Best Indie Directors

BelovedAunt

Hey guys, I've been working my way through the works of Mike Mills, Lynn Shelton, Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach recently and I'm wondering who else has a similar style to theirs?

johnny_ultimate

Based on the directors you've mentioned:

Andrew Bujalski and Aaron Katz spring to mind as directors operating in the same sort of arena.

Bujalski's Funny Ha Ha remains among the finest achievements of the whole 'mumblecore' movement, and his two more mainstream efforts - Results and Support the Girls - are pretty great in their own modest way. Computer Chess is superb, but also very different indeed to his other stuff.

With Katz, check out Quiet City and Cold Weather. That reminds me to check out his new film Gemini

Her films have a slightly different vibe, but Kelly Reichardt's films are beautifully compassionate character studies. Ditto Sean Baker, who is one of American cinema's MVPs at the moment thanks to Tangerine and The Florida Project.

Films of Debra Granik, Miranda July and Stephen Cone also worth checking out.

If you want to leave North America, Hong Sang-soo, Hirokazu Kore-eda and Kōji Fukada are all doing stellar work with modest, defiantly character-led dramas.

And obviously if you want to go back the whole bloomin' lot of them are indebted to Eric Rohmer - The Green Ray IMO being the best starting point there if you haven't dived into his intimidatingly vast filmography yet.

BelovedAunt

Thanks Johnny, you were the first man I was thinking of here and you didn't disappoint!

Frank O. Pinion

Not all of these have a similar style, but they're all great.

Joe Swanberg - mumblecore.
Shane Carruth - Primer (2004) and Upstream Color (2013).
Quentin Dupieux - Rubber (2010).
Don Hertzfeldt - animator.
Peter Strickland - Berberian Sound Studio (2012) and The Duke of Burgundy (2014).
The Duplass Brothers - Duplass Brothers Productions films.

S.M.B.

I've never got around to watching Funny Ha Ha, must do so. I didn't really like Computer Chess though.

The J Stands for Jay

Frank O. Pinion wrote: »

Not all of these have a similar style, but they're all great.

Joe Swanberg - mumblecore.
Shane Carruth - Primer (2004) and Upstream Color (2013).
Quentin Dupieux - Rubber (2010).
Don Hertzfeldt - animator.
Peter Strickland - Berberian Sound Studio (2012) and The Duke of Burgundy (2014).
The Duplass Brothers - Duplass Brothers Productions films.

I wouldn't mind seeing Rubber. Anyone know where to watch it?

BelovedAunt

Thanks lads, also wondering are there any streaming services you'd recommend to watch these films on?

Fysh

Frank O. Pinion wrote: »

Not all of these have a similar style, but they're all great.

Joe Swanberg - mumblecore.
Shane Carruth - Primer (2004) and Upstream Color (2013).
Quentin Dupieux - Rubber (2010).
Don Hertzfeldt - animator.
Peter Strickland - Berberian Sound Studio (2012) and The Duke of Burgundy (2014).
The Duplass Brothers - Duplass Brothers Productions films.

Replying mainly to +1 the recommendation of the excellent Don Hertzfeldt, his It's Such A Beautiful Day is a phenomenally affecting piece of animation. I've got the Blu-ray and need to rewatch it (having been lucky enough to see it originally at a cinema screening).

Carruth and Strickland are both good shouts, and I enjoyed the weirdness of Rubber quite a bit. Has Dupieux really not done anything else? (Edit: looked it up and he's done a couple of other features and has a new one out soon called Keep An Eye Out).

I think I've only seen Safety Not Guaranteed by the Duplass Brothers, and only Drinking Buddies by Swanberg (I've been meaning to check out Queen of Earth for ages, though). Any particular recs for what to watch next from either of these?

johnny_ultimate

BelovedAunt wrote: »

Thanks lads, also wondering are there any streaming services you'd recommend to watch these films on?

Not really TBH. When I went through a mumblecore phase five or six years ago I had to import a lot of the films from the US. You'll get a good few of the major ones on iTunes, and a handful on Netflix.

Fysh wrote: »

I think I've only seen Safety Not Guaranteed by the Duplass Brothers, and only Drinking Buddies by Swanberg (I've been meaning to check out Queen of Earth for ages, though). Any particular recs for what to watch next from either of these?

For the Duplass' directorial efforts Baghead and The Do-Deca Pentathlon are probably the two I'd be quickest to recommend - prefer them to their bigger crossover films. Acting wise, Mark is great in the two Creep films (second is an excellently playful sequel that actually surpasses the first - both on Netflix) and Jay's pretty good in Lynn Shelton's recent Outside In (which is also on Netflix) and Transparent (TV show).

I'm not the biggest fan of Swanberg, so maybe Frank will recommend something else... but Hannah Takes The Stairs is one of the key films from the whole mumblecore era and has a great early performance from Greta Gerwig. He's done a few things with Netflix as well... the man ****s films and TV shows out so I often find it hard to follow what he's done last :pac:

Queen of Earth is actually Alex Ross Perry. That's well worth a look, but I have a soft spot for The Colour Wheel - it's a fascinating film in that I completely changed my mind about based on the last 10 minutes!

While I think of it, and just sticking with the general sort of films mentioned in the OP (if it came to any indie directors I'd be here all night!), obviously worth putting John Cassavetes out there too. Again a key inspiration for a lot of these sorts of filmmakers. I'm still not as well versed in his filmography as I'd like, but A Woman Under the Influence is particularly great of the four or five I've seen.

Columbus is also finally out next month, assuming some Irish cinemas show it. It’s just superb, and hopefully director Kogonada has more like it coming!

Also, here's a short Sight and Sound piece that gives a few extra recommendations: https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/fast-track-fandom-which-mumblecore-films-watch-first

Frank O. Pinion

Fysh wrote: »

I enjoyed the weirdness of Rubber quite a bit. Has Dupieux really not done anything else? (Edit: looked it up and he's done a couple of other features and has a new one out soon called Keep An Eye Out).

Regarding Dupieux's other work, Wrong (2012), Wrong Cops (2013), and Reality (2014), they're absolutely brilliant films, even better than Rubber. I have each of them in my Top 10 for their respective years, whereas Rubber is in my Top 20 for 2010. But I believe you have to start with Rubber, if you're going to get into Dupieux's stuff.

Fysh wrote: »

I think I've only seen Safety Not Guaranteed by the Duplass Brothers, and only Drinking Buddies by Swanberg (I've been meaning to check out Queen of Earth for ages, though). Any particular recs for what to watch next from either of these?

Duplass Brothers Productions (rather than just stuff the brothers have directed):

The One I Love (2014) - stars Mark Duplass.
The Overnight (2015) - stars Adam Scott and Jason Schwartzman, directed by Patrick Brice, who also directed the two Creep films.
Blue Jay (2016) - written by and stars Mark Duplass, this is a brilliant natural drama, in black and white. On Netflix.
Duck Butter (2017) - Two women meet at a club and get to know each other by having sex every hour on the hour. Yup. On Netflix.
Room 104 on HBO is a great anthology series, created by the brothers.
Plus the stuff Johnny mentioned.

johnny_ultimate wrote:

I'm not the biggest fan of Swanberg, so maybe Frank will recommend something else...

I will! I haven't actually seen all of Swanberg's work, the man has written and directed 18 films in the space of 12 years, plus other work. I'm slowly working my way through his stuff. He's hit and miss. Happy Christmas (2014) and Win It All (2017) (on Netflix) are both very enjoyable, his Netflix series Easy is fantastic. Two seasons, and renewed for a third final season. It stars Dave Franco and a bunch of other notable faces.

johnny_ultimate wrote:

Queen of Earth is actually Alex Ross Perry. That's well worth a look, but I have a soft spot for The Colour Wheel - it's a fascinating film in that I completely changed my mind about based on the last 10 minutes!

I've only seen Listen Up Philip from Perry, but I thought it was a minor-masterpiece of sorts. It affected me. Need to watch his other work.