The 10 Best Independent Movies of All Time and Where to Watch Them

Can you list the ten best indie movies of all time? I'm not sure you can, but I'll try. First, we need to define what an indie movie is. The realities of the filmmaking industry are very different from country to country, so we'll stick to movies made in the U.S. After all, the "indie" concept governing film programming in the country depends on productions existing outside the classic studio system.

Everything was indie in the early XX century before the big studios flourished. Should we consider Edison Studios on par with Paramount? These "rules" may seem arbitrary, but every list like this one is arbitrary. Go with the plan, people! The idea is to point you towards great filmmaking that may have escaped your media diet or reveal an unexpected indie undercurrent in a popular classic.

Also, this list will be inspiring. The filmmakers covered their budgets with spare change found in their couches. No, not really. But almost! They rounded up friends and neighbors, sneaked equipment from other projects, and whatever was necessary to bring their visions to life. By now, most of these names are in the pantheon, but when they did these movies, they were not that different from you. One of them was already a big-time player, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Here are our ten best indie movies of all time.

Meshes of the Afternoon (1943)

Nothing further from the commercial circuit than experimental cinema, so multi-hyphenate artist Maya Deren knew better than to knock on the studios' doors. The writer-photographer-filmmaker directed this influential short with her husband, Alexandr Hackenschmied. They shot and performed themselves, using their L.A. home as a set. The result is 14 minutes of dreamy images, as beautiful as scary. The surrealist masterpiece captured the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival and remains influential today. 

Where to Watch: Available on YouTube. 

Detour (1945):

Five big studios defined the Hollywood Golden Age: Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer, Warner Bros., Paramount, RKO, and 20th Century Fox. United Artists, founded by Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith, had enough star power to go toe-to-toe with the big boys. Beyond their rarified sphere, indie film thrived among scrappy small-scale studios called "Poverty Row."  Even though their budgets were modest, operating without the expectations of big studio productions - and the oversight of cultural authorities - allowed them to be more daring regarding themes and dramatic treatment. 

Many Poverty Row artists pushed the filmmaking forward while working around their limitations. Consider director Edgar G. Ulmer. The Czech artist made his name in the German film industry and migrated to Hollywood in the '20s to work with F.W. Murnau in "Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans" (1926). He eventually gravitated to Poverty Row to direct his films, becoming one of the leading talents at XXX Studios. The Boris Karloff-Bela Lugosi two-hander "The Black Cat" (1934) is an early example of his work. He never jumped to the big studios, but looking back on his work, he did not need to. He did wonders with meager resources.

Case in point: "Detour" (1945). This lean-and-mean film noir follows Al Roberts (Tom Neal), a down-on-his-luck musician hitchhiking across the U.S. to join his girlfriend in Los Angeles. He gets a ride with a bookie (Charles Haskell Jr.), who dies on the way, leaving poor Al open to the blackmailing efforts of Vera (Ann Savage) as a primordial femme fatale. Like many Poverty Row productions, it barely runs over an hour. These quickies occupied complementary tiers of long-running programs where an expensive studio production would take the prime spot, padded out with cartoons, serials, and newsreels. The movies may be short, but they make every second count.

Watch "Detour" right here on Popflick!

The Wasp Woman (1959)

It's gratuitous to say this is one of the most influential indie movies ever. It may not even be the best movie made by Roger Corman, but then again, what is? According to IMDB, Corman directed 56 films and produced 493. His career was about making a quick buck and entertaining mass audiences looking for an alternative to Hollywood. His whole oeuvre was about ignoring - or transcending - those positive adjectives self-satisfied filmmakers like to use to describe their work: "quality," "good," "excellent," best." Corman movies revel in their modesty and rebel against good taste. In the process, they place a mirror in front of America without any intention of distorting the image to comfort us. He was also instrumental in the early careers of talented people who would go on to define cinema in the late XX Century, such as director Francis Ford Coppola and actor Jack Nicholson.

We could mention any of his movies in this list. We picked "The Wasp Woman" because it still resonates with its critique of a society where women must fulfill impossible beauty standards. The passage of time only works against women. Men can age like wine, but society expects women to hold on to beauty by any means necessary. Susan Cabot plays powerful cosmetic executive Janice Starlin. She may exploit these rules for economic benefit but is not immune to the pressure. That's why she decided to test a youth serum developed from wasp-made royal jelly on herself. The movie's title hints at a result worse than a bad facelift.

The black-and-white cinematography and broad B-movie style may fool you into thinking this societal ill is a thing of the past. Check out the trailer of Coralie Fargeat's "The Substance." The Best Screenplay winner at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival owes much to Corman's provocative horror movie.

Watch "The Wasp Woman" right here on Popflick! 

Psycho (1960)

When Alfred Hitchcock wanted to make "Psycho," he was already the "Master of Suspense." He was coming off the blockbuster hit "North by Northwest" (1959). His TV show "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" had aired for five years, making him a fixture in pop culture.   Alas, Paramount, his current go-to studio, would not touch an adaptation of Robert Bloch's novel with a pole. Considering his inspiration was the real-life story of serial killer Ed Gain, it's easy to understand why the studio executives were skittish.

Undaunted, Hitch went the indie way. He self-financed the production, and used his T.V. show's crew, and shot in black and white to keep costs low - this last choice worked out for aesthetic reasons, too. He shot at the Universal lot because Paramount execs claimed their soundstages were all previously booked - in Ti West's "Maxxxine" (2024), you can see Elizabeth Debicki taking Mia Goth for a sightseeing tour to "Psycho" 's still-standing exterior locations. They agreed to distribute the movie as a condescending gesture - and probably to avoid burning the bridge with Hitch.

Hitchcock's gambit paid off. His innovative advertising campaign whipped up a level of anticipation that was more than satisfied by the resulting movie. Check out his freaky trailer down! Janet Leigh's stardom - and the bawdy poster showing her in lingerie - help to bring in the masses, who were not ready to grasp the dramatic ark drawn out for her Marion Crane, a good girl playing a bad one, going in the lam with a bag full of other people's money. She finds refuge from a storm at the Bates Motel on a lonely road off the highway. The manager is a meek, mellow fellow named Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), who suffers under the control of an overbearing mother. If you don't know what comes next, consider yourself one of the happy few who will get their mind blown once you get up to date. If you have seen it before, don't judge. It's better to watch it again!

Where to watch: Rent or buy a digital copy at AppleTV+, Amazon, or Fandango at Home. Physical media is available in BluRay and 4K UltraHD.

Carnival of Souls (1962)

It's one of the best classic horror movies ever made. Legend has it Herk Harvey, an industrial filmmaker based in Kansas, got the idea for his fiction feature film debut while driving near an abandoned pavilion in Salt Lake City, Utah - which shows anything can inspire a killer script -. He raised the $30 thousand budget by taking in small contributions from family, friends, and contacts; and deferring payment of as many expenses as possible. Local talent filled the ranks of cast and crew, newbies or pros willing to work on the cheap in a three-week shooting schedule. Harvey shot some scenes without permits, guerrilla-style, like a scary encounter in a shop. Sounds feasible even by today's standards!

"Carnival of Souls" starts with a bang, or rather, a crash. A group of girls on a joyride fly their car off a bridge into a river. Only one comes out: Mary Henry (Candace Hiligoss). She survives but soon begins to see creepy people dressed in black accosting her, and only she can see. Desperate, she flees to another town, aiming to start a new life. Fat chance, my gal. Things come to a head in the same creepy pavilion where Harvey's mission first hit him. You can see the movie's influence in the nightmarish visions of David Lynch.

Watch "Carnival of Souls" right here on Popflick!

Pink Flamingos (1972)

If you only know Baltimore's own John Waters from the Broadway musical "Hairspray" and its 2007 film adaptation, you are in for a rude awakening. It will be a very rude awakening, for sure. Our favorite gay uncle began his career doing movies for pennies with friends and hangers-on in front and behind the camera. His breakthrough was "Pink Flamingo"(1972), made with a budget of just 12 thousand dollars.

Whatever he had missing in terms of technical finesse and dramatic chops was compensated by an innate talent to shock. A savage satire of America's complacency, "Pink Flamingos" follows the shenanigans of Divine (played by…Divine), a remorseless criminal going by "Babs Johnson." She lives with her dysfunctional family in a trailer park. Alas, her cover blows when she gets awarded the title of "The Filthiest Person Alive," and a hypocritical couple of baby traffickers and pornographers posing as a high-class couple takes umbrage and plot to dethrone her.  

Waters crams every body part, sexual act, and deviant behavior that might offend the establishment circa the early 70s in an action-packed hour-and-a-half. There are cross-dressers, lesbians, pushers selling heroin in a school, trans women exposing themselves, a gleeful flasher, rape, and outright murder. Things come to a halt at Divine's birthday party, where a naked man signs out of his asshole, and in a climax scatological, somebody eats warm, fresh dog poop.

The comedy is broad, juvenile, and in gleeful, unapologetic bad taste. Waters' triumph is one of attitude. The measure of his irreverence is how he managed to hold a dirty, grimy mirror to a particularly American brand of hypocrisy and repression. In time, Waters refined his technique while keeping his ability to shock intact. 

His big commercial breakthrough came with the original "Hairspray" (1988), a snappy satire of 60s teen comedies. By 2002, when it became a stage musical, it seemed success tamed Waters. His sole movie after it is "A Dirty Shame" (2004). He has been shopping around a new project in the last months - 20 years after his last one! -, tentatively titled "Liarmouth," with Aubrey Plaza attached to play the lead. It is a sign of Hollywood's creative bankruptcy that nobody is willing to foot the bill, even if it is modestly budgeted. It may be time for Uncle John to return to indie, self-financed roots. In the meantime, catch "Pink Flamingos," if you dare.

Where to Watch: "Pink Flamingos" is available in a chock-full-of-extras Blu-Ray edition from The Criterion Collection.

Ganja and Hess (1973)

The studios swiftly coopted blaxploitation cinema, but its indie spirit survived without compromises in pure indies like "Ganja & Hess" (1973). "The Night of the Living Dead" 's Duane Jones is Dr. Hess Green, an anthropologist turned into a vampire by the cut of a cursed antique dagger. He converts his colleague's widow, Ganja (Marlene Clark), and together, they join carnal and unearthly forces to unleash a reign of terror.

Gunn was an actor and playwright with just one movie, a drama about misguided sexual liberation called "Stop!" (1970). The independent company Kelly-Jordan Enterprises offered him to foot the bill for a movie if he was willing to work in horror, and he jumped at the chance. Echoing the Poverty Row ethos, he worked under relative freedom. 

The movie opened at the Cannes Film Festival and received good reviews, but a box-office hit proved elusive. Over time, the movie was subject to recutting in a misguided effort to make it more commercial. Luckily, a print of the original cut remained in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Repertory screenings salvaged the movie's reputation over time. Recently, Martin Scorsese's The Film Foundation spearheaded efforts to restore it. Remade by Spike Lee as "Da Sweet Blood of Jesus" (2014).

Where to Watch: Kino Lorber edited a nifty Blue Ray of the restoration. It is available to stream on their streaming service, Kino Film Collection. You can rent or buy a digital download on Amazon.

Sex, Lies and Videotape (1989)

The late XX century indie wave arose when a neophyte director named Steven Soderbergh premiered his debut feature at the 1989 Sundance Film Festival. It crashed with force two months later at the Cannes Film Festival, taking the Palm d'Or from favorites like Spike Lee's "Do The Right Thing" and Giuseppe Tornatore's "Cinema Paradiso." It also scored Best Actor for James Spader and the FIPRESCI Award. The movie launched the careers of Andie McDowell and Laura San Giacomo. Come Oscar time, it earned a nomination for Best Screenplay - and it lost to "Dead Poets Society" - which shows how the status quo is slow to get on with the program.

No matter. The impact "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" had still reverberates. This is the best example of late-stage American indie movies. Soderbergh shot for a month in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, with a budget of $1.2 million. Do not let the dialogue-heavy scenes in spare, lived-in domestic sets fool you. There is an inventive cinematic mind behind the camera.

Soderbergh is more interested in human connection than the mechanics of bodies engaging in coitus. The plot hinges on the relationships between the four characters. Ann (McDowell) is a frigid housewife seeking therapy to deal with abstract unhappiness. She does not know that her husband, John (Peter Gallagher), vibes with her sister, Cynthia (San Giacomo). Both are horny as hell for each other and think nothing of going behind Ann's back. The triangle blows up with the arrival of Graham (Spader). John's best friend from college is a layabout, roaming the country, taping women about their sex lives. He is impotent and can only find release by watching the video alone.

For all the sensual promise of the title, there is no churlish exploitation of carnality in sight. Check out how an orgasm is conveyed in a close-up of a face, seemingly floating and coming down to a pillow as the afterglow of pleasure sets in. For all its brilliance, it has been quite a surprise to see how Soderbergh developed a career where he moves at ease between the indie ghetto and mass-audience Hollywood entertainment.

Where to watch: It's available to stream on AppleTV+, and you can buy a digital download on Amazon, Vudu, and AppleTV. For physical media collectors, the Criterion Collection edition is a must-own.

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Quentin Tarantino's sophomore movie was so successful that it is easy to forget its indie roots. Tarantino already had his foot on Hollywood's door, having sold scripts - for "True Romance" (Tony Scott, 1993) and "Natural Born Killers" (Oliver Stone, 1994) -. His feature film debut, "Reservoir Dogs" (1992), had been the toast of Sundance. However, nothing could prepare the industry or the public for the blast of brilliance to come.

Co-written with Roger Avary, "Pulp Fiction" gleefully coopted film noir archetypes and deployed them in a gleefully artificial version of Los Angeles. Four stories taking place simultaneously in a few days are subject to a timeworn, breaking down continuity for maximum emotional effect. Mob enforcers Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winfield (Samuel L. Jackson) derail a mission by accidentally killing a guy in their car. Vincent must take out the boss's wife, Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman), for a night in the town without falling for her coke-fueled charms. Boxer Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis) is supposed to hit the canvas in a fixed fight but chickens out at the last minute - or rather, finds the inner strength to defy the fixers, even if it makes him a walking target for retaliation. Finally, a couple of ragged desperadoes (Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer) decide to hold up a dinner at the worst moment possible.

Danny de Vito's production company, Jersey Films, had optioned the script for a cool $1 million. Still, support from big studios and significant distributors proved elusive. "Pulp Fiction" was too violent, weird, and artsy for comfort. Flush with cash after selling out to Disney, Miramax footed the production budget estimated at $8.5 million. A worldwide box office of almost $214 million made the gamble worthwhile. Alas, money can't quite measure its impact on Pop Culture.

Where to watch: Stream on AppleTV+ and Max. Rent or buy Digital downloads at Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, Spectrum, and Microsoft.

I Saw the TV Glow (2024)

Indie movies do not have to be played according to Hollywood's rules. They can explore subjects the mainstream would not consider out of fear of alienating the masses. Check out Jane Schoebrun's "I Saw the TV Glow," one of the best movies of 2024 and bound to be a generational reference. 

Sometime in the '90s, a lonely boy, Owen (Ian Foreman), establishes a friendship with Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine). She is also an outcast but manages to overcome her initial apprehension and finds in the kid a kindred spirit. They bond over a teen show called "Pink Opaque." The snippets we see with Owen and Maddy look like a play on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1997-2003). In the show-within-the-movie, we follow the adventures of Tara (Lindsey Jordan) and Isabel (Helena Howard), two teenagers with strange powers, fighting against a formidable foe: Mr. Melancholy (Emma Portner), a villain who looks like the moon, sending bizarre monsters to capture our heroes and take advantage of their powers.

The kitsch is served with a straight face because we must take it as seriously as the kids. Things get strange when the show suffers cancelation, and Maddy disappears. Years pass. Elder Owen (Justice Smith) settles uncomfortably in young adulthood until Maddy reappears without explanations. The "Pink Opaque" mythology seems to infect reality and time of the essence. The reunited friends must take desperate measures to save themselves from a destiny worse than death.

In 2020, Schoenbrun took Sundance by storm with "We Are All Going to the World's Fair," a stark consideration of youthful alienation in the hyperconnected virtual world. As solid as it was, it does not hold a candle to the formal and narrative richness of "I Saw the TV Glow." Schoenbrunn's script and direction create a mysterious, emphatic, and ultimately terrifying look at the perils of denying our true selves. Moreover, like many influential indies, it tackles a subject that Hollywood and society would rather sweep under the rug. Transexual persons are at the front line of the civil rights struggle of our times. Schoenbrun - herself a trans woman - has created a moving allegory that should change hearts and minds. The movie is rich with ideas. It touches on our family, the passage of time, and our formative relationships with fiction. They may be less urgent, but they are examined rigorously and clearly.

Where to watch: Stream on AppleTV+. Rent or buy digital downloads on AppleTV, Amazon, Vudu, and Microsoft.