What is an independent film?
For some, the phrase conjures images of a black-and-white movie with weird plots and imagery. For others, the term suggests an energetic DIY spirit, a punk song playing out on screen. While some indie movies do have those qualities, the definition is far more simple. An indie movie is a film produced by one of the major studios — Disney, Sony, Paramount, Universal, Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, and so on. These studios might distribute a film, but as long as they didn’t produce it, then we define the film as “indie.”
That said, the best indie films need something more than just the right production history. They need to challenge the viewer and push the medium forward. Nowhere was that more common than in the 1990s, when some of the greatest directors made all-time classics without major studio interference. Find here the absolute best 1990s indie films.
1. Fargo (1996)
These days, the production company Working Title Films falls under the umbrella of the major studio Universal. But in the mid-90s, Working Title stood (more or less) on its own, and helped make movies by the decades’ greatest directing duo, brothers Joel and Ethan Coen. And the Coen’s 90’s piqued with Fargo, the dark comedy about a kidnapping and extortion gone wrong.
Everything about Fargo feels like poison to a major studio, from its Minnesota setting (complete with pronounced accents) to its leads Frances McDormand, William H. Macy, and Steve Buscemi. Well, everything except the movie’s success, including two Oscars and a $60 million return on a $7 million budget.
2. Malcolm X (1992)
Biographical epics most often fall under the domain of major studios, because such an undertaking requires vast resources. However, given the fiery message of Civil Rights leader Malcolm X, director Spike Lee had to go the independent route to bring the film to the screen.
Working through his own production company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, Lee crafted a titanic work that celebrates the irrepressible power of X’s message, complete with a breathtaking performance by Denzel Washington in the central role. Lee co-wrote the script with Arnold Perl, which received two Academy Award nominations and drew a new generation’s attention toward Malcolm X’s work.
3. The Ice Storm (1997)
Based on the novel by Rick Moody, The Ice Storm has no interest in mainstream appeal. The story follows two fractured families in 1970s suburbia, in which the adolescent children have a coming-of-age adventure while the parents try to spice up their lives with a key party.
Director Ang Lee and writer James Schamus tone down some of the anger in Moody’s novel, choosing instead to emphasize the hopes of the kids (portrayed by Christina Ricci, Tobey Maguire, and Elijah Wood) and the hopelessness of the adults (portrayed by Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver, and Joan Allen).
The international production did receive some help from 20th Century Fox’s boutique imprint Fox Searchlight, but the other companies Good Machine and Canal+ Image International helped ensure the film retained its nuanced approach.
4. Army of Darkness (1992)
On the exact opposite end of the spectrum comes Army of Darkness, the very definition of “unnuanced.”
The third in director Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead trilogy starring Bruce Campbell as Michigan bumpkin Ash Williams, Army of Darkness had a tortured production, as original studio Renaissance Pictures sought help to make the horror/comedy/fantasy mash-up. That help came in the form of superproducer Dino De Laurentiis, working through Dino De Laurentiis Communications, and special effects house Introvision International.
Never one to remain hands-off, De Laurentiis insisted on changes to the script by Sam Raimi and his brother Ivan Raimi. While those suggestions did not prevent Army of Darkness from being a unique thrill ride of a film, the copyright kerfluffle that followed De Laurentiis’s involvement still makes trouble for the Evil Dead franchise. Nevertheless, the movie remains one of the most popular 1990s indie films.
5. Pulp Fiction (1994)
The most important of all 1990s indie films, and perhaps the most important movie of the decade, nothing about Quentin Tarantino’s breakout film feels like a studio movie. Sure, Tarantino managed to get some big names in his cast, including Bruce Willis and Christopher Walken. But the off-beat additions, including a then-floundering John Travolta, as well as the film’s excessive violence and broken structure, required a studio willing to take a risk.
With no such studio in existence (at that point), Tarantino formed A Band Apart with Michael Bodnarchek and Lawrence Bender. Teaming with Danny De Vito’s production company Jersey Films and with distributor Miramax Films, Pulp Fiction made it to theaters and changed cinema forever.
6. Boogie Nights (1997)
These days, even non-cinephiles know director Paul Thomas Anderson as a master of the craft, the man behind impressive films such as There Will Be Blood, Licorice Pizza, and The Phantom Thread. But in the 90s, Anderson was still a Martin Scorsese acolyte who made his debut with the solid, if a bit obvious, Hard Eight.
The ambitious Boogie Nights, set in the adult film industry of the 1970s with Mark Wahlberg as well-endowed star Dirk Diggler, seemed a long shot for a major studio. So instead, Boogie Nights came from Lawrence Gordon Productions and Ghoulardi Film Company, distributed by New Line Cinema. The movie earned multiple Academy Award nominations and cemented Anderson as one of his generation’s best filmmakers.
7. The Virgin Suicides (1999)
It should surprise no one that Sofia Coppola would avoid major studios for her debut film The Virgin Suicides, based on the Jeffrey Eugenides novel of the same name. After all, her father Francis Ford Coppola had fought the studio system for decades, establishing his own Zoetrope Studios.
The gauzy comedy, starring Kirsten Dunst as one of six beautiful and elusive teen girls from a 1960s Detroit suburb, comes from Zoetrope, as well as Muse Productions, Eternity Pictures, and Paramount Classics, the independent subsidiary of major Paramount Studios. Thanks to the control afforded her, Coppola made a dreamy masterpiece on par with her father’s work, starting off an interesting and beguiling career.
8. Fight Club (1999)
After his success making hit music videos, David Fincher jumped into feature films with the sequel Alien 3, for 20th Century Fox. The studio meddling soured Fincher so much that he vowed not to repeat the process, and even considered giving up on features. But after scoring with The Game and Seven, Fincher’s interest in Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Fight Club drew him back to Fox, who had the rights to the book.
Fincher agreed to work with one of Fox’s indie labels Fox 2000, along with Regency Enterprises and Linson Films to get the film made. Despite involvement from stars Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, Fincher’s gritty direction and Jim Uhls’s smart, vulnerable script failed to find an audience in theaters. But when Fight Club hit DVD, the film right away became a huge cult hit.
9. Dead Man (1995)
Writer and director Jim Jarmusch made his name in the 1980s with slice-of-life films such as Stranger Than Paradise and Down By Law.
To modern viewers, Dead Man might seem like a swerve from those smaller-scale films, as it stars Johnny Depp and Robert Mitchum. But rest assured, Dead Man continues the style of Jarmusch’s idiosyncratic early work, a psychedelic Western about a dejected white man called William Blake (Johnny Depp) who befriends an indigenous man called Nobody (Gary Farmer).
Jarmusch found a home for his movie with Miramax Films, whose notorious co-founder Harvey Weinstein often wields a heavy hand on the creative promise. However, looking at the strange black-and-white Western, with an ambling Neil Young score, it’s clear that Dead Man is a product of Jarmusch’s imagination.
10. Being John Malkovich (1999)
Like David Fincher, director Spike Jonez came from the world of music videos, where his strange sense of humor was welcomed and rewarded. But when he brought that same sensibility to the movies, Jonez called upon Gramercy Pictures, along with Propaganda Films and Single Cell Pictures, to make Being John Malkovich.
Written by Charlie Kauffman, Being John Malkovich stars John Cusack and Cameron Diaz as a disaffected couple who finds a portal that puts them in the mind of the titular movie star. As moving as it is bizarre, Being John Malkovich is the sort of film that could only come from an independent studio.
11. Shakespeare in Love (1998)
Although it took Harvey Weinstein and Miramax Films to get the movie some attention, Shakespeare in Love has suffered from its association with the infamous organization. Many still dismiss the film as an unworthy winner of seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress for Judi Dench.
Those who can look past the controversy will find a delightful and fanciful film about the relationship between art and real life. Written by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard and directed by John Madden, Shakespeare in Love stars Joseph Fiennes as a young and attractive version of the Bard, whose love for noblewomen’s daughter Viola de Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow) inspires Romeo and Juliet.
The charming and playful film proved that the indie Bedford Falls Productions could make something to rival the production design and costume departments of the majors.
12. Daughters of the Dust (1991)
Daughters of the Dust is a movie unlike any other. Written and directed by Julie Dash, Daughters of the Dust follows three generations of Gullah women, an African-American people living on islands on the South Carolina coast, with their own unique language and culture.
Dash’s film presents the Peazant family without gloss or explanation, making no attempt to explain their ways to the viewer, but instead allowing them to speak for themselves. With its oversaturated images and unvarnished performances, Daughters of the Dust has an immediacy all its own, something that no major studio would touch but every moviegoer should see.
13. Good Will Hunting (1997)
In many ways, Good Will Hunting feels like the definitive 90s indie drama, and not just because Miramax Films distributes it.
Based on a script by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck and directed by Gus Van Sant, Good Will Hunting focuses on Will (Damon) and Dickie (Affleck), two rough-and-tumble guys from working-class Boston. When Will solves an impossible problem at Harvard, he comes to the attention of a respected mathematician (Stellan Skarsgard), who recruits his old friend and psychologist Sean (Robin Williams) to help the boy.
At times gritty and other times sentimental, with some of the most unforgettable lines of the decade, Good Will Hunting feels like a Hollywood drama, but in fact comes from Be Gentlemen Studios.
14. Safe (1995)
Although his most recent film May December has put him back in the public eye, director Todd Haynes has always worked best outside the major studios. That’s where he can make movies like Safe, a paranoid slice-of-life film that escapes easy definition. Safe stars Julianne Moore as a suburban housewife whose ennui shatters when she becomes allergic to cleaning chemicals.
Haynes offers no explanation of the causes or even the meaning of the housewife’s suffering. Instead, he lets the ordeal represent the silent suffering of modernity. He accomplishes this feat thanks in part to Moore’s unflinching performance and to a group of production companies, which include American Playhouse Theatrical Films, Killer Films, Channel 4 Films, and Good Machine.
15. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992)
The television series Twin Peaks enjoyed a brief period of popularity during its first season. But by the time the prequel movie Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me hit theaters in 1992, the series returned to cult status.
Director David Lynch, who co-created Twin Peaks with Mark Frost, had no intention of reaching a larger audience with Fire Walk With Me. Written by Lynch and Robert Engels, Fire Walk With Me tells the story of the last week in the life of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), whose death drives the show’s central mystery, but also adds an overt sense of menace and disgust to the surreal aspects.
As a result, Lynch found support not from any major studio, but from the French production company CIBY Pictures.
16. El Mariachi (1992)
Although he’s most often associated with Quentin Tarantino, writer/director Robert Rodriguez feels more like a filmmaker in the mode of Francis Ford Coppola. For most of his career, Rodriguez has worked outside the majors and made films on his own property, through his production company Troublemaker Studios.
Rodriguez’s debut film El Mariachi comes through Troublemaker’s forbearer, Los Hooligans Productions. The Spanish-language film stars Carlos Gallardo as the titular hero, who would be played by Antonio Banderas in Desperado — Rodriguez’s major studio outing with Columbia Pictures, and makes the most of its sub-$300,000 budget. The finished product grossed over $2 million and set up Rodriguez as a true Hollywood maverick.
17. Metropolitan (1990)
“If Lionel Trilling thinks that, then he’s an idiot,” says Audrey (Carolyn Farina), defending the Jane Austen novel Mansfield Park. The same might be said of those who dislike Whit Stillman’s directorial debut Metropolitan. Produced by Westerly Films and Allagash Films, Metropolitan updates Austen’s novels of manners for the 20th century, following an outsider (Edward Clements) navigating the world of New York’s elite.
Stillman’s use of non-professional actors (at least at that point in their career) might not work for some viewers, but others find the performances heighten Metropolitan’s heightened world and mannered speech.
18. Three Colors: White (1994)
With movies such as The Double Life of Veronique and the TV miniseries The Dekalog, Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski was already a titan of international cinema when his Three Colors trilogy made it to American shores via Miramax Films.
Of the three movies, each named for one of the colors in the French flag, Three Colors: White stands out for its mixture of comedy and pathos. White stars Zbigniew Zamachowski as Karol Karol, a Polish man who suffers a series of embarrassments and setbacks after his wife Dominique (Julie Delpy) kicks him out. Even as Karol’s situation grows more absurd, Kieślowski never loses sight of the humanity at the center, making for a unique and moving film.
Miramax may have distributed Three Colors: White in the U.S., but it was produced by MK2 Productions, France 3 Cinéma, CAB Productions, TOR Productions, and Canal+.
19. Before Sunrise (1995)
Speaking of Julie Delpy, American audiences might know the French actor best as Céline, half of the pair of lovers at the center of Before Sunrise and its two sequels, all directed by Richard Linklater. Written by Linklater and Kim Krizan, Before Sunrise follows Céline and American abroad Jesse (Ethan Hawke) as they spend an evening walking and talking.
The loose structure made for an ideal independent film, one that put emotion over the demands of big Hollywood filmmaking. Produced by Castle Rock Entertainment, Before Sunrise paved the way for the mumblecore movement of the following decade, and to make Jesse and Céline one of cinema’s most unique couples.
20. The Usual Suspects (1995)
While Pulp Fiction turned the country’s attention toward gritty, mean crime films, The Usual Suspects gained popularity for its slick presentation and twist ending.
Written by Mission: Impossible-Fallout director Christopher McQuarrie and directed by Bryan Singer, The Usual Suspects centered on a mythical criminal called Keiser Soze, who may or may not be behind a disastrous job undertaken by a mismatched group of criminals. Star Kevin Spacey gained a great deal of attention for his part as unreliable narrator Verbal Kint, as did Benicio del Toro as the incomprehensible Fenster.
Produced by PolyGram Filmed Entertainment and several other companies, The Usual Suspects became a huge hit and a major influence on the decade’s crime films.
21. Clerks (1994)
When wage laborer Dante (Brian O’Halloran) says, “I’m not even supposed to be here today,” he captures the frustrations of Generation X. Convinced by his boss to mind the convenience store where he works, Dante fights back by goofing off with his acidic buddy Randall (Jeff Anderson) and by going on excursions to funerals and hockey games.
For all of the movie’s slacker ethos, Clerks is the result of surprising industry from writer/director Kevin Smith, who financed the film by maxing out his credit cards under the name View Askew Productions. When Miramax picked up Clerks for distribution, Smith became one of the most notable filmmakers of his era.
22. Go Fish (1994)
On the surface, Go Fish shares a great deal in common with Clerks, with its black-and-white photography and ambling, dialogue-heavy script. But instead of a day in the life of convenience store workers, Go Fish follows the love life of several young lesbian women in Chicago.
Directed by Rose Troche, Go Fish stars Guinevere Turner (who co-wrote the screenplay with Troche) as Max, a woman pursuing a new relationship while sharing her philosophy with her friends and roommate. Troche uses a recurring image of the women lying on the ground and discussing their ideas to establish the camaraderie between them. Between that focus on everyday women and on lesbian love, Go Fish told a story that major studios were not ready to take on.
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