Pajiba

Amelie

Run Lola Run

Secretary

The Sea Inside

All the Real Girls
Junebug
Once
Rocket Science
The Station Agent
Raising Victor Vargas
Waitress

Not sure if all of these count as indie...I think they should.

Work some Wes Anderson in there.
And most importantly BRICK.
Brick Brick Brick.
Do it.

Speaking of the Gosling... United States of Leland, Junebug, or Imaginary Heroes... all great films.

I know Miyazaki films probably aren't strictly "independent" now that they're distributed through Disney, but I find that a lot of folks in East Texas have never heard of them so for the family friendly films I would recommend "My Neighbor Totorro" and "Sprited Away". I recently watched "Kiki's Delivery Service" for the first time ever and while I enjoyed it, I doubt the folks at Baylor would get behind the whole witch thing. I think "MNT" and "SA" might even be a little too out there as far as Japanese "sprituality" (for lack of a better word) goes, but I own "MNT" and both my kids (5 and 9) watch it regularly. I don't know if "The Iron Giant" qualifies an an indie film either - it's probably more of a commercially unsuccessful mainstream film - but it is one great film that no one should have a problem watching.

I, personally, really like "Gerry" with Matt Damon and Casey Affleck. It's very slow and admittedly starts off boring but I really got in to it quickly.

Other than that my mind is drawing a blank although I usually love indie and foreign films. I'm sure others will have much better selections than me anyway.

Recent good ones:

Brick
Bottle Rocket (the most indie of Wes Andersons films and still great or sub Rushmore if you want higher quality)
Junebug
The Station Agent
Run Lola Run

Those are some good recent ones.

freeway (best reese witherspoon)
idiocracy
donnie darko
royal tenenbaums
big trouble little china
the jerk
beetlejuice
v for vendetta
i heart huckabees
drop dead gorgeous
easy rider

not sure they're all indie....

well off the top of my head I'd go with:

Brick
Thank You for Smoking
Memento
Primer (can't get any more indie than this and I think it might have been made in Texas. But I'm too lazy to check right now.)

Primer.

Whatever you do, regardless of any recommendations, ignoring anything you might hear otherwise...

DO NOT SHOW GUMMO.
DO NOT SHOW GUMMO.
DO NOT SHOW GUMMO.
DO NOT SHOW BUFFALO 66.
DO NOT SHOW BUFFALO 66.
DO NOT SHOW BUFFALO 66.
DO NOT SHOW THE BROWN BUNNY.
DO NOT SHOW THE BROWN BUNNY.
DO NOT SHOW THE BROWN BUNNY.

I think when giving recommendations for this, we have to keep our audience in mind, not just name our favorites. Am I wrong in that Baylor is a private, Baptist University? Not that Baptists can't enjoy independent film, but for these recs I'd say we should keep content and "appropriateness" in mind maybe moreseo than we would for a general audience. The idea is to draw them to independent film, not scare them away.

That said, my favorite movie that I've always considered an independent film but that may not actually be is Muriel's Wedding. Is it? I guess I've always just thought of it that way ever since I had a friend refer to it as, "You know, that weird movie tinmo likes."

If we're going to start them out with Wes Anderson, it's gotta be The Royal Tennenbaums, his most accessible (and in my opinion, his best) film. Bottle Rocket is good but is not the way to introduce Anderson to people who are new to independents.

I'd say:

Lars and the Real Girl
Brick
Waitress
Pan's Labrynth
The Return

Freeway
Lars and the Real Girl
Amelie
Brick
Delicatessen
City of Lost Children
Waitress
Legend of 1900
Run Lola Run
Waiting for Guffman
La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc(1928)

Oh, and Happy, Texas

I forgot to add Whale Rider

Junebug
Love Liza
Brick
Ghost World
Rushmore (if that counts as "Independent")
Green Street Hooligans

My Life As A Dog

Spanking the Monkey

Shallow Grave

Raise the Red Lantern

Metropolis

being john malkovich
little miss sunshine
memento

'Waiting for Guffman,' 'Lars and the Real Girl,' and 'Being John Malkovich,' are all good movies.

I'd suggest 'Love, Liza' or 'Before the Devil Knows You're Dead,' just because Phillip Seymour Hoffman is my favorite actor in the whole wide world. Love, Liza is probably the most heartbreakingly sad yet unintentionally funny movie I've seen in a while. You feel so badly for the guy (the movie is about a man whose wife committed suicide) but can't help but laugh at his gas huffing antics (oh, he huffs gas to cope.)

Weird, but made me want to buy a model airplane.
"Do you know who I am?! I'm a BIG fan of remote control!"

I will second Pi. I just watched it for the first time a few weeks age, and it's amazing. It reminded me a lot of La Jetee, which is another good one. It's very different, non-offensive, but really really good. (That actually refers to both of them...)

I also loved City of Lost Children, any of the Guest oeuvre, Run Lola Run, Brick, Waitress, Being John Malkovich, alot of the other titles listed here are great. I will add that I loved Buffalo 66 despite Skitz' recriminations.

scotland, pa

brother from another planet

down by law

secrets and lies

pink flamingos

do the right thing (indie?)

raising arizona (indie?)

harold and maude

eraserhead

and many others i love that have already been mentioned, like guffman, real girls, station agent, lars, etc...
i'm assuming you want english language. if not, then i could expand the list greatly.

Wristcutters
Sideways

both deliciously good.

perhaps i stretched the notion of "family friendly", but my parents exposed me to mature themes (minus graphic sex and violence) and i'm grateful for that.

i think that kids can handle more sophisticated topics than those to which they're usually exposed. but if you're talking about *really* little kids, then... i'm sorry for you!

Friends With Money
Amelie
Sideways
I'm Reed Fish
Saved

I don't know if I would agree with Pink Flamingos... I mean, I loved that movie, but John Waters has a ... special audience. For his earlier work, anyway. Polyester might work.

I love, love, love Alejandro Amenabar's "Thesis"--absolutely fun thriller.

Gummo.
When it was screened in my university's senior level class full of FILM STUDIES MAJORS, half the class walked out.

That being said, I love it and have had many deep conversations about the possible meanings of duct-tape on the nipples.

"Why don't you go over and slow pull Eric Stoltz if you like him so much, Skitz."

Well maybe I already have, Jackseppelin... And maybe, just maybe, he let me wear the Rocky Dennis prosthetics the whole time...

Let it be said again and again and again:::

ALL THE REAL GIRLS

There may no better indie film out there, it's David Gordon Green's masterpiece.

Also, someone mentioned River's Edge. That movie is a freakin' masterpiece as well. Those two should definitely be shown. And of course, the greatest film of the 1980s, Blue Velvet.

ALL THE REAL GIRLS
RIVER'S EDGE
BLUE VELVET

I'm going to leave off foreign films because they're indie by dint of US parochialism, not distribution or finance (face it, half the studio pictures of the last twenty years have been financed out of Germany, so finance doesn't count. It's all about distribution).

Plus, y'all need to distinguish between indie and cult.

Anyways, in roughly chronological order:
Detour 1945, directed by Edgar Ulmar, released by PRC. Low budget, nasty noir. Really exceptional.
The Shooting 1967, Monte Hellman directing Jack Nicholson, financed by Roger Corman. About as indie as it is possible to get.
Pink Flamingos, 1972, John Waters's most memorable early effort. Waters is probably the best example of someone consistently successfully working outside Hollywood.
Eraserhead, 1977, David Lynch's piece of exceptional weirdness. Can you think of any film that better deserves the title "Indie"?
Return of the Secaucus Seven 1982, not because it's a particularly good movie, but because it was early Sayles, and he pretty much wrote the book on indie in the 80's. Plus, it spawned studio imitations like The Big Chill. So, obvs it was influential.
Blood Simple 1984. The reason the Coen's became indie darlings in the first place. Still one of their best films.
Do The Right Thing, 1989, Spike Lee's most coherent film.
Drugstore Cowboy, 1989, Gus Van Zandt's real claim to fame.
Bottle Rocket, 1996, Wes Anderson's first full-length feature.
Citizen Ruth, 1996, Alexander Payne's seldom seen first feature for the Weinsteins, which is the best film about abortion ever made.
Pi, 1998, Aronovsky's best workBeing John Malkovich, 1999, one of my all-time favorite films. Read the first draft script and see how it was almost a disaster - saved by Spike Jonze.
Memento, 2000, Chris Nolan's exceptional film distributed by Newmarket.
The Station Agent, 2003. I hesitate to suggest this although I love it, because it was distributed by Miramax late in the piece, after they were acquired by Disney, which sort of makes it not Indie. But it was started before the acquisition, so I think it counts.
American Splendor2003. Berman/Pulcini. Innovative, charming.
Thank You For Smoking, by Jason Reitman, 2005. Near perfect first film.

Yeah, I'm a snob and a pedant.

oo! and i 5th (7th?) the station agent.

Party Girl (you have to include a Parker Possie movie)

i second whale rider. or The Fast Runner. or Yeelen, but good luck finding that one.

do NOT show brick. the dialogue in that... es demasiado, man

I'd just like take a minute to plug my own Indie film:

"Writer's Block 2: The......"

1. Brick
2. Memento
3. Donnie Darko
4. Rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead
5. The Station Agent
6. No Man's Land

rocky definitely hit on something with the Sayles rec. I think that's a much better direction for this audience than a lot of the mindfucks. Give them some identifiable human drama, populated with strong characters who are also usually decent people, in settings that Hollywood doesn't bother with. That's what Sayles is all about. Lone Star would be an absolute slam dunk there in Texas, and The Secret of Roan Inish would be a great family film.

Another great indy family-friendly film is The Straight Story.

Oh thank you all so much! It is great seeing Pajiba helping me out with my problem, I knew ya'll were a caring people! Haha, who am I kidding.
So yeah, I know Baylor is conservative and everything, but we're still going to try to push the envelope with some of our movies. While we're not going to show Gummo or the Pink Flamingos (OHMGOD GUMMO- the scariest thing I have ever freaking watched and it isn't even a horror film!), we do want to show a couple of more "edgy" independent films. For example- while it isn't the most "indie" thing out there I really want to present Chasing Amy. It's by Kevin Smith, and anything to get more people to watch him is getting in God's good graces, and it deals with homosexuality in what I believe to be an intelligent and grown-up way. And I really want to show a gay movie at Baylor. The main thing I want to do is show the gambit of indie movies- or as much as I can with only the weekend I have to show them in. Everything from white bread to rye, I want people to know there are other things out there.
So far I only for sure know we are showing either The Texas Chain Saw Massacre or Night of the Living Dead at a midnight showing. I really want to show Brick, even though as some have said the dialogue is ...... Also I completely second the Whale Rider love- but I'm trying to decide if it is independent or foreign. After first looking into doing this and thinking, "I'm not going to be able to find a lot of good independent movies," (this is when Gummo was one of the only indie films I had seen) I'm now trying to narrow the field and cut away some of my favorites. Like Lars and the Real Girl- Oh, how I love you Ryan Gosling, our babies would be beautiful- might give way to Blood Simple. The decision is becoming almost too hard to make.
Thank you all for your help, and I will keep the wonderful, beautiful, and alcoholic community of Pajiba updated.
Emily

"Bubble," if you're still taking suggestions.

Memento was awesome. And Clerks was pretty damn good.

Oh, and a shout-out for the lowest budget good film ever made, Primer. Check it out, it's amazing what a couple of computer engineers can pull off when starting with a $7,000 budget and no training in film-making. Someone ought to give Shane Carruth an actual budget and see what he can do.

"You're talking about making a bigger one."

For a conservative Southern Baptist audience I recommend The World's Fastest Indian. While being foreign/indie it has good ol' boy popcorn-crowd pleasing features such as:

Anthony Hopkins
A semi-sport (or at least things being raced)
Based on a true story
Can be classified as feel-good
Shows the value of hard work

It cannot be said enough: as much as I adore Brick, I don't think it's a starter film for the blockbuster crowd. It's dialogue is challenging and it has themes of drug use, murder, premarital sex, teen pregnancy, and drug dealing. NOT family/religion friendly.

On a similar note, Saved! may rub people the wrong way. Pan's Labyrinth will make them cry in a bad way.

Haven't seen anyone mention Hoop Dreams.

Or El Mariachi

Sweetie
Desperate Living
Evil Dead
Down By Law
Drugstore Cowboy

Those are the ones that immediately came to mind

Psycho Beach Party.

Seriously. Check it out.

The Straight Story - is that independent?

I think so -- it debuted on the festival circuit and won some Independent Spirit Awards. It plays like an independent flick, at any rate.

Emily - if you want to show people a sweet film that deals with homosexuality then I double my recommendation of Saving Face. It's a really adorable romcom that just happens to be about a lesbian Chinese-American, and freakin' nobody has seen it, which is a shame.
And I don't wanna sound like a queer or nothing, but Depeche Mode rocks.

Safe bets (in that they'll be able to understand everything without subtitles)
The Lookout (I think this one is particularly good - a midwestern morality play)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Donnie Darko

Harder:
Brick
Memento
Shallow Grave

If you want to blow their minds:
Anything by Peter Greenaway, esp:
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover
8 and 1/2 Women
The Pillow Book is beautiful but challenging

oh...actually the Depeche Mode line was from Orgazmo....I was following up Timno's Dave the Lighting Guy quote. But you should still see Saving Face, it's really good.

In My Skin. Always goes over well at festivals.

And by over well, I mean people passing out, throwing up, and leaving in hysterics. My kind of indie cinema.

And to think, there's nothing overtly violent on screen; just a really great sound design. A very powerful, relevant film. Beautiful to watch, and difficult to forget.

Definitely show The Visitor - that movie was amazing and i first read about it on Pajibes. it's the same director as Station Agent which was also great.

a few others i agree with/add

Easy Rider, Kids, Junebug, Half Nelson, Mysterious Skin (so much), Dead Man (my favorite movie of all times), and i second Shallow Grave, maybe even Trainspotting as an alternative, Memento is awesome, so is Waitress... pretty much I want to hijack your responsibilities here and choose the pictures i think will be most effective on that kind of audience because it could really have a big effect on the way they see things and come to appreciate art. good luck!

- Half Nelson
- Lars and the Real Girl
- The Station Agent
- The Visitor
- George Washington
- You Can Count On Me
- A Slipping Down Life
- Adrift in Manhattan
- The Lives of Others and Whale Rider if they fit the bill

Hats off to popejenn for the Psycho Beach Party shout out. Truly a fantastic film. I have a few others to add, since gay cinema is being sorely underrepresented here:

Big Eden (family friendly)
Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss
Jeffrey
Girls Will Be Girls
Chasing Amy

And in the realm of non-gay indie cinema:

Junebug
Waitress
The Blair Witch Project
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
House of Yes
Bad Education
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Cry_Wolf (eat me...it was a stunning job on such a limited budget)

The Fast Runner

good call, Atanajurat is a fantastic movie.

others:

dazed and confused
before sunrise
rushmore
living in oblivion
triplets of belleville
city of lost children
man on wire
waltz with bashir
thin blue line (since it's about texas injustice)

Whale Rider - family friendly
Millions - family friendly
My First Mister
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Amelie
Little Miss Sunshine

Suburbia and Rabbit-Proof Fence

Eep! Emily said she asked Pajiba for recommendations...not gonna lie, this is awesome.

- another person in the Baylor film club

P.S.: I have a list of favorites. I guess I'll post them here...the second I have two extra seconds to do so.

Too whomever mentioned "Muriel's Wedding," GOOD CALL! That may have been one of my first small-budget films I ever saw and I absolutely loved it.

Oh, and is "Layer Cake" indie? That movie was BADASS, so I'd throw that in. And "Hot Fuzz" too.

And good family-friendly ones: Rocket Science, Millions, Little Miss Sunshine, Whale Rider.

george washington
junebug
this is england
northfork
jackpot

the wind that shakes the barley.

i had to check to make sure it was independent, and it is, and it's great. centers on the beginning of the troubles in ireland. beautiful and heartwrenching. and has cillian murphy in it, which automatically makes any movie beautiful and heartwrenching in my book.

re: Baylor and film content--there are ways we deal with it. IIRC, the last film-related club at BU got thrown off for showing A Clockwork Orange, which is...ouch. So we're a little careful. We almost got in trouble at the beginning of the year over Scarface, but we got around it by having attendees sign a waiver for us (this is for educational purposes/views expressed in films are not necessarily the views of BU/by signing this, you agree not to be offended enough to sue us/really influential films have naughty actions and language sometimes, so deal/etc./etc.). Also, there's the issue of venue. If we end up showing one outdoors on a big inflatable screen in the middle of campus, it probably can't be Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Just sayin'. We'd be off-campus quicker than you could say "fleshlight." Thus, a few of the ones we pick should be pretty family-friendly in case we have an outdoor showing, but if we can push the envelope on the ones we show inside (because good films do sometimes deal with subjects Baylor doesn't always approve of), we will. If the school says no and we can't get them to budge, that's a no. But that doesn't mean we won't ask. ;o)

Emily--Check yer e-mail.

Baylor University may be "the puritanical provost" but their requests should be respected. Otherwise, how will change ever happen? Showing indies that fit their requirements is stifling, but it's a small step that will hopefully lead to bigger steps. This film festival IS for the students of Baylor, afterall, not for us.

And anyway, shoving artsy movies down their throats and getting all pedantic and making them feel stupid with "you just don't get it" statements isn't going to make them love indie films.

I wish more conservative towns had these festivals! So many small towns just aren't exposed to this sort of thing.

Secretary ??
really?
you would watch THAT movie with your whole family?

The family-friendly concept is the biggest problem here.... I guess "eternal sunshine...",
Little miss sunshine
The boy in the striped pajamas
Harold and maude??
Lars and the real girl???
I'm not family-friendly

I think things are getting better here in regards to being able to show what we want and have people actually be interested in it. For one, there was a foreign film fest earlier this year that had a pretty nice turnout. And a lot of people complain that the "good" movies never stay for long in Waco. If we show some good movies on campus, people will come.

I don't see how anyone's pandering to anything here--if we really want to show something, we'll fight to be able to show it. But there's got to be something worth fighting for there--as in, it's got to be a good film, not something we're just showing to shock people.

I doubt anyone is still reading but for for all it's worth I'll give my t'uppence worth. These are not necessarily my favourites but three which immediately come to mind:

Honeydripper (deals with black America issues and development of the elctric guitar. Very interesting and family friendly)

In Search of a Midnight Kiss (a relationship movie but different not like the stuff Hollywood churns out every week)

A Complete History Of My Sexual Failures (not family friendly but definitely very entertaining)