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  3. 15 Breakout Sundance Movies

15 Breakout Sundance Movies

''Before Midnight,'' ''Beasts of the Southern Wild,'' ''Precious,'' and more films launched to wider success from Park City
By EW Staff Updated December 16, 2013 at 05:00 AM EST
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Before Midnight (2013)

It was only natural the third installment in Richard Linklater's Before saga debuted in Park City — the first, Before Sunrise , made its world…
Credit: Despina Spyrou

It was only natural the third installment in Richard Linklater's Before saga debuted in Park City — the first, Before Sunrise, made its world premiere at Sundance in 1995. The reception was worthy of the homecoming, EW's Chris Nashawaty, naming Midnight his No. 1 Movie of 2013, called it ''a miracle...the rare romance that feels like real life — heady, heartbreaking, and ultimately hopeful.'' The Independent Spirit Award nominated Linklater and stars Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke for their screenplay, and Delpy also garnered Golden Globes and Spirits nods for her performance. —Lanford Beard

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Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)

The 2012 Grand Jury Prize winner was made with a shoestring budget and a flood of passion from its novice director. Lisa Schwarzbaum said of…
Credit: Jess Pinkham

The 2012 Grand Jury Prize winner was made with a shoestring budget and a flood of passion from its novice director. Lisa Schwarzbaum said of Beasts, ''The wonder is, the whole movie resists categorization. A feat of homemade, collaborative filmmaking, it was directed by the (29-year-old) Wesleyan-educated first-timer Benh Zeitlin from a script he co-wrote with Lucy Alibar based on her own play.... The movie is small, local, and idiosyncratic.'' Though the Bathtub-set indie got into some hot water with the unions for its casting policies, and its enigmatic concept seemed like box office poison, Beasts did steady business throughout the latter half of 2012. The film ultimately scored four Oscar nods — including a historic one for 9-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis, who was just 6 during filming. It seems summer moviegoers found a new kind of superhero in Beasts' heroine Hushpuppy. —Lanford Beard

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Blue Valentine (2010)

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Credit: Davi Russo

After the indie movement seemed to have stalled, Derek Cianfrance brought this portrait of a decaying marriage to the festival featuring indie darlings Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams. Blue Valentine was so honest, so emotionally raw, so ''indie,'' that even its fans had to question whether it had any chance in the modern marketplace. The Weinstein Company picked it up at the end of the festival, shepherded it through its NC-17 battles with the MPAA, and landed Williams an Oscar nomination. —Jeff Labrecque

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Precious (2009)

Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire, Gabourey 'Gabby' Sidibe | Selling points: It swept the Sundance and Toronto Film Festivals and got an avalanche of positive press when it opened in November. Nominations from SAG,…

Sundance might be famed for overnight sensations, but Precious — or Push: Based on the novel by Sapphire, as it was known when it first screened at the 2009 festival — was unlike anything the festival had ever experienced. Directed by Lee Daniels and starring a complete unknown, a stand-up comedian, and a pop diva, Precious's dark tale of a pregnant, illiterate inner-city teen wowed everyone — including Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey, who came aboard as producers after Lionsgate outmaneuvered the Weinstein Company to buy the film for $5 million. A year later, the film took home two Oscars, including Best Supporting Actress for Mo'Nique. —Jeff Labrecque

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Stranger Than Paradise (1985)

John Lurie, Eszter Balint, ...
Credit: Stranger Than Paradise: Everett Collection

Writer-director Jim Jarmusch is the Edmund Hillary of modern independent filmmaking: He ventured into terra incognita and made this archly comic tale of disaffected road-tripping hipsters for pennies (and it shows), and it became an art-house sensation back when foreign films owned that turf. The ultralow production values inspired other filmmakers like Robert Rodriguez and Kevin Smith to shoot first, worry about money later. —Christine Spines

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Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989)

Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Andie MacDowell, ... | Writer-director Steven Soderbergh's debut feature exploring the intersection of emotional and sexual ennui laid the foundation for the hegemony of the two empires that would…

Writer-director Steven Soderbergh's debut feature exploring the intersection of emotional and sexual ennui laid the foundation for the hegemony of the two empires that would dominate indieland: Sundance and Miramax. Made for $1.2 million, it was the first Sundance movie picked up by Miramax to become the kind of crossover hit that would ultimately inspire the launch of indie divisions at all the major studios. —Christine Spines

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Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Reservoir Dogs, Harvey Keitel, ... | High school dropout Quentin Tarantino put himself through a self-styled film school while working as a clerk in a video store, where he devoured everything…
Credit: Reservoir Dogs: Everett Collection

High school dropout Quentin Tarantino put himself through a self-styled film school while working as a clerk in a video store, where he devoured everything from Hong Kong cinema to Godard. He then quit his job, wrote Reservoir Dogs, and became the patron saint of indie film: His offhanded, pop-culture-peppered dialogue and supercool soundtracks spawned imitators from Rob Weiss' Amongst Friends to Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and beyond. —Christine Spines

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El Mariachi (1993)

El Mariachi, Consuelo Gomez
Credit: El Mariachi: Everett Collection

Writer-director Robert Rodriguez martyred himself to raise part of his $7,000 budget by subjecting himself to experimental drug testing for $100 a day. A virtual one-man band, Rodriguez performed almost every job on the movie except stunts and acting, and slapped a twisted noir sensibility onto a simple action premise. His poor man's approach to a rich man's game yielded creative flourishes — quick cuts to avoid his actors' flubbed lines — and studios woke up to the huge crossover potential of the new indies like The Usual Suspects. —Christine Spines

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Clerks (1994)

Clerks | Kevin Smith, inspired by Stranger Than Paradise , turned his camera on his own nothing-much-happens life, shooting at night on a budget of $28,000 in…
Credit: Clerks: Photofest

Kevin Smith, inspired by Stranger Than Paradise, turned his camera on his own nothing-much-happens life, shooting at night on a budget of $28,000 in the same convenience store he worked in by day. Clerks reflected the stifled suburban lives of a generation spoon-fed on pop culture and stalled out in go-nowhere McJobs. In other words, Smith tapped into a lucrative base of indie film's most passionate ticket buyers: guys just like himself. —Christine Spines

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Spanking the Monkey (1994)

Spanking the Monkey, Alberta Watson, ...
Credit: Spanking the Monkey: C. Strother

Writer-director David O. Russell used a $40,000 NEA grant to help make a comedy about incest, a topic so flammable even Harvey Weinstein was scared away when he saw it at Sundance. (Ultimately, Fine Line released it to rhapsodic reviews.) Surprisingly, Monkey did business, proving that even the most provocative material could find an audience. We have Russell to thank for movies like Welcome to the Dollhouse, In the Company of Men, and The Squid and the Whale. —Christine Spines

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The Blair Witch Project (1999)

The Blair Witch Project | This ingenious mock-documentary jumps off from the premise that three young filmmakers, journeying into the Maryland woods in search of the legendary Blair Witch, have…

Filmmakers Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez tried to convince Sundance crowds that their $35,000 spookfest was culled from real footage. Artisan plunked down what seemed like an astronomical $1 million for what looked like a glorified home movie. But thanks to trailblazing Internet marketing shenanigans, Blair Witch obliterated indie-film box office records while provoking the ire and envy of Miramax honcho Harvey Weinstein. —Christine Spines

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Memento (2001)

Memento, Guy Pearce | Inspired by his brother's yet-to-be-published short story about an amnesiac avenging his wife's death that plays out from end to beginning, Christopher Nolan had no…
Credit: Memento: Danny Rothenberg

Inspired by his brother's yet-to-be-published short story about an amnesiac avenging his wife's death that plays out from end to beginning, Christopher Nolan had no trouble scaring up the $4.5 million budget from then-fledgling Newmarket Films (though later, Newmarket was forced to release the film itself when every major distributor passed, presumably due to the film's structural gymnastics). Memento's $26 million box office haul put Nolan on Hollywood's short list of arty indie directors capable of serving up original genre pictures to mainstream audiences. Think Paul Greengrass (Bloody Sunday to The Bourne Supremacy) and Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects to X-Men). —Christine Spines

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Napoleon Dynamite (2004)

Napoleon Dynamite, Jon Heder, ... | Written by married Mormons Jared and Jerusha Hess, this hilariously warped tale of arrested development and geek love had Hollywood scratching its head when Fox…
Credit: Napoleon Dynamite: Aaron Ruell

Written by married Mormons Jared and Jerusha Hess, this hilariously warped tale of arrested development and geek love had Hollywood scratching its head when Fox Searchlight plunked down $3 million amid the Sundance hysteria. Dynamite's explosive box office and obsessive cult following on DVD proved that mixed reviews aren't the poison pill they once were for indies. —Christine Spines

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Super Size Me (2004)

Super Size Me, Morgan Spurlock | Documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock's intrepid human-lab-rat experiment — he ate exclusively at McDonald's for a month — tapped a rich vein in the zeitgeist as…
Credit: Super Size Me: Julie Soefer

Documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock's intrepid human-lab-rat experiment — he ate exclusively at McDonald's for a month — tapped a rich vein in the zeitgeist as the obesity epidemic became national news. Samuel Goldwyn Films and Roadside Attractions forked over about half a million dollars for distribution rights after bigger studios shied away, fearful of McDonald's retribution. Two months after Super Size Me screened at Sundance, McDonald's announced the end of supersizing. The film's long, profitable run at the box office ($12 million) helped establish docs as hot properties for dealmakers who had largely ignored them. The very next year, Warner Independent Pictures took a risk on the French-language nature documentary that became March of the Penguins. —Christine Spines

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Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

Little Miss Sunshine, Abigail Breslin, ... | Sundance audiences have never been stingy with their standing ovations. But Little Miss Sunshine unleashed a charm offensive so powerful, Park City cheered like Red…
Credit: Little Miss Sunshine: Eric Lee

Sundance audiences have never been stingy with their standing ovations. But Little Miss Sunshine unleashed a charm offensive so powerful, Park City cheered like Red Sox fans out of sheer gratitude for a movie that mined the dysfunctional family-road trip hybrid for all its gut-busting potential without losing its emotional core. Snatched up by distributor Fox Searchlight for $10.5 mil — the highest sum ever paid for a movie at Sundance — Sunshine plucked its cast of characters from the pantheon of indie archetypes (precocious kid, acid-tongued gay uncle, surly teenager, feisty grandpa) and became a hit family comedy for the art-house crowd. The best part: While we're bound to see more edgy domestic comedies, we're still spared the cheesy sequels — think: Little Miss Partly Cloudy — that go along with equivalent studio successes. —Christine Spines

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    1 of 15 Before Midnight (2013)
    2 of 15 Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)
    3 of 15 Blue Valentine (2010)
    4 of 15 Precious (2009)
    5 of 15 Stranger Than Paradise (1985)
    6 of 15 Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989)
    7 of 15 Reservoir Dogs (1992)
    8 of 15 El Mariachi (1993)
    9 of 15 Clerks (1994)
    10 of 15 Spanking the Monkey (1994)
    11 of 15 The Blair Witch Project (1999)
    12 of 15 Memento (2001)
    13 of 15 Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
    14 of 15 Super Size Me (2004)
    15 of 15 Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

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    15 Breakout Sundance Movies
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