Most popular Independent Films

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Posted by themovienator 1y

Discover the artistry and creativity of independent cinema with our curated list of the most popular films from the world of indie filmmaking. This collection includes iconic movies such as "Pulp Fiction," "The Shawshank Redemption," "Little Miss Sunshine," "Juno," and "Moonlight." These films represent the unique and often groundbreaking narratives that emerge from the independent film scene, offering diverse stories, innovative storytelling techniques, and raw authenticity. Whether it's edgy crime dramas, heartwarming comedies, or profound explorations of identity, these movies showcase the immense talent and originality of independent filmmakers. Join us in celebrating the spirit of indie cinema with this essential compilation of cinematic treasures that are a must-see for fans of unique and thought-provoking storytelling.

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High Tension

Best friends Marie and Alexia decide to spend a quiet weekend at Alexia's parents' secluded farmhouse. But on the night of their arrival, the girls' idyllic getaway turns into an endless night of horror.

Mannequin

Jonathan Switcher, an unemployed artist, finds a job as an assistant window dresser for a department store. When Jonathan happens upon a beautiful mannequin he previously designed, she springs to life and introduces herself as Emmy, an Egyptian under an ancient spell. Despite interference from the store's devious manager, Jonathan and his mannequin fall in love while creating eye-catching window displays to keep the struggling store in business.

The Ninth Gate

An all-expenses-paid international search for a rare copy of the book 'The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows' brings an unscrupulous book dealer deep into a world of murder, double-dealing and satanic worship.

Do the Right Thing

Salvatore "Sal" Fragione is the Italian owner of a pizzeria in Brooklyn. A neighborhood local, Buggin' Out, becomes upset when he sees that the pizzeria's Wall of Fame exhibits only Italian actors. Buggin' Out believes a pizzeria in a black neighborhood should showcase black actors, but Sal disagrees. The wall becomes a symbol of racism and hate to Buggin' Out and to other people in the neighborhood, and tensions rise.

Traffic

An exploration of the United States of America's war on drugs from multiple perspectives. For the new head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the war becomes personal when he discovers his well-educated daughter is abusing cocaine within their comfortable suburban home. In Mexico, a flawed, but noble policeman agrees to testify against a powerful general in league with a cartel, and in San Diego, a drug kingpin's sheltered trophy wife must learn her husband's ruthless business after he is arrested, endangering her luxurious lifestyle.

The Contractor

After being involuntarily discharged from the U.S. Special Forces, James Harper decides to support his family by joining a private contracting organization alongside his best friend and under the command of a fellow veteran. Overseas on a covert mission, Harper must evade those trying to kill him while making his way back home.

Creep

Looking for work, Aaron comes across a cryptic online ad: “$1,000 for the day. Filming service. Discretion is appreciated.” Low on cash and full of naiveté, he decides to go for it. He drives to a cabin in a remote mountain town where he meets Josef, his cinematic subject for the day. Josef is sincere and the project seems heartfelt, so Aaron begins to film. But as the day goes on, it becomes clear that Josef is not who he says, and his intentions are not at all pure.

Frances Ha

An aspiring dancer moves to New York City and becomes caught up in a whirlwind of flighty fair-weather friends, diminishing fortunes and career setbacks.

Green Room

A punk rock band becomes trapped in a secluded venue after finding a scene of violence. For what they saw, the band themselves become targets of violence from a gang of white power skinheads, who want to eliminate all evidence of the crime.

Molly's Game

Molly Bloom, a young skier and former Olympic hopeful becomes a successful entrepreneur (and a target of an FBI investigation) when she establishes a high-stakes, international poker game.

The Strangers

After returning from a wedding reception, a couple staying in an isolated vacation house receive a knock on the door in the mid-hours of the night. What ensues is a violent invasion by three strangers, their faces hidden behind masks. The couple find themselves in a violent struggle, in which they go beyond what either of them thought capable in order to survive.

Triple Frontier

Struggling to make ends meet, former special ops soldiers reunite for a high-stakes heist: stealing $75 million from a South American drug lord.

The Return of the Living Dead

When foreman Frank shows new employee Freddy a secret military experiment in a supply warehouse in Louisville, Kentucky, the two klutzes accidentally release a gas that reanimates corpses into flesh-eating zombies. As the epidemic spreads throughout the town, and the creatures satisfy their hunger in gory and outlandish ways, Frank and Freddy fight to survive with the help of their boss and a mysterious mortician.

Somewhere in Time

Young writer Richard Collier is met on the opening night of his first play by an old lady who begs him to "Come back to me". Mystified, he tries to find out about her, and learns that she is a famous stage actress from the early 1900s. Becoming more and more obsessed with her, by self-hypnosis he manages to travel back in time—where he meets her.

The Neon Demon

When aspiring model Jesse moves to Los Angeles, her youth and vitality are devoured by a group of beauty-obsessed women who will take any means necessary to get what she has.

The Sand

After an all-night graduation beach party, a group of hung-over students wakes up under the blazing sun to find their numbers somewhat depleted. An enormous alien creature has burrowed down deep and anyone foolish enough to make contact with the sand finds themselves at the mercy of a sea of flesh-eating tentacles. Will they ever be able to escape its carnivorous clutches?

Super Mario Bros.

Mario and Luigi, plumbers from Brooklyn, find themselves in an alternate universe where evolved dinosaurs live in hi-tech squalor. They're the only hope to save our universe from invasion by the dino dictator, Koopa.

Cats

A tribe of cats called the Jellicles must decide yearly which one will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and come back to a new Jellicle life.

House of 1000 Corpses

Two teenage couples traveling across the backwoods of Texas searching for urban legends of serial killers end up as prisoners of a bizarre and sadistic backwater family of serial killers.

Little Shop of Horrors

Seymour Krelborn is a nerdy orphan working at Mushnik's, a flower shop in urban Skid Row. He harbors a crush on fellow co-worker Audrey Fulquard, and is berated by Mr. Mushnik daily. One day Seymour finds a very mysterious unidentified plant which he calls Audrey II. The plant seems to have a craving for blood and soon begins to sing for his supper.

Brazil

Low-level bureaucrat Sam Lowry escapes the monotony of his day-to-day life through a recurring daydream of himself as a virtuous hero saving a beautiful damsel. Investigating a case that led to the wrongful arrest and eventual death of an innocent man instead of wanted terrorist Harry Tuttle, he meets the woman from his daydream, and in trying to help her gets caught in a web of mistaken identities, mindless bureaucracy and lies.

Dick Tracy

The comic strip detective finds his life vastly complicated when Breathless Mahoney makes advances towards him while he is trying to battle Big Boy Caprice's united mob.

Child's Play

A single mother gives her son a beloved doll for his birthday, only to discover that it is possessed by the soul of a serial killer.

Leaving Las Vegas

Ben Sanderson, an alcoholic Hollywood screenwriter who lost everything because of his drinking, arrives in Las Vegas to drink himself to death. There, he meets and forms an uneasy friendship and non-interference pact with prostitute Sera.

The Royal Tenenbaums

Royal Tenenbaum and his wife Etheline had three children and then they separated. All three children are extraordinary --- all geniuses. Virtually all memory of the brilliance of the young Tenenbaums was subsequently erased by two decades of betrayal, failure, and disaster. Most of this was generally considered to be their father's fault. "The Royal Tenenbaums" is the story of the family's sudden, unexpected reunion one recent winter.

Wild at Heart

After serving prison time for a self-defense killing, Sailor Ripley reunites with girlfriend Lula Fortune. Lula's mother, Marietta, desperate to keep them apart, hires a hitman to kill Sailor. But he finds a whole new set of troubles when he and Bobby Peru, an old buddy who's also out to get Sailor, try to rob a store. When Sailor lands in jail yet again, the young lovers appear further than ever from the shared life they covet.

The Blair Witch Project

In October of 1994 three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary. A year later their footage was found.

Moon

With only three weeks left in his three year contract, Sam Bell is getting anxious to finally return to Earth. He is the only occupant of a Moon-based manufacturing facility along with his computer and assistant, GERTY. When he has an accident however, he wakens to find that he is not alone.

Manhunter

FBI Agent Will Graham, who retired after catching Hannibal Lecter, returns to duty to engage in a risky cat-and-mouse game with Lecktor to capture a new killer.

The King's Speech

The King's Speech tells the story of the man who became King George VI, the father of Queen Elizabeth II. After his brother abdicates, George ('Bertie') reluctantly assumes the throne. Plagued by a dreaded stutter and considered unfit to be king, Bertie engages the help of an unorthodox speech therapist named Lionel Logue. Through a set of unexpected techniques, and as a result of an unlikely friendship, Bertie is able to find his voice and boldly lead the country into war.

Mad Max 2

Max Rockatansky returns as the heroic loner who drives the dusty roads of a postapocalyptic Australian Outback in an unending search for gasoline. Arrayed against him and the other scraggly defendants of a fuel-depot encampment are the bizarre warriors commanded by the charismatic Lord Humungus, a violent leader whose scruples are as barren as the surrounding landscape.

Half Nelson

Despite his dedication to the junior-high students who fill his classroom, idealistic teacher Dan Dunne leads a secret life of addiction that the majority of his students will never know. But things change when a troubled student Drey makes a startling discovery of his secret life, causing a tenuous bond between the two that could either end disastrously or provide a catalyst of hope.

Watching the Detectives

Neil, a self proclaimed film geek and owner of Gumshoe video, has always been content to live vicariously through his favorite films noir. But when he meets Violet, a real-life femme fatale, his mundane world gets turned upside down and the line between reality and the movies quickly begins to blur.

The Man from Earth

An impromptu goodbye party for Professor John Oldman becomes a mysterious interrogation after the retiring scholar reveals to his colleagues he never ages and has walked the earth for 14,000 years.

The Visit

A brother and sister are sent to their grandparents' remote Pennsylvania farm for a week, where they discover that the elderly couple is involved in something deeply disturbing.

Guns Akimbo

An ordinary guy suddenly finds himself forced to fight a gladiator-like battle for a dark website that streams the violence for viewers. In order to survive and rescue his kidnapped ex-girlfriend, he must battle Nix, a heavily armed and much more experienced fighter.

The Lost City of Z

A true-life drama in the 1920s, centering on British explorer Col. Percy Fawcett, who discovered evidence of a previously unknown, advanced civilization in the Amazon and disappeared whilst searching for it.

Escape Plan

Ray Breslin is the world's foremost authority on structural security. After analyzing every high security prison and learning a vast array of survival skills so he can design escape-proof prisons, his skills are put to the test. He's framed and incarcerated in a master prison he designed himself. He needs to escape and find the person who put him behind bars.

Machete Kills

Ex-Federale agent Machete is recruited by the President of the United States for a mission which would be impossible for any mortal man – he must take down a madman revolutionary and an eccentric billionaire arms dealer who has hatched a plan to spread war and anarchy across the planet.

Unhinged

A divorced mother honks impatiently at a deranged middle-aged stranger at a red light while running late on her way to work. His road rage escalates to horrifyingly psychotic proportions as he becomes single-mindedly determined to teach her a deadly lesson for provoking him.

Waiting...

Employees at a Bennigan's-like restaurant (called, creatively enough, Shenanigan's), kill time before their real lives get started. But while they wait, they'll have to deal with picky customers who want their steak cooked to order and enthusiastic managers who want to build the perfect wait staff. Luckily, these employees have effective revenge tactics.

Funny Games

Two psychotic young men take a mother, father, and son hostage in their vacation cabin and force them to play sadistic "games" with one another for their own amusement.

The Crying Game

Irish Republican Army member Fergus forms an unexpected bond with Jody, a kidnapped British soldier in his custody, despite the warnings of fellow IRA members Jude and Maguire. Jody makes Fergus promise he'll visit his girlfriend, Dil, in London, and when Fergus flees to the city, he seeks her out. Hounded by his former IRA colleagues, he finds himself increasingly drawn to the enigmatic, and surprising, Dil.

The Poughkeepsie Tapes

When hundreds of videotapes showing torture, murder and dismemberment are found in an abandoned house, they reveal a serial killer's decade-long reign of terror and become the most disturbing collection of evidence homicide detectives have ever seen.

RoboCop 2

After a successful deployment of the RoboCop Law Enforcement unit, OCP sees its goal of urban pacification come closer and closer, but as this develops, a new narcotic known as "Nuke" invades the streets led by God-delirious leader Cane. As this menace grows, it may prove to be too much for Murphy to handle. OCP tries to replicate the success of the first unit, but ends up with failed prototypes with suicidal issues... until Dr. Faxx, a scientist straying away from OCP's path, uses Cane as the new subject for the RoboCop 2 project, a living God.

Fallen

Homicide detective John Hobbes witnesses the execution of serial killer Edgar Reese. Soon after the execution the killings start again, and they are very similar to Reese's style.

The Outfit

Leonard is an English tailor who used to craft suits on London’s world-famous Savile Row. After a personal tragedy, he’s ended up in Chicago, operating a small tailor shop in a rough part of town where he makes beautiful clothes for the only people around who can afford them: a family of vicious gangsters.

Midway

The story of the Battle of Midway, and the leaders and soldiers who used their instincts, fortitude and bravery to overcome massive odds.

Hard Candy

Hayley’s a smart, charming teenage girl. Jeff’s a handsome, smooth fashion photographer. An Internet chat, a coffee shop meet-up, an impromptu fashion shoot back at Jeff’s place. Jeff thinks it’s his lucky night. He’s in for a surprise.

The Hurt Locker

During the Iraq War, a Sergeant recently assigned to an army bomb squad is put at odds with his squad mates due to his maverick way of handling his work.

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