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- Before Sunrise (1995) "Before Sunrise" feels like the ultimate indie movie, because it's the perfect example of what indie movies do best — the entire film is literally just Ethan Hawke's Jesse and Judy Delpy's Céline talking.
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) It seems wild to think that the Monty Python troupe had trouble getting funding to make a movie, but a lot of the love for "Monty Python's Flying Circus" came much later.
- Moonlight (2016) Cited by both The New York Times and The Guardian as one of the best films of this century so far, "Moonlight" was well deserving of its Best Picture win at the 2017 Academy Awards — even if the kerfuffle surrounding the way it was announced stole some of its thunder and is what people remember most about the big moment.
- Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989) Other than horror films, indie movies of the 1980s were largely the realm of film nerds and fans of the avant-garde. While there are several movies that served as a sea change and paved the way for the mainstreaming of indie movies in the next decade, one of the first and most important was Steven Soderbergh's debut film, "Sex, Lies, and Videotape."
- Short Term 12 (2013) 9.9. United States of America. Destin Cretton, Destin Daniel Cretton. Alex Calloway, Angelina Assereto, Brie Larson, Diana Maria Riva.
- Incendies (2011) 9.9. Canada, France. Denis Villeneuve. Abdelghafour Elaaziz, Ahmad Massad, Allen Altman, Baraka Rahmani. Moods. Discussion-sparking, Dramatic, Slow.
- The Hunt (2013) 9.8. Belgium, Denmark, France. Thomas Vinterberg. Alexandra Rapaport, Allan Wibor Christensen, Anne Louise Hassing, Annika Wedderkopp.
- Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) 9.6. New-Zealand. Taika Waititi. Cohen Holloway, Hamish Parkinson, Julian Dennison, Mabelle Dennison. Moods.
- Indie by No Majors - Reservoir Dogs
- Independent by Not The Majors - Lost in Translation
- Self-Funded only - Night of The Living Dead
- Indie by Low Budget - Slacker
- Independent Movie by Sundance/Festival Rewarded - Sex, Lies and Videotape
- By Audience - Killer of Sheep
- Subject Matter/Message - Pink Flamingos
- By Style - Easy Rider
- By Structure - Memento
- By Something New - Shadows
To start, let’s ignore the exceptions for a moment and focus on those production and distribution companies that don’t have “Sony” or “Disney” on their org chart. This includes America’s first indie studio United Artists - created to free silent stars from the early clutches of the big studios - a company that gave us most of Chaplin’s best, Rebecc...
In the wake of the successes of films like Reservoir Dogs, the majors eventually said, “Hey, we can make some money with this indie racket,” and they created a bunch of different niche house brands like Focus Features and Fox Searchlight to scoop up the best of the festival circuit and sell them to fans of The Shins. Today, plenty of independent fi...
Of course, after our last category, you might be thinking to yourself, “Hey, wait a minute. Aren’t those major studios that are spending tens of millions to buy the best of the indie films actually exerting indirect market pressure on the savvy independent production companies that are financing them because they would really like to make a profita...
So okay, maybe money is just bad news. Maybe the only real way to get free is to use as little of it as possible. Maybe good indies all come out of massive creativity in the face of budget restrictions. That was certainly the case with Eraserhead, Primer, The Blair Witch Project, Napoleon Dynamite, Tangerine and El Mariachi. And it certainly had so...
Thinking dollars and cents has been all well and good, but Plan 9 From Outer Space was made for nothing and we’d never call that “indie.” Everything Everywhere All At Once, on the other hand, had double-digit millions and that’s an independent movie to the bone. Clearly, we’re missing something here: This is art we’re talking about, and it can’t be...
Then again, maybe we’re looking at the wrong end of the stick as Sundance rejected Swingers, Following, George Washington, and Short Term 12 after all. Maybe it’s not who created a film that makes it independent, or where the film got tapped to premiere… maybe it’s about who it was created for. Some of the most interesting independent cinema has co...
Then again, studios have grown extremely accustomed to targeting any demographic they think has money to spend, no matter how niche. Maybe it’s not who a movie is FOR that makes it Indie, but instead what it’s about. We’re talking subject matter. The taboo. Saying and exploring things that standards and practices would never let out the studio door...
Closing in at number three, we have to concede that plenty of indies are perfectly comfortable to watch with your mother and that - maybe - the thing we’re responding to in indie films might just be in the filmmaking itself. Maybe “Indie” is about style. And if indie is about style, then the best independent films are surely neon and pulsating as i...
Style can be flashy and a lot easier to notice than its reclusive uncle: Structure, but indie filmmaking has long been the testing ground for structural innovation outside of Hollywood’s traditional formula, and it is a key marker of some of our most beloved indies. Pulp Fiction set off an indie revolution with its story-out-of-order. Clerks passed...
Of course, plenty of great films we’d call indies have incredibly by-the-book three-act structures, and by now you’re probably beginning to suspect that what we refer to as “indie” isn’t really about any one thing at all. Most of all, what we think people really mean when they call something “indie” is that it feels “fresh” and “new.” It’s the late...
- Clint Gage
25 titles. Sort by List order. 1. Do the Right Thing. 1989 2h R. 8.0 (113K) Rate. 93 Metascore. On the hottest day of the year on a street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, everyone's hate and bigotry smolders and builds until it explodes into violence. Director Spike Lee Stars Danny Aiello Ossie Davis Ruby Dee. 2. Mean Streets.
Oct 8, 2023 · From Dirty Dancing to Passion of the Christ, these are the highest-grossing indie movies of all time.
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Oct 2, 2018 · Independent film's best works prove that talented directors don't need to move to NY or LA. Here are the top 50 Indie movies you need to watch right now.
