Best Independent Films of All Time don’t have the whole Hollywood machine behind them, but they have given us some of the most famous, important, powerful, and perfect stories of all time.
In fact, many independent films have been nominated for and won awards at the Oscars and other events. Some of the best actors, like Aubrey Plaza, Milles Teller, and Jennifer Lawrence, have also done their best work in this field.
The great thing about the Best Independent Films of All Time is that there are no rules, and the small budget is made up for by great stories and legendary performances. This shows that you don’t need a big company or billions of dollars to make a great movie that changes the world.
Many independent movies have been released in theaters and on streaming services, and more will come out as time goes on. Some of these movies are some of the best in the world, so you should definitely check them out.
You must see at least one of these 25 best independent films of all time
The Whale
This movie by Darren Aronofsky starred Stranger Things’ Sadie Sink and Brendan Fraser. It was a big hit at the 2022 Venice Film Festival and won two Oscars. The movie is about an English teacher who is so fat that he can’t move. Knowing that he doesn’t have much time left, he chooses to use his last chance to try to connect with his teenage daughter and give his life a new meaning.
Whiplash
The “musical” movie “La La Land” by Damien Chazelle won three Oscars and stars Miles Teller as a music student who wants to become one of the best drummers in the world. To do this, he takes a class from one of the hardest teachers. And controversial person from school who pushes him to his limits, plays with his mind, and helps him realize his full potential.
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X
This horror movie with Mia Goth and Jenna Ortega is the first in a series with Pearl and Maxxxine. It was directed by Ti West. In X, a group of independent directors go to Texas to find the best place to film a pornographic movie. This leads them to a small farm, where an unknown killer with a dark past starts to attack them. she said that when she was young, she wanted to be a big star, which made her go crazy.
Lost in Translation
This is one of Sofia Coppola’s best indefinite films of all time. Scarlett Johansson plays a woman whose husband takes her to Japan. He leaves her alone all day, which makes her bored, but everything changes when she meets a lonely actor (Bill Murray) and chooses to tour the city with him. him, going on all the adventures he couldn’t have with his partner, until it’s time to say goodbye.
Parasite
This movie by Bong Joon Ho won the Oscars for Best Film and Best Foreign Film, as well as the Palme d’Or at Cannes. It is about a poor family who, in order to stay alive, decides to lie to and take advantage of a wealthy family to get a number of jobs for which they are not qualified. He wants to get ahead by hurting his family, but someone else had the same idea, and it’s part of a secret that could get out and ruin all their work.
The Wonder
The book that this movie is based on was written by Emma Donoghue. It was directed by Sebastián Lelio and stars Florence Pugh. In 1862, the story is about a nurse who has to go to a small town in Ireland to find out what’s going on with a claimed miracle involving a girl who says she hasn’t eaten for months but has been able to live on “manna” from the sky. The nurse has to figure out if the girl’s story is true or if there is something else going on and it could be a scam.
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Everything Everywhere All at Once movies has won 7 Oscars. It stars Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Kwan, and Jamie Lee Curtis. At the beginning of the story, a foreign woman worries that she might lose her business and her daughter. When she gets an unexpected visitor, she has to travel through the multiverse and meet different versions of herself to help beat a powerful villain who wants to destroy the world.
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Short Term 12
In this thriller, Brie Larson and John Gallagher Jr. play the heads of an institution that takes care of troubled and at-risk teens. Their job is to help the kids get ahead while they try to make their own lives work. and find their own solutions. Larson plays Grace, one of the caregivers. At a crucial moment, she makes a choice she thinks is right, but it could hurt her career.
Donnie Darko
This is one of Jake Gyllenhaal’s most well-known films among the best independent films of all time. Donnie Darko can be read in many different ways, and it tells the story of a teenager who, after escaping an accident, starts to see a scary rabbit who starts to get him to do bad things.
What We Do in the Shadows
This scary comedy about vampires stars Taika Waititi, Jonny Brugh, and Jemaine Clement. The movie is about a group of vampires in their 20s and 30s who live together as roommates in the modern world. They have to deal with rent, parties, and problems with living together while also finding ways to get blood to eat.
Dazed and Confused
This is one of the most famous movies, which is also one of the best independent movies of all time, of the 1990s. It gave Matthew McConaughey and Milla Jovovich their first big roles. In Richard Linklater’s movie, a group of high school students are on their last day of school in Texas in the 1970s.
They are getting ready to welcome new students and have the best summer ever, starting with a full day of drugs, sex, and looking for that one moment they will remember forever.
We Need to Talk About Kevin
This movie is about a mother, played by Tilda Swinton, who starts to notice that her son is not normal and is acting strangely. She was never able to connect with the boy, and everything comes to a head when he is a teenager and kills several of his schoolmates in a brutal attack. This destroys her family and makes her an outcast in her community, and she has to deal with the weight of having a deadly son.
Memento
Christopher Nolan directed this movie, which is one of the first times he used his trick of starting at the end and working backwards to make things more strange. Guy Pearce plays a man with a type of forgetfulness that affects his short-term memories. Because of this, he can’t remember new things. He is determined to find out why his wife died, so he gets tattoos all over his body to help him remember important information that will lead him to the killer.
Lady Bird
This movie was the one that put Greta Gerwig on the map as a director. It was nominated for 5 Oscars. Lady Bird McPherson is played by Saoirse Ronan and Timothée Chalamet. She is a teenager who is about to finish her last year of high school and go to college. There, she will have to face the reality of being an adult and deal with all the complicated relationships that have made her who she is.
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Drive
This movie was made by Nicolas Winding Refn and was up for an Oscar. Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan are in it. This is the story of a stunt driver who helps make the most risky scenes in action movies happen. The rest of his life is quiet and he doesn’t talk to many people, but that all changes when he falls in love with his neighbor, whose ex-husband he is dating, and he is forced to drive him away from a robbery that could have serious effects.
Get out
This horror movie is directed by Jordan Peele. It starts with a black guy (Daniel Kaluuya) getting ready to meet the parents of his white girlfriend (Allison Williams). The couple spends the weekend at her parents’ house eating pasta, but he soon finds out that he was called there for an unclear reason and that his in-laws and their friends could be responsible for the disappearance of several African-American people who were last seen near that location.
The Squid and the Whale
This movie is about a family played by Jeff Daniel, Laura Linney, Owen Kline, and Jesse Eisenberg. In the 1980s, when the story takes place, the Berkman brothers are dealing with the effects of their parents’ divorce and the pressure of living up to their father’s expectations. Their father wants his children to be smart and have the same values as him, rejecting everyone he thinks isn’t worthy of his genius.
June
This Oscar-winning independent film also stars Elliot Page and Michael Cera. The movie Juno is about a girl who gets pregnant by accident and has to figure out what to do with her life. Juno decides to find a man to marry so she can give up her baby for adoption. She wants to give the baby a better life and move on with her help, getting through high school and getting ready to go to college.
Requiem for a Dream
This movie is directed by Darren Aronofsky and stars Jennifer Connelly and Jared Leto. In it, he looks at the world of drugs and mental illness. In Requiem for a Dream, there are several characters who are hooked to dangerous and illegal drugs. This causes them to get into all kinds of trouble, even stealing and breaking the law to get the money they need to buy more drugs.
A Single Man
This movie by Tom Ford is likely one of the most beautiful stories ever. The movie stars Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, and Nicholas Hoult. It’s about an English teacher who still has trouble adjusting to life without her boyfriend a year after he died. He also has trouble living in Los Angeles in the 1960s, where prejudices and having to hide his pain have led him to take his own life.
Trainspotting
This great British movie from the 1990s stars Ewan McGregor. The movie, which was directed by Danny Boyle, is about a young drug addict who decides to change his life and stop using. However, everything around him is full of things that could make him go back to his bad habit, which has caused him, his family, and his friends so much trouble.
Pulp Fiction
This is the only movie for which Samuel L. Jackson has been nominated for an Oscar, though he did get a special Oscar in 2022. Quentin Tarantino directed the movie, which has stars like Uma Thurman and John Travolta. The story starts when a thief is told to look after the wife of a gangster who is always getting into trouble. His story ties in with those of other characters who are trying to save themselves or make things right with themselves. This leads to a violent and deadly situation.
A Clockwork Orange
This controversial film by Stanley Kubrick is based on the famous book with the same name. Malcolm McDowell plays Alex, the leader of a criminal gang who, after being caught and sent to jail, chooses to take part in an experiment that is supposed to help him get rid of his violent tendencies. Alex gets the treatment and goes home. At first, it seems like everything worked, but then he finds out that nothing is going to go as planned.
50/50
This movie is based on real events and stars Seth Rogen and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. This is the story of Adam, who at age 27 is told he has cancer and has a 50/50 chance of dying or living. He chooses to use the time he thinks he has left to do all the things he’s always wanted to do but has never been brave enough to try.
Midsummer
This is one of those scary movies, which is among the best independent films of all time, that really scares you and makes you feel bad. Also, this movie is directed by Ari Aster and stars Florence Pugh as Dani, a woman who loses her family in a tragic accident and decides to go to a summer festival on the other side of the world with her boyfriend and some friends. She doesn’t know that this will test her in strange ways and that the “festivities” include a series of rituals and violent situations that not everyone will be able to get out of.
