The 100 Best Indie Movies of All-Time

The 100 Best Indie Movies of All-Time

December 17, 2024

Share:

twitter
facebook
reddit
pinterest
link

agoodmovietowatch is a platform that recommends little-known but acclaimed movies – films you haven’t yet seen that you are likely to enjoy. Naturally, many indie movies fall in this category.

“Indie” used to refer to the way the film was made, a comment about its low-budget or lack of association with big studios. But recently, it has morphed into its own genre. Calling a movie “indie” is like saying it is a comedy, it means that it has very specific characteristics.

The genre has been overexploited, but many new releases still stand out every year. So, looking back at the evolution of the genre, here are the best indie movies of all-time as ranked by our staff.

61. An Angel At My Table (1990)

7.9

Country

Australia, New Zealand Australia UK USA, New-Zealand

Director

Female director, Jane Campion

Actors

Alexia Keogh, Alison Bruce, Alistair Douglas, Andrew Robertt

Moods

Emotional, Touching, True-story-based

Although it opens on Janet Frame’s first steps as a baby, this Jane Campion-directed biopic of the celebrated New Zealand writer doesn’t take an exhaustive approach to its subject’s life. We frequently only learn of milestones — the many awards she won, the death of her mother — later on and in passing. In a beautiful gesture that feels like a tiny righting of the many wrongs done to Janet, it’s her perspective that guides the film. 

That embedded approach also makes the emotions that come with her heartbreaking yet uplifting story more profound. And there is much heartbreak here: alongside the several tragic losses Janet experienced as a child, she was misdiagnosed as schizophrenic as a young woman and spent eight harrowing years in psychiatric hospitals. Throughout all of this, she wrote fiction and poetry, work that saved her life in more ways than one: as well as being a rare constant source of joy, it won her a literary prize just days before she was scheduled for a lobotomy, prompting her doctors to reconsider. Neither Campion nor Janet allowed this experience to define her, however, and the film empathetically grants her real moments of joy and choice throughout — making for a deeply sensitive and uplifting watch.

62. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (2019)

7.9

Country

Malawi, UK, United Kingdom

Director

Chiwetel Ejiofor

Actors

Aissa Maiga, Bruno Chitsulo, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Eddie Mbugua

Moods

Inspiring, Sunday, Touching

This movie’s energy is completely intoxicating.

It’s the directorial debut of renown British/Nigerian actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, but it feels like the work of a veteran.

In a true story told in English and Chichewa (a language from Malawi), a young boy is expelled from school because his parents couldn’t afford tuition. At the same time, his village is struck by a variety of natural circumstances that bring them the threat of drought and famine.

The young boy sneaks into the library in the hopes of making a windmill and saving his village, and you can guess what follows from the title.

The triumph of engineering and a boy with a dream; mix in an incredibly interesting culture, full of unique family dynamics and a thought-provoking intersection between religion, tradition, and technology. The result is a delicate but uplifting movie, not to be missed.

63. So Long, My Son (2019)

7.9

Country

China

Director

Wang Xiaoshuai, Xiaoshuai Wang

Actors

Ai Liya, Du Jiang, Li Jingjing, Qi Xi

Moods

Challenging, Character-driven, Depressing

China implemented the one-child policy in the 1980s in order to curb the population growth, ending it by 2015 due to the shifting dependency ratio. So Long, My Son depicts two families while the policy was implemented, alternating between past and present to depict how the fickle finger of fate changed their destinies in a single tragedy. It’s intimate and heart-wrenching, and the thirty years haven’t been enough to soothe the guilt, fear, and pain that struck them. Clocking in at three hours, the film may not be a quick and easy watch, but So Long, My Son is the rare depiction of how China’s rapid changes personally affected its people, for better or worse.

64. The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)

7.9

Country

Argentina, Brazil, Chile

Director

Walter Salles

Actors

Antonella Costa, Constanza B. Majluf, Cristián Chaparro, Erto Pantoja

Moods

Feel-Good, Heart-warming, Inspiring

Let’s fight! I’m not a fan of “Into the wild” okay okay, calm down… Maybe we can fix this. Maybe we could watch “The Motorcycle Diaries” together. Watching this heartwarming movie, you will get the travel bug. I got it and I never got rid of it. I even want to go on a motorcycle tour through South America although I would have never dreamed of getting on a motorbike. Have fun with it. Oh and… this film is about the young Che Guevara and his friend Alberto Granado by the way.

65. Amour (2012)

7.9

Country

Austria, France, Germany

Director

Michael Haneke

Actors

Alexandre Tharaud, Carole Franck, Emmanuelle Riva, Isabelle Huppert

Amour is about Anne and Georges, an elderly couple who face challenges in their relationship after Anne suffers a debilitating stroke. They’re portrayed by Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant in what can only be described as a masterclass in acting. It’s a challenging story but it’s a realistic portrayal of love later in life and in the face of time.

Directed by Michael Haneke, the movie was met with widespread acclaim from critics when it came out in 2012, winning the Palme d’Or as well as the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

66. Bad Education (2004)

7.8

Country

Belgium, Spain

Director

Pedro Almodóvar

Actors

Agustín Almodóvar, Alberto Ferreiro, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Fele Martínez

Moods

Challenging, Character-driven, Dark

There’s a cyclical tragedy at the heart of Bad Education, that starts with love, then continues in separation, and ends with hoping to redeem one’s self, and it would have felt repetitive if it wasn’t for the metafictional framing of Pedro Almodóvar. It boldly tackles the sexual abuse occurring in Catholic boarding schools, from which Almodóvar was educated under. It also explores it through a series of brilliant twists, as each reveal essentially repeats again and again, with each remix increasing the stakes, weaving a new layer to the love triangle, and exacerbating the consequences. Bad Education blends Enrique’s, and perhaps Almodóvar’s, life with fiction, with the brilliance and style Almodóvar is best known for.

67. The Lighthouse (2019)

7.8

Country

Brazil, Canada, United Kingdom

Director

Robert Eggers

Actors

Jeff Cruts, Kyla Nicolle, Logan Hawkes, Pierre Richard

Moods

Dark, Slow, Weird

Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe are the only two actors starring in this eccentric movie, and they deliver such grand performances that it feels like another actor would have been one too many.

They star as lighthouse keepers in the 19th century, left on an island to interact only with each other and their rock. It’s a fascinating premise of how these men, left on their own, deal with boredom, loneliness, and being annoyed with one another.

Incredible performances, an interesting aspect ratio, and perhaps excessive weirdness, make this movie unforgettable.

68. The Magdalene Sisters (2002)

7.8

Country

Ireland, UK, United Kingdom

Director

Peter Mullan

Actors

Anne-Marie Duff, Britta Smith, Chris Patrick-Simpson, Daniel Costello

Moods

Dark, Depressing, True-crime

This is a touching saga based on the plight of the women labelled as “fallen” that the Magdalene Laundries housed in Ireland. The movie grips you by the throat right from the first minute and the sense of injustice to women that characterizes the entire length of the film only rarely eases up to give you room to appreciate the emotional complexities that each individual character represents.
The stories of Margaret, Bernadette and Rose and the people they meet inside the Magdalene Laundry will force you to ask time and again during the movie, “Why?” and “Who are they to?”. You will share in Bernadette’s sense of outrage, in Rose’s compassion and Margaret’s acute fear of the church, of speaking up and asking for justice. So much so, that you may even find yourself identifying with (or at least understanding) Crispina’s questionable grasp on reality. Worst of all, the devout Catholic establishment that this was, hypocrisy and corruption ran through its every vein, adding to the shock and resentment that builds towards the, for the lack of a better word, captors of our protagonists.
The Magdalene Sisters is a tribute to one of the forgotten chapters in a long history of injustice to women and an absolutely moving one at that. It does not fail to utterly horrify while it also warms your heart.

69. This Is England (2006)

7.8

Country

UK, United Kingdom

Director

Shane Meadows

Actors

Andrew Ellis, Andrew Shim, Chanel Cresswell, Danielle Watson

Moods

Emotional, Original, Sunday

Shaun (Thomas Turgoose) is a 12-year-old kid fueled by rage because of his father’s death. Over the course of the summer in good ole’ Northern England, he befriends a group of local skinheads and instantly feels at home – with the mischief-making still partially at bay then. This was prior to meeting Combo, the most ill-bred of the gang, and being led down a path of greater danger.
Dubbed as director Shane Meadows’s best work, it’s easy to pick this one off a list and give it all the praise, depicting England perfectly in a coming-of-age approach you otherwise would’ve paid no mind to.

70. One Cut of the Dead (2017)

7.8

Country

Japan

Director

Shin'ichirō Ueda, Shin'ichiro Ueda

Actors

Ayana Goda, Donguri, Harumi Shuhama, Harumi Syuhama

Moods

Action-packed, Challenging, Grown-up Comedy

Another indie zombie movie? Far from it. One Cut of the Dead, written and directed by Shin’ichirô Ueda, became a global sensation following its small theatrical run in Japan for its creative and original screenplay. A hack director and film crew are shooting a low-budget zombie movie in an abandoned WWII Japanese facility when they are attacked by real zombies. That’s all you need to know about the plot, as the film is full of surprises that will catch you off guard. Wondering how an independent film with a budget of just $25,000 was able to gross over $30 million worldwide? The answer lies in the film itself. 

Comments

Add a comment

Curated by humans, not algorithms.

agmtw

© 2024 A Good Movie to Watch. Altona Studio, LLC, all rights reserved.