Indie film recommendations?

Juno isn't exactly a masterpiece.
Plan 9, however, remains a total classic.
Those who trash our beloved American way of life are nothing more than cowards.

David Price5 said:but if they weren't produced by those major studios, then they count as indie films. Simple as that..

Dr. Strangelove is District of Columbia, Cowardly Nest is Warner Bros.... What are we even talking about?

I guess if you look at how things work, indie films aren't necessarily better than mainstream hits, which is kind of funny when you consider that indie music usually holds that reputation.

redowl90 said:Dr. Strangelove is District of Columbia, Cowardly nest is Warner Bros.... What are we even discussing?

I have no idea how they manage to list them as indie films on IMDb then.

David Hall said:Unlike indie music, indie movies aren't usually any better than the mainstream stuff.

The only reason I even separate "indie" from everything else is because they're harder to come by. And when I think of indie films—if they suck, they suck big time. Like, spectacularly bad. Like those Ninja Turtles movies! How can you not love that?

There's good stuff everywhere, whether it's mainstream or indie. You just can't assume something is actually good just because it fits a certain label...

offtopic: For instance, even though I mostly listen to indie, the future Sex Love Sounds album is killer

reddriver17 said:The only reason I ever separated indie from everything else was just because those films can be a bit harder to come by. And when I think about independent movies, if they're bad, they’re just, I don't know, spectacularly bad. Kind of like those Three Ninjas movies! How could you not love that?

I guess there's good stuff everywhere, whether it's mainstream or indie, so maybe we shouldn't just assume something is great simply because it falls into one category or the other...

offtopic: For instance, even though I mostly listen to indie stuff, I think future Love Sex sound is actually a fantastic album.

Well, obviously there's garbage in both indie productions and mainstream releases, but I suppose it might be a little easier to make high-quality indie music than it is to make indie films, mostly because of all the technical requirements and gear you need for cinema.🙂

Is the 2004 version of Crash considered indie?
Oh, please...

There is only ONE Crash, and that's Cronenberg's ☕

A few days ago at a photo exhibit here in New York City, I ran into a couple of people who don't just like movies—no, they absolutely worship them. They live and breathe cinema. One guy works for a small production house out of Guatemala, and the other is finishing up a Master’s in Film Studies over in Boston... anyway, we ended up chatting about those little indie gems that rarely get the spotlight they deserve unless they manage to sneak into the major festivals. It's such a shame, really.
Among other things, we talked about the Iranian-Kurdish film "Turtles Can Fly" by Bahman Ghobadi, and "Gasolin" by Julio Hernandez.
I've seen "Turtles Can Fly," but I haven't caught "Gasolin" yet.
I'm curious—which indie films are your all-time favorites? Don't hold back.🙂

👍

I’m not convinced Turtles Can Fly actually qualifies as an indie film. To me, "independent" means movies produced outside the major studios—usually the big American giants—where the director maintains genuine artistic control. Take Solitaire, for instance; that's a true indie because it was backed by private capital—Gibson's money—without producers breathing down the director's neck. Some even argue that Lucas's Star Wars ep 1,2,3 should be classified as independent since he personally financed them and retained all the rights, leaving Fox to handle nothing more than distribution.
If you're looking for actual quality indies, you can't go wrong with Jim Jarmusch. As far as recent stuff goes, I thought ok Little Miss Sunshine and Juno were pretty good.

Every single film by Jim Jarmusch

Of course Dr. Strangelove or apocalypse being an indie film are NOT indie films; there is no reason to blindly trust IMDb's classifications.

redowl90 said:Dr. Strangelove belongs to Columbia, while Cowardly nests with Warner... what are we even debating here?

Warner bought the distribution rights—they didn't bankroll the whole thing themselves. Look, you can shoot your own movie, but you still need someone to actually get it into theaters. These days, most indie flicks premiere at Sundance, and then the major studios swoop in to buy them up. Take Searchlight Pictures, for example—they picked up Little Miss Sunshine, Juno, and Slumdog Millionaire. The big players all have their own specialized divisions specifically for low-budget and indie projects (think Warner Bros. Independent, Paramount Vantage, Sony Pictures Classics, Universal Focus, or Searchlight Pictures).