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Curated category

English-language independent films

  • Psycho (1960 film)Psycho, the 1960 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, opens on a specific Friday: December the Eleventh, in Phoenix, Arizona.
  • The TerminatorThe Terminator arrived in American cinemas on the 26th of October 1984, and it began with a nightmare. Director James Cameron had fallen ill in Rome during…
  • RoboCopRoboCop arrived in American theaters on the 17th of July 1987, and it was not what anyone expected. The title alone put people off.
  • Mad Max 2Mad Max 2 opened in Australian cinemas on the 24th of December 1981, a release date that gave holiday audiences something far removed from seasonal cheer.
  • Waking LifeWaking Life, Richard Linklater's 2001 animated film, opens with a boy floating upward from a driveway into the sky. It is the first signal that gravity here…
  • Synecdoche, New YorkCharlie Kaufman entered the director's chair in 2008 with a $20 million budget for his first feature film. Sony Pictures Classics had initially approached…
  • Annie HallAnnie Hall arrives on screen in 1977 with Woody Allen staring directly into the camera, ignoring every convention of moviegoing in the process.
  • Mad Max (film)Mad Max, the 1979 Australian film directed by George Miller, was made for roughly A$400,000 and went on to earn more than US$100 million worldwide.
  • Ex Machina (film)Ex Machina is a 2014 science fiction film that opens with an office prize nobody expects: a solitary week at the isolated home of a tech CEO.
  • The Hunt for GollumThe Hunt for Gollum is a 2009 British fantasy fan film that achieved something almost no one expected: it reached millions of viewers worldwide on a budget…
  • Everything Everywhere All at OnceEvelyn Quan Wang stands in a laundromat in Simi Valley, California, staring at an IRS audit notice that threatens to destroy her family's life.
  • Easy RiderEasy Rider opened on the 14th of July 1969 at the Beekman theater in New York City and broke the house record in its first week.
  • Hardware WarsHardware Wars is a 1978 short film that asks a simple question: what happens when you point a camera at a steam iron flying through space?
  • Session 9Session 9 is a 2001 psychological horror film set inside a real abandoned psychiatric hospital, and nearly everything terrifying about it was already there…
  • Cultural impact of Star WarsStar Wars began in 1977 as a single film by George Lucas. Within months, Fox's stock price jumped from $6 to $25 per share.