US Indies

Fresh styles and new schools of cinematic expression have the power to wake us from any cliched drama-stupor as they defiantly re-define tomorrow’s mainstream. In all their diversity Andrea Arnold, Sean Baker, Julie Bertuccelli, Lizzie Borden, Charles Burnett, Terence Davies, Cheryl Dunye, Rolf de Heer, Ira Sachs, Patrick Wang, and many, many others share the work of waking us up.

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  • For the Plasma

    Directed by Bingham Bryant, Kyle Molzan • Drama • With Anabelle LeMieux, Rosalie Lowe • 2016 • 94 minutes

    For the Plasma begins in a remote house on the coast of Maine, where a young woman named Helen has found work as a forest-fire lookout responsible for monitoring the nearby woodland. While a...

  • The Winds That Scatter

    Directed by Christopher Jason Bell • Drama • 2015 • 79 minutes

    Ahmad Chahrour, in his acting debut plays a refugee from Syria that shares his name. After he loses his menial employment at a gas station, he does his best to navigate the American economy with optimism and good faith. Soon, reality...

  • The Hole Story

    Directed by Alex Karpovsky • Drama • With Alex Karpovsky • 2005 • 83 minutes

    An aspiring television producer cashes in his life savings to produce the pilot to a documentary television series, only to find himself in a battle with nature, reality and his own internal demons.

  • Happer's Comet

    Directed by Tyler Taormina • Drama • With Grace Berlino, Michael Gugliamo • 2022 • 62 minutes

    Following his acclaimed debut HAM ON RYE, Tyler Taormina’s hypnotic follow-up is a midnight mosaic that reveals a suburban town steeped in alienation. It’s the middle of the night, but things are far fr...

  • Woodpecker

    Directed by Alex Karpovsky • Drama • With Jon Hyrns, Wesley Yang • 2008 • 87 minutes

    This comedy follows Hyrns and his cohort, Wesley Yang, as they obsessively search the Arkansas bayou for proof that ivory-billed woodpecker is in fact not extinct.

  • Lenz

    Directed by Alexandre Rockwell • Drama • With Alexander Alexeieff, Kim Marie Radonovich • 1982 • 92 minutes

    An adaptation of George Buchner's novella, "Lenz", chronicling the poet Jakob Lenz's slide into insanity and madness. The setting is transposed from 18th century Germany to New York in the...

  • Superior

    Directed by Erin Vassilopoulos • Drama • With Alessandra Mesa, Ani Mesa • 2021 • 99 minutes

    When Marian is on the run, she goes to the only place she knows is safe: her childhood home. She is greeted by her estranged sister, Vivian, a stay-at-home housewife struggling to conceive and on the verg...

  • She's Lost Control

    Directed by Anja Marquardt • Drama • With Brooke Bloom, Marc Menchaca • 2014 • 90 minutes

    Fiercely independent, Ronah works as a sexual surrogate in New York City, teaching her clients the very thing they fear most – to be intimate. Her life unravels when she starts working with a volatile new c...

  • Gabi on the Roof in July

    Directed by Lawrence Michael Levine • Drama • With Sophia Takal, Lawrence Michael Levine, Brooke Bloom, Louis Cancelmi, Kate Lyn Sheil, Amy Seimetz, Lena Dunham • 2017 • 101 minutes

    A portrait of young New York and the misguided hopefuls who can't afford to live there but do anyway, Gabi on the ...

  • Cane River

    Directed by Horace B. Jenkins • Drama • With Tommye Myrick, Richard Romain, Carol Sutton • 1982 • 104 minutes

    Written, produced, and directed by Emmy Award-winning documentarian, Horace B. Jenkins, and crafted by an entirely African American cast and crew, CANE RIVER is a racially-charged love s...

  • Keep the Lights On (Ira Sachs)

    Directed by Ira Sachs • Drama • With Thure Lindhardt, Zachary Booth; Julianne Nicholson • 2012 • 106 minutes

    Keep the Lights On chronicles an emotionally and sexually charged journey of two men in New York City through love, friendship, and addiction. Documentary filmmaker Erik (Thure Lindhardt)...

  • Francine

    Directed by Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky • Drama • With Melissa Leo • 2012 • 74 minutes

    After years of incarceration, a quiet, lonely woman, Francine (Academy Award® winner Melissa Leo), is released to start a new life in a small, rural town. But despite opportunities for warmth and conn...

  • As Good As You

    Directed by Heather de Michele • Drama • With Laura Heisler, Anna Fitzwater, Raoul Bhaneja, Bryan Dechart, Annie Potts • 2017 • 85 minutes

    Jo (Laura Heisler) is having a bad year. She has major writer's block, a rather dire caffeine addiction and is deeply mourning the untimely death of her bea...

  • Bless Their Little Hearts

    Directed by Billy Woodberry • Drama • With Nate Hardman, Kaycee Moore • 1983 • 80 minutes

    Searching for steady work, Charlie (Nate Hardman) views his chronic unemployment as a kind of spiritual trial. But selling a few catfish can’t sustain a family of five while his wife, Andais (Kaycee Moore)...

  • Shortbus

    Directed by John Cameron Mitchell • Drama • With Sook-Yin Lee, Paul Dawson, Justin Vivian Bond • 2006 • 101 minutes

    NSFW. Contains nudity and graphic depictions of sex.

    John Cameron Mitchell’s SHORTBUS explores the lives of several emotionally challenged characters as they navigate the comic an...

  • David Holzman's Diary

    Directed by Jim McBride • Drama • With Eileen Dietz, Kit Carson • 1967 • 73 minutes

    David Holzman's Diary is one of the most influential films of the 1960s, an "ingenious puzzle movie" (Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader) that charts the self-destruction of a media-saturated youth. As news from the Viet...

  • The Midnight Swim

    Directed by Sarah Adina Smith • Drama • With Lindsay Burdge, Jennifer Lafleur, Aleksa Palladino • 2014 • 84 minutes

    Spirit Lake is unusually deep. No diver has ever managed to find the bottom, though many have tried. When Dr. Amelia Brooks disappears during a deep-water dive, her three daughters...

  • The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle

    Directed by David Russo • Drama • With Marshall Allman, Jeanette Maus • 2009 • 97 minutes

    After losing his cubicle job as a data manager in Seattle, spiritually confused Dory feels like his life is going down the drain. He plummets from white collar to brown collar when he is forced to take a jo...

  • Funny Ha Ha

    Directed by Andrew Buljalski • Drama • With Kate Dollenmayer, Christian Rudder, Mark Herlehy • 2002 • 83 minutes

    Marnie is 23, and drifts through "Funny Ha Ha," Andrew Bujalski's critically acclaimed debut feature, in search of romance and employment. The film's conversations sound improvised an...

  • Dance Party USA

    Directed by Aaron Katz • Drama • With Cole Pensinger, Anna Kavan, Brendan McFadden • 2006 • 66 minutes

    Apathetic seventeen-year-old Gus hangs around doing nothing with his buddy Bill most of the time. Gus likes to tell half-true stories about all the girls he’s slept with and all the drugs he’s ...

  • Ape

    Directed by Joel Potrykus • Drama • With Joshua Burge, Gary Bosek, Daniel Falicki • 2013 • 86 minutes

    Trevor Newandyke is a struggling comedian and a pyromaniac. Not only does he bomb on stage, but he bombs in everyday life. He's fed up with threats from the cable company, Slurpee price hikes an...

  • Redlegs

    Directed by Brandon Harris • Drama • With Andrew Katz, Evan Louison, Nathan Ramos • 2012 • 67 minutes

    A comedic drama set amongst grieving twenty-something man-boys in the industrial Midwest whose black friend was recently murdered in a historically troubled part of Cincinnati, Ohio.

  • Shit Year

    Directed by Cam Archer • Drama • With Ellen Barkin, Luke Grimes, Bob Einstein • 2011 • 95 minutes

    A renowned actress, Ellen Barkin, abandons her successful acting career for a secluded life in the hills where reality becomes inseparable from unhinged obsessions in a hallucinatory struggle to rec...

  • We Go Way Back

    Directed by Lynn Shelton • Drama • With Amber Hubert, Maggie Brown, Kate Bayley • 2006 • 79 minutes

    Lynn Shelton's debut feature draws on her past as a stage actress but WE GO WAY BACK is no autobiographical drama. Kate (Amber Hubert) is a struggling actress who has given up her happiness and he...