Good Low Budget and Independent Flicks
POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Tuesday, September 1, 2026 02:34
VIEWED: 28778
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This is usually my go to for movies these days, since most of the Hollywood schlock doesn't do it for me anymore and I'd rather not support a majority of the people involved in their production anymore anyhow.
Anybody seen any good ones lately? I don't mean new ones. They can be from any year.
Here's a small list of the ones I've seen in the last year or two and really enjoyed.
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An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn [1998] (Eric Idle, Ryan O'Neal, Richard Jeni)
Locke [2013] (Tom Hardy)
Never Let Me Go [2010] (Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightley)
Safe House* [1998] (Patrick Stewart, Kimberly Williams)
The Hunt [2020] (Betty Gilpin, [spoiler alert], Emma Roberts, many others)
Under the Silver Lake [2018] (Andrew Garfield)
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I know there's others. I'll try to update the list and would love some good recommendations if you've got them.
I should probably put a bad list on here too, because they can't all be winners, even when you watch them because somebody who's opinion you respect steered you wrong.
The Witch** [2015] (Anya-Taylor Joy, Ralph Ineson)
* Safe House - I'd recommend not looking up anything about this movie and just going into it blind. I'm going to assume that anything you read about it anywhere is going to spoil it for you since the 2 sentence IMDB summary lets the cat out of the bag. Hell... even the eight word tag-line on the VHS box does.
** The Witch - You might actually like The Witch. It is beautifully shot and it certainly looks as though you're living in the period which it was depicting. Their accents are terrible though, and I found that you couldn't even understand half of what they were saying. Watching a few videos on YouTube "explaining" the movie, I came away thinking that they saw a much better movie than I saw. I might try to watch it again alone this time and with subtitles. Maybe I didn't give it a fair shake.
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I don't pay a lot of attention to budgets and independence any more.
If I mention a film, a clue may be included just to ID the correct film.
Have you seen City of Lost Children, with Ron Perlmann? It was one of the best films in the year it came out.
Mute Witness, with ?Marina Sedona? or maybe Rob Morrow?
A Little Princess with Liesel Mathews? Perhaps the best film in the year it came out.
The Thin Blue Line, director Errol Morris
The Brothers McMullen? - Ed Burns
She's The One? - Ed Burns
Lady In The Box, Paige Rowland, Mark Shepard
Wind River was produced independently, and was the best film in 2017.
Ace Ventura was supposed to be low budget, but that might be relative.
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I do not believe I've seen any of those, except for Ace Ventura.
Thanks for the suggestions.
It's funny that you brought that one up, because I was thinking that to have a loose criteria for low budget, we should cap it at $15 Million. That just happens to be exactly what the budget was for Ace Ventura.
We'll count it though, even with inflation. Some of the movies I put up there were close to that number and were old enough that they'd be over $15 Million in today's dollars too.
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Have you seen Mom And Dad Save The World, with Teri Garr, Eric Idle, Dwier Brown? Not sure of that budget.
I'd assume UHF had a low budget, with Michael Richards, Fran Drescher. Most hilarious film I've seen in cinema (several times).
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This is likely before your time:
Jim Carrey was mostly only known for his Fireman skit. He was signed for only $450,000 for Ace Ventura. He got a little more for The Mask.
His agent was trying to get him signed for $400,000 for his next film, Dumb and Dumber. But some exec at New Line balked at anything over $350,000, since he wasn't a proven property.
Both sides did not complete negotiations before the opening weekend of Ace.
Then New Line finally signed him for $7M.
We all wondered how long that guy was going to have a job, after costing New Line an extra $6,000,000.
The director says Ace cost $11M.
Also, with City of Lost Children, the cinematography and color is amazing for it's time, so watch on a really good screen. I ran a film poll back then and the only people who didn't include it in their top 3 of the year had not seen it. Same with A Little Princess, which was a remake of a Shirley Temple work.
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How about Lone Star? Filmed about the same time as A Time To Kill, which also starred both Chris Cooper and Matthew McCaughnahey.
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The veritable definition of "Low Budget" films:
The Texas Chainsaw Masacre
Halloween, even with Donald Pleasance and Kyle Richards.
Friday The 13th.
Mad Max, which was almost only shown in Drive-Ins in America.
After that, Tim was perhaps the best acting performance by Mel. Sometime compare that film to suffering through one where the perpetually stupid and inept Sean Penn muddles through pretending to be stupid. They were both in something lately about The Mad Man.
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I don't believe I've seen Mom and Dad Save the World, but I remember it being advertised when I was a kid.
UHF was awesome, and I still watch it from time to time to this day.
Sadly, I'm old enough to have watched Jim Carrey on In Living Color. I only recently found out about how little Carrey got paid for his early films. I think The Mask was the first movie where he pulled in Millions if I remember correctly. IMDB said that Ace cost $15 Million (Estimated), but the Directory probably knows better if he's remembering right.
City of Lost Children is the one on your list that I'm most interested in. It will probably be my next watch when I get the time and feel like watching a flick. I don't have a huge screen, but it's a quality one.
Never heard of Lone Star.
I grew up with Beyond the Thunderdome. I watched Mad Max in my early 20's and was bored. It might be worth another watch now though.
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The Mask was completed before Ace was released, and was actually released a few months after Ace. So Carrey did not make his millions for it, but both Ace and Mask made millions for the producers.
Dumb and Dumber is when he made millions for himself, as I explained.
The $11M figure from the director is in imdb under trivia, or did you know? section.
I think his co-lead Jeff Daniels made $50k.
Lone Star is excellent.
MaDStW is very funny, and Jon Lovitz and Kathy Ireland were great, plus Jeffrey Jones.
Mad Max was largely unheard of in USA, until Road Warrior came out and that was a breakout hit.
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I conjure you have seen Billy Jack, which I think was both low budget and independent.
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