, and more homophobia over the coming years. It also proclaimed Haynes as a crazy idea to look at. (Beatrice Loayza)
El Mariachi (1992)
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The often quoted $ 7,000 budget of the Robert Rodriguez feature does not do justice to the hundreds of Smart's used in the background make-up El Mariachi in the form of a theater distribution. However, it shows the spirit of the DIY power and strength of Rodriguez & # 39; s scrappy, crew-light shoot – & # 39; em-up, and how it has changed the perception of how much can be done with limited resources, in advance of the digital future (which Rodriguez, anyway, and I wear them early, even after going through big budgets). And it's perfectly customizable to see the origins of the seven-major-and-dream movie turn into fantasy; much of the work done by the director blurs the lines between long fiction and reality. (Jesse Hassenger)
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Kevin Smith famously considered Richard Linklater's Slacker a text of permission — a work of art that lets him know that he, too, could make a movie. But Linklater's movie has terrific speaking parts and an indie version of the epic scope; just imagine how many folks must have been inspired by Smith’s revelation that belly-laugh comedy could be elicited by a handful of amateur performers talking shit and/or Star Wars. There may not be a lot of Clerks imitations hitting cinemas these days, but you probably have Smith to credit (or blame) for a whole lot of nerd-cult YouTube channels. (Jesse Hassenger)
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Although Reservoir Dogs had already established him as an exciting new voice in sardonic film-geek pastiche, Quentin Tarantino didn’t become a Hollywood heavyweight until his second feature, a bona fide phenomenon that made more at the box office than any independent movie before it. QT’s nonlinear crime triptych didn’t just supercharge his career and revive John Travolta’s. For better or worse, it also inspired whole generations of aspiring hotshot auteurs to tell their stories out of order, pack their soundtracks with jukebox classics, and stuff their characters’ mouths with profane zingers and pop culture references. Possibly no other modern movie has so fully reshaped the film landscape in its own image; were this list ranked instead of chronological, there’s a very good chance Pulp Fiction would sit at the top. (A.A. Dowd)
Kids (1995)
Before TV shows about teenagers like Skins and Euphoria envisioned every parent’s worst nightmare, there was Larry Clark’s Kids. Released in 1995 to great controversy for its frank depictions of sex and drug use, the film was denounced as child pornography by some critics, and praised as a necessary wake-up call by others. Written by a 19-year-old Harmony Korine, Kids approaches issues like sexual violence and addiction with unflinching, documentary-style realism, and it enlisted untrained actors to reinforce this image so unlike the feel-good escapism of teen comedies at the time. A gritty and unsettling portrait of urban adolescence, it ventured into dark and unexplored coming-of-age territory, expanding the boundaries of the genre in its wake. (Beatrice Loayza)
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After cobbling together a meager budget for debut feature Hard Eight, Paul Thomas Anderson wrangled a healthier $15 million for his entrée into the indie big leagues. With his cobweb-shaped epic of the Valley porn scene’s transition from the ’70s to the ’80s, Anderson learned how to play industry ball; he came in hot insisting that his masterpiece be NC-17 and exceed three hours in length, but eventually backed down on both demands. Even so, nothing about his sprawling vision of surrogate family, striving, desperation, and redemption smacks of creative compromise. The film officially kicked off PTA’s reign as the crown prince of the American independent cinema, a streak still unbroken today, six triumphs later. (Charles Bramesco)
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Few films have offered a better return on their investment than The Blair Witch Project, whose ratio of cost to earnings is challenged only by one of the countless found-footage cheapies (see the title nine spots down from here) that arrived in its wake. How did a $60,000 horror movie shot in the woods of Maryland become a worldwide blockbuster? Credit a savvy and unprecedented viral marketing campaign, which launched supplementary websites to build buzz and feed into Blair Witch’s convincing illusion of snuff-film authenticity. It was the first definitive proof that the internet was the new frontier of movie advertising, and that there was a big demographic of very online audiences, waiting to be coaxed off message boards and into the multiplex. (A.A. Dowd)
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Christopher Nolan’s first feature, Following (1998), scrambled chronology so vigorously that it was nearly impossible to, well, follow. Undaunted by its middling reviews and meager box office, Nolan then wrote a screenplay inspired by an unpublished short story his brother, Jonathan, had written, replicating the protagonist’s lack of short-term memory by telling most of the story in reverse order, with effect preceding cause. No distributor would initially touch it, fearing that it was still too confusing for a mass audience. Imagine both Chris (Inception) and Jonathan (Westworld) today, doing the Nelson Muntz “Ha-ha!” (Mike D’Angelo)
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Andrew Bujalski’s debut feature is widely considered to be the starting point of “mumblecore,” which flooded American film festivals and arthouse theaters with chatty, semi-improvised, conflict-averse, dirt-cheap indies that mostly involved millennials navigating the prospects of early adulthood. Few of these movies seemed to have keyed in to the humanist instincts that Bujalski would develop in his subsequent films. But though mumblecore was always more of a catch-all trend than a concerted movement, its surprising longevity (and flexibility) helped bring forth an impressive and eclectic array of major talents, including Bujalski, Greta Gerwig, Barry Jenkins, Alex Ross Perry, and the Safdie brothers. (Ignatiy Vishnevetsky)
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There’s a timeline where this record-breaking romantic comedy, about the love life of a Greek American woman with a meddlesome family, became an HBO movie of the week. Instead, it went on to garner writer-director-star Nia Vardalos an Oscar nomination for Original Screenplay, and earn $241.4 million in North America, making it the highest-grossing rom-com of all time and spawning a cross-media franchise. Not bad statistics for a movie recently described by our resident authority on the genre as a “small independent film with no big-name stars made for $5 million and put out in limited release in April.” (Patrick Gomez)
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Sofia Coppola’s derided performance in The Godfather: Part III trailed her like a curse, but Lost In Translation—which she wrote, directed, and produced—dulled the mockery. Made for only $4 million, the comedy-drama brought in nearly $120 million, and Coppola won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar. After portraying Charlotte and Bob, unlikely friends plagued by loneliness in Tokyo, Scarlett Johansson’s and Bill Murray’s careers transformed, the former vaulting onto the A-list and the latter settling into bemused dad roles. Fan obsession over what Bob whispered into Charlotte’s ear at the end, as well as Coppola’s particular brand of sad-rich-people cinema, remains strong years later. (Roxana Hadadi)
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Before Mel Gibson’s self-financed blockbuster for believers, Christian studios dealt primarily in low-budget fare. The Passion Of The Christ changed everything, first by folding an A-lister and some awards-worthy craft into the faith-based genre, then by demonstrating just how little such films actually needed a secular audience—Gibson spent months courting evangelical leaders, who drummed up much of the movie’s record-breaking $600 million from their congregations. Leaning hard into the subsequent controversies—the gratuitous violence, the anti-Semitism—Gibson also made divisiveness a key appeal for defensive Christians, who turned out in droves to make Passion the highest-grossing independent film of all time. The impact resounds: Today’s evangelical filmmakers are often just as interested in flaming the culture wars as they are in saving souls. (Randall Colburn)
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It’s telling that when Zach Braff won a major award for his somber-sweet directorial debut, it was not an Oscar but a Grammy, for Best Soundtrack Album. Garden State’s carefully curated mixtape of Shins songs, old Simon and Garfunkel tunes, and indie hits lifted directly off of Braff’s iPod may not have changed your life, as Natalie Portman’s Sam promises, but it did set the sound of indie films for the decade to come. The movie itself—a meditation on one young white dude’s dead-eyed ennui—had its share of imitators, too. But it was its accompanying set of tracks that touched a chord with people, turning musical moping into a precision filmmaking art. (William Hughes)
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In a better world, Primer would have launched Shane Carruth, its writer/director/producer/editor/head musician/star, into the indie-filmmaking stratosphere, if for no more than the sheer amount of science fiction mileage he managed to eke out of a minuscule $7,000 budget and a “time machine” prop so simple a child could build it in a lazy afternoon. Instead, Carruth has completed only one other film (the equally intriguing, if more expensive, Upstream Color), and Primer remains a fascinating puzzle box, as intriguing for its singular expression of one man’s interests—technical jargon, unforeseen consequences, and the easily corruptible nature of extremely boring men—as for its infamously complex and obscure time-travel plot. (William Hughes)
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Sometimes it feels like American independent cinema has become one long search for the next Little Miss Sunshine. Following a family of eccentrics racing to a preteen beauty pageant in a bright yellow Volkswagen, this hit road dramedy premiered to much acclaim at Sundance, where it sold to Fox Searchlight for a then-record $10.5 million; it would go on to make that back tenfold in theaters, either triggering or hastening a sea change in dysfunctional onscreen clans, with the pricklier domestics of ’90s zeitgeist indies replaced by a cuddlier sitcom variety. Meanwhile, the bidding wars in Park City only intensified; every January now seems to bring a new chipper quirk-fest and an accompanying line of studio buyers eager to drop huge sums of money on it. (A.A. Dowd)
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Blair Witch may have paved the found-footage way, but it was Oren Peli’s micro-budgeted haunted house story that demonstrated just how cheaply and efficiently you could make one of the best scare-delivery vehicles of the 21st century. With reportedly only $15,000 (at least before post-production), a single shooting location, and a mostly stationary generic home-video camera, Paranormal Activity became (arguably) the most profitable film ever made. Launching a subsequent six-entry franchise, it also built on the influence of Blair Witch, inspiring another giant wave of imitators to try their hand at no-budget horror filmmaking over the next decade. (Alex McLevy)
Netflix, Amazon Prime, Google Play, iTunes, YouTube, Criterion Channel
Already a mainstay of the American indie scene from the mid- to late-2000s, Greta Gerwig first brought her signature charm to the Noah Baumbach universe in 2010’s Greenberg. But it was Frances Ha, which she co-wrote and starred in, two years later, that turned their collaboration into a full-fledged partnership. While harking back to the spirit of the French New Wave, the bittersweet black-and-white comedy also looks forward, reinforcing Gerwig’s status as a major creative force in her own right, and anticipating the directorial successes that she would soon achieve with Lady Bird and Little Women. (Lawrence Garcia)
Netflix, Amazon Prime, Google Play, iTunes, YouTube, VUDU
Moonlight’s big victory at the Academy Awards will probably forever be associated with the snafu surrounding it. But it would have been plenty shocking to hear Warren Beatty just read the right the title. After all, Barry Jenkins’ lyrical coming-of-age drama, told across three distinct chapters of a young man’s life, boasts the lowest budget of any Best Picture winner in history. What’s more, it’s the kind of movie—intimate, poetic, concerned with the lives of Black, queer, and impoverished Americans—that the Oscars have traditionally snubbed. Three years later, there are brilliant-blue glimmers of Jenkins’ triumph in plenty of new indie visions, including a few handled by A24, whose reputation as the boutique arthouse distributor of the moment solidified with Moonlight. (A.A. Dowd)
Amazon Prime, Google Play, iTunes, YouTube, VUDU, Sling TV
So deeply has Get Out lodged itself in the cultural conversation—as a box office smash, as an Oscar winner, as the “social thriller” that turned writer-director Jordan Peele into a brand name unto himself—that it’s easy to forget its independent roots. This is the most galvanizing production so far from Blumhouse, a company that has become a horror behemoth by adhering to the indie ethos of giving ambitious filmmakers small but workable budgets and creative support. Some of the most provocative and influential independent films ever made have looked like genre exercises on the surface, a proud tradition that Get Out made even prouder. (Jesse Hassenger)
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