20 memorable films made on the cheap

If there were a Mount Rushmore of low-budget legends (which would be counterintuitively expensive), Richard Linklater would have to be on it. Not only did his feature debut “Slacker” launch his career, but it also inspired a few other filmmakers on this list to do their thing. Also, it rules. “Slacker” is additionally partially responsible for solidifying the ‘90s idea of a slacker, as well as Austin, Texas’ status in the popular imagination.

Bruce Lee didn’t live to see himself become an icon. “Enter the Dragon” was released in America one month after his death. The Hong Kong martial arts film was made for less than $1 million USD, and it made $100 million during its initial run, eventually making hundreds of millions due to re-releases owing to its popularity.

There are going to be several horror movies on this list. Frankly, we could have done a list entirely of low-budget horror films that were huge successes. No genre is better suited to a big splash on a meager budget. “The Blair Witch Project” was built around the idea that it was a real documentary, going so far as to list the actors in it as deceased on IMDb. It became a defining film of the 1990s, full stop, and also yielded two higher-budget sequels.

John Carpenter did not invent the slash movie. What he did, though, is help popularize the genre due in part to the quality of his work but also the return on investment the true independent film yielded. Made for a budget of approximately $300,000, “Halloween” made $70 million worldwide during its initial run. The slash flick also helped popularize the horror franchise that churns out sequel after sequel.

“Paranormal Activity” took the faux-found footage concept of “The Blair Witch Project” and brought it into the modern technological world (or what was modern in 2007, at least). It was a massive hit, and suddenly every studio wanted its own found footage horror film since it was an inherently low-budget premise. “Paranormal Activity” also got several sequels, naturally.

United Artists wanted to turn Sylvester Stallone’s script for “Rocky” into a vehicle for a big star, but Sly insisted on starring himself. He got the chance, which led to a decidedly lower budget for the underdog sports story. The budget eked over $1 million, and for that, “Rocky” became the highest-grossing film of 1976. Oh, and it won Best Picture at the Academy Awards as well.

Jared Hess created a weird, idiosyncratic comedy shot in middle-of-nowhere Idaho starring an unknown actor named Jon Heder. “Napoleon Dynamite” quickly became a cult phenomenon. Suddenly, people were doing impressions of Napoleon and wearing “Vote for Pedro” shirts. The film even got an animated TV series adaptation.

Much like how Carpenter did not invent the slasher, George A. Romero did not invent the zombie film. He definitely made it part of the cultural canon, though. Shot in black-and-white and clearly, a low-budget effort, “Night of the Living Dead” owes part of its legacy to an accident of copyrighting that left it in the public domain. Hey, people saw it, and it became a cult classic that made its budget a smidge over $100,000 back many times over.

David Lynch has done so many weird things during his career. And yet nothing has ever topped “Eraserhead.” A cult cinema classic, “Eraserhead” is a work of provocation as much as anything else, but not in an aggressive way. That’s just the way of Lynch. He crafted something so bizarre and distinct with such little cash that it alone made him an important figure of American cinema.

An Austin auteur like Linklater, Robert Rodriguez, famously made the cash to shoot “El Mariachi” largely by participating in clinical drug trials. He shot his film for $7,000 and figured it would go straight to video in Latin America. When nobody bought it up for that reason, it ended up in the hands of Columbia, who spent $200,000 to spruce up “El Mariachi” enough to release in theaters. It only made a couple of million dollars at the box office, but it paved the way for “Desperado,” which paved the way for Rodriguez to become a significant filmmaker.

Kevin Smith makes no bones about it. He saw “Slacker,” and he decided to make his own movie. Smith shot “Clerks” overnight at the actual convenience store he worked at during the day. Like Rodriguez, “Clerks” was bought and spruced up in post-production for theatrical release. It became a cult favorite basically out of the gate, and Smith became a beloved filmmaker with a devoted following.

George Miller was a doctor. Like, a medical doctor. Then, he got an itch to make a movie, and that movie became “Mad Max.” Shot in his native Australia, “Mad Max” was shot in the same chaotic nature as the film expresses (they would close roads without film permits, for example). “Mad Max” was so popular that eventually, it would pave the way for “Mad Max: Fury Road,” which is basically Miller’s vision of chaos with a massive budget.

Christopher Nolan is now the dude where a rumor circulates that he set off an actual atomic bomb for “Oppenheimer” and some people believe it. That’s a long journey from his debut feature, “Following.” Now, this movie is from even before “Memento,” and most people haven’t seen it. “Following” was made for $6,000, and it was not a success. It did well enough to get the ball rolling, though, and now Nolan is perhaps our foremost purveyor of spectacle this side of “Big Jim” Cameron.

Stephen Soderbergh is the quintessential “one for them, one for me” filmmaker. He’ll make an “Ocean’s Eleven,” but then tell Netflix, “I’m going to shoot a sports drama on an iPhone 8” and they’ll say, “OK cool have fun.” It all began with “Sex, Lies, and Videotape,” though, a movie that was at the forefront of a wave of independent filmmaking. Soderbergh even won the Palme d’Or for his debut scripted film. He was all of 26 at the time.

Now, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” had a budget of $5 million, which is higher than a lot on this list. However, it is such an interesting story that we had to include it. Nia Vardalos wrote a play, Rita Wilson saw it, so Tom Hanks saw it, so he decided to produce a film version. “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” got a limited release…but grew and grew and grew. It ended up making $368.7 million worldwide, even though it was never the number-one movie at the box office. That was a record until 2016, when “Sing” broke it. Domestically, it remains the highest-grossing romantic comedy of all time as well.

“George Lucas” and “low-budget filmmaking” aren’t exactly synonymous. No, we think more of “needless tinkering” when it comes to the “Star Wars” honcho. Before that, though, Lucas did indeed make a movie that was simple, down to earth, and far from expensive. “American Graffiti” was made for a budget of $777,000 and a push from Lucas’ buddy Francis Ford Coppola. It paid off, as the story of wayward teens cruising their hometown became a huge hit while also getting a Best Picture nomination.

“Once” is a simple musical about two musicians made by those two musicians. It’s built around them performing together. In the mix, though, was the song “Falling Slowly,” which probably helped push “Once” to a box office takeaway of $23.3 million off of a budget of $150,000. It also won Best Original Song at the Oscars.

One last horror film for the road. Director Sean Cunningham saw “Halloween” and then literally put an ad in “Variety” to try and sell his own slasher flick. Cunningham finished the film for $550,000 and managed to secure a bidding war. Slasher flicks were all the rage, and “Friday the 13th” made $59.8 million worldwide. It has gone on to become as prolific as any film franchise.

The foremost purveyor of low-budget filmmaking is Roger Corman. Sometimes he directed, but a lot of times he simply produced. The guy had an incredible nose for talent, though, as the likes of James Cameron, Jack Nicholson, and dozens more got their starts with Corman productions. In order to not do another horror movie, let’s shout out “Rock ‘n’ Rock High School” a cult classic made for $200,000 by director Allen Arkush, with some help from Corman acolyte Joe Dante as well.

“Moonlight” was made for $1.5 million. “La La Land” was made for $30 million. Damian Chazelle’s film made $447.4 million worldwide. Barry Jenkins’ movie made $65.3 million, including $27.9 million domestically. “Moonlight,” as a result, is the second-lowest-grossing Best Picture winner ever. Ah, but the key phrase there is “best Picture winner.” As you likely remember, Jenkins’ low-budget movie ended up winning the Oscar over “La La Land.”