Recommended indie films on Netflix streaming

I had my left ACL replaced yesterday, and I'm basically stuck in front of the TV for at least the next week or two. I'm realizing my Netflix queue isn't deep enough for the task - I'm looking for some recommendations of good indie or foreign films that are available for streaming. Basically stuff I probably wouldn't have heard of - the more mainstream stuff is pretty easy to find and sort through, but there's so many other films there I'm not even sure where to start.

So - any good recs for little-known films on Netflix (streaming only, don't have a disc plan) worth checking out?

Kill List by director Ben Wheatley is a great one

These may qualify as mainstream (probably do...) but in case you haven't thought of them yet they're worth trying (some better than others):
In A World
Obvious Child
Arthur Newman
Best Man Down

Blue Ruin
Rubber and Wrong Cops
Escape From Tomorrow

Hey, IDOM. Hope your recovery goes well and quickly.

I'll give it a try. Forgive me for often not knowing or being clear about which films are independent and which are not. =P

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I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic movies, and a few on Netflix come immediately to mind.

It's a Disaster. This is a slow burn, and more of a drama. Maybe a bit of The Big Chill meets the end of the world? I really liked. But you might have to be in the mood... But for me, quite amusing.

Hell (2011, German). I thought this was really quite good. Also, it's a shame if people who love the (sub?)genre overlook it.

The Last Days (Spain). Quite good.

And I also liked Goodbye World.

Hey, bless Netflix for having a number of these.

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A film that I started but haven't gotten back to yet is Lore. I mention it because, while I may never return to it, it is highly rated, and it might be easy to overlook.

I think The Last Days on Mars is pretty excellent. I don't know if it had studio backing or assistance of some kind. But I'm under the impression it's a British film.

I think Blancanieves (a silent film from Spain) is pretty lovely, cinematic. It's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs meets bull fighting. Beautifully filmed and...appointed?...meaning the costumes and the sets and everything.

Upside Down (wikipedia: "a 2012 Canadian-French romantic science fiction film") is pretty nice, if you're looking for something romantic and sentimental.

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If you have any interest in docs...

I thought Kingdom of Shadows was pretty nice, and it might be easy to overlook. If nothing else, it showed me how beautiful the images of those early, silent black-and-white films could be.

The Slanted Screen is another excellent doc about Hollywood, and I'll bet easy to overlook.

The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden is quite interesting.

I might think of more... =)

Oh yeah, Crystal Fairy & the Magic Cactus is nice.

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I came across this website called agoodmovietowatch.com which finds movies that have good ratings on IMDB and rotten tomatoes, but did poorly at the box office. They also have a Netflix filter. That site led me to Mr. Nobody, which is an odd, but excellent film.

I also second Hell, and while we are recommending German films, I highly recommend The Silence. Also recommend Iron Sky, Melancholia, and I Give It a Year (British comedy), but those might be more main stream.

I'm always looking for those hidden gems in Netflix, so keep the recommendations coming!

Thanks for the recommendations everyone! Now the biggest challenge is staying awake through a whole film - the painkillers they gave me make me drowsy.

WhiteOpus said:

Kill List by director Ben Wheatley is a great one

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Watched this one today, not really sure how I feel about it. I found it difficult to follow a lot of the dialogue because of their accents (could have been the drugs too) and then it just starts veering off into craziness at some point. I half expected it to be a "it was all just a dream" kind of thing, because otherwise I couldn't see how it all flowed through the narrative. It was definitely interesting to watch.

I also watched Gunshy, a late 80's noir-style film with a bunch of great character actors in it, the lead roles are William Peterson, Diane Lane and Michael Wincott. It was cool to see Wincott in something other than the typical villain role he normally plays, and the film had some strong moments, but the dialogue was a little too on the button at times - could have used a little more subtext rather than just sort of spelling it all out for the audience.

richy said:

Forgive me for often not knowing or being clear about which films are independent and which are not. =P

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No worries, I'm actually not so concerned about whether they are indies or not - just looking for films that aren't that well known, that I might not otherwise stumble across by accident considering the massive volume of films they have in their catalog. Your recommendations were great!

Holy Motors
Enter The Void
Drinking Buddies
In A World...
Snowpiercer
Blue Ruin
Stories We Tell
Mud
Drug War
The Angels' Share

Ouch, that's a painful injury! I hope your recovery goes well. Like Mara, I don't know what qualifies as "mainstream", so you may have seen some or all of these, but I'm so fond of them that I've gotta recommend them, just in case.

The House I Live In -- arguably the most important American documentary of our generation?

In a World -- great comedy, with a nice romance/coming-of-age story to boot.

Dear Zachary -- heart-wrenching, but ultimately not at all what you expect.

I'm going to assume you already know all about Snowpiercer, Mud, and Tucker & Dale. But yeah, they're all great!

I've already seen Blue Ruin, Snowpiercer, and Mud - all great films. Tucker & Dale, In a World, Holy Motors and Last Days on Mars have been in my queue for a while, so they're definitely next up on the list. Most of the rest of these are new to me.

Fortunately the recovery is going faster than I expected, I'm going to see if I can get by without painkillers today and I'm getting around on a single crutch already. I do still have to spend three 2-hour sessions a day in a machine which moves my leg through a range of motion though, so there's still plenty of opportunity to watch a lot of these films.

Just finished In A World - very good film, highly recommended for anyone who hasn't seen it, and thanks for all the recommendations to watch it. I think it did a great job of creating a fictional world which you can almost believe really exists, and then built a strong story and characters within it. I think it also does a good job of touching on some political themes without being preachy about it, and also managed to avoid a lot of the typical romantic comedy cliches while succeeding as a strong romantic comedy.

And the final song reminded me of a netflix recommendation I've got for everyone - Print The Legend. It's a "netflix original" documentary about the emerging 3d printing industry which charts the growth of a couple major players as they go from working in basements to becoming major corporations. It's interesting as both a primer on the manufacturing revolution that's currently occurring and as glimpse into the world of entrepreneurism and the growing pains that occur as hobbies & passions turn into businesses & industries. When I was watching it I had to pause at one point to take a call concerning potential funding for a project I'm working on and I was literally quoting lines I'd just seen in the film. I think the issues these entrepreneurs face as they gain investment and grow into real businesses have a lot of relevance to the indie film world where things can change significantly as the budgets grow and investors get involved.

Tucker and Dale is a bad, shameless rip-off of "A film with me in it"

Although Dylan Moran is a little bit chubby in that film he still has his amazing voice and comedic timing. I would recommend the original much more than the rip-off.

Watched a few more films today...

The Gambler - James Toback's first produced screenplay, loosely autobiographical with James Caan playing a gambling addict/college professor trying to come back from ending up in a deep hole with his bookie. It's an interesting film, and Caan turns in a great performance as usual, but probably not up there with his best stuff. A remake is coming out soon with Mark Wahlberg and John Goodman - looks to be a very different tone than the original.

Don Jon - Joseph Gordon-Levitt's debut as a writer/director, also playing the lead against Scarlett Johansen with Tony Danza and Julianne Moore in supporting roles. Don Jon is a Jersey Shore type character struggling to balance relationships with his porn addiction. Very impressive as a debut film, it's fun to watch as a sort of lightweight coming-of-age film from a very unique perspective.

Sabotage - clearly not sticking indie across the board here! One of Schwarzenegger's more recent films, it's a weird mess of action/thriller/mystery/revenge. Plenty of good actors (Schwarzenegger's acting is pretty bad in comparison to everyone else), but none of them get enough individual screen time (other than shooting things up) to really develop them much, so it's kind of hard to care about what's going on - and the ending pretty much just discards most of what came before and feels like it's for a different film. Bizarre. Don't waste your time unless you're a die-hard Arnie fan.

Detention - WTF is going on? I'm actually a fan of the director's debut film, Torque, which is a so-bad-it's-good satirical take on the Fast and Furious-type films. This one was fully independent, financed out of his own pocket so he could make exactly the film he wanted to - which may have been a mistake. It actually has an interesting premise at it's core, but it's so over-done stylistically, and there are so many characters and cross-plots, that again it's kind of hard to care about who comes out ahead in the end. Somehow it's teen drama/comedy/horror/time travel/90's nostalgia fest all wrapped into one film. I feel like if he'd cut out about 20% of the film and filled in the space with some more character development it could have been a cult classic... but he overshot the mark. I can't say don't see it, because it's actually a fascinating film to watch in many ways, but I also can't really recommend it.

Frequencies.

Wasn't sure I was going to stick with it. But I did. I'm glad I did. It does go somewhere interesting. I'm not sure where or what that somewhere is. But yeah, it's a nice excursion.

I thought I might post the trailer. But I think it's best you go into like I did...not really knowing much of anything about it, without seeing clips of it before hand. Give it a try.

Here's some of what I've been watching on netflix...

John Dies At The End - I know this has quite a cult following, and it's a fun movie in some ways but didn't really do it for me. Felt like they were trying too hard to make it a cult film.

God Bless America - I loved this film, written/directed by Bobcat Goldthwait. It's a crazy premise - older guy and teen girl go on the run killing reality stars, talking heads, etc that they think are ruining america. It's not treated in a crazy way though, very straightforward and sincere, which isn't what I expected at all.

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil - really enjoyed this, actually watched it twice. Not much into straight horror these days but I can appreciate films that play with the conventions well, and really like the two leads - Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine.

30 for 30: Brian and the Boz - ESPN has put together some great films in this series, and I'm not much of a sports fan at all. This is a very introspective piece on Brian Bosworth, looking back at how he derailed a promising career through his crazy media persona.

Super - Rain Wilson becomes a real-world superhero vigilante. I expected to like this more than I did. Not really sure why it didn't connect.

The Iceman - based on the life of a hitman, Michael Shannon turns in a great performance but Chris Evans is way out of his depth here as a fellow hitman. The film overall felt a little light. There have been a few documentaries made about the main character based on interviews with him in prison and personally I found them much more interesting than the dramatized version.

In Bruges - I've seen this a few times, one of my favorite performances by Colin Farrell. A somewhat existential comedy-drama about two hitmen in hiding in a fairy-tale town in Belgium.

Filth - an ambitious detective's life spirals out of control. Great performance by James McAvoy, but otherwise not a lot to recommend it.

Redemption - Jason Statham is a homeless man/former soldier who cleans up temporarily to seek revenge for the death of his girlfriend and fall in love with a nun. Pretty typical Statham b-action, euro/VOD film, nothing really to distinguish it.

Valhalla Rising - I like Nicholas Winding Refn, and I like Mads Mikkelsen, but overall the combination didn't come together well. The film just sort of happens, a series of vignettes that don't really go anywhere.

The Human Centipede - figured I might as well give it a shot. Made it through the first 5 minutes before I got so offended by the bad acting, terrible dialogue and soap-opera level lighting/cinematography that I had to just shut it off.

Last Days On Mars - this was not at all what I expected, sort of a low-budget Prometheus with less pretentiousness. Impressive art direction, set design, etc - but ultimately it's just a straight ahead zombie film dressed in serious sci-fi clothing. I was hoping for more.

Trading Places - classic Eddie Murphy, a fun film and shot in Philly so cool to see all the local stuff. Jamie Lee Curtis' apartment in the film is two blocks from my place here, I walk by there all the time - it's unbelievable to see how bad this neighborhood used to be in the 80's, and how dramatically it's changed since then.

Scrooged - right up there with Die Hard in contention for the best christmas film of all time.

The Scapegoat is good. Comparison: it's meets .

And I notice they have Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. If you haven't seen that one... It's a gem.