Reviews for Under the Radar Indie Movie Gems

February 8, 2015 11:28 AM

Where do you go to find out about really cool indie films? Just saw a trailer for the movie A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night and thought it looked amazing (to give you an idea of the kind of movies I'm looking for). I'd like to find a blog or website with reviews for indie movies like this one that don't necessarily make it out to theaters or get reviewed in major publications.

I've been really liking the AV Club's New Cult Canon list, but I'd love to find some reviews for movies that are fresher releases as well.

posted by forkisbetter to Media & Arts (8 answers total)

While A Girl Walks Home is hardly a blockbuster, it's been reviewed quite a bit.
You could check reviews from the various film festivals to find films before they go into wide-release or get distribution deals. Sundance, TriBeCa, SXSW, etc..
posted by Ideefixe at 11:46 AM on February 8, 2015

Check Snagfilms. They stream stuff, all of which is indie, and there's a lot of it. Some of the films there are also in theaters, too, if you'd rather not watch them online.
posted by holborne at 11:48 AM on February 8, 2015

I think The Dissolve is probably the best all-round source for new "really cool indie films." (Related: the current front-page interview with the director of The Duke of Burgundy.)

Also, The New York Times reviews every film that opens theatrically in New York City; Manohla Dargis (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night review) and A.O. Scott are very good critics.
posted by Mothlight at 11:56 AM on February 8, 2015

I was going to recommend The Dissolve as well - they cover pretty much everything and the staff all seem to be old-school art house film geeks. The editor and much of the staff also came from the AV Club.
posted by lunasol at 1:37 PM on February 8, 2015

The Netflix streaming section at Rotten Tomatoes has a lot of indie films, as Netflix doesn't really get that many major releases these days.
posted by COD at 2:01 PM on February 8, 2015

I'm not sure how deep you want to get into this, so here is a big old infodump.

These are the film blogs I subscribe to right now:

Film School Rejects
Film Studies for Free
Filmmaker Magazine
Senses of Cinema
The Criterion Current
The Dissolve

And while it's not just for film, OpenCulture has a great selection of freely available media, and they include links in their posts, so you can read a little about a movie and then just watch it right away.

(I'm having connectivity issues, so it'd probably take me about an hour to link those, but they should be findable easily enough, I hope.)

If you have a local arthouse type theater or film society, too, those are excellent resources. They will often show and advertise upcoming independent releases and older features as well. Ours even has film clubs, free and cheap showings of classic films, and film education series that are open to anyone. Ours has a pretty decent email list where I learn about upcoming showings and other events.

There are also a few dedicated streaming services that focus at least in part on independent film. I've found that Netflix has just gotten worse and worse about curating the sort of movies I want to see, so I've looked into supplementing with other services. Hulu Plus, in addition to their better-known TV services, has a really good selection of Criterion Collection movies streaming (commercial free). I watch that a lot more than Netflix these days.

Here's a quick article covering some other services as well. (I'm considering adding either Fandor or Mubi, but I haven't figured out how to justify it yet.)
posted by ernielundquist at 4:14 PM on February 8, 2015

Cine-File

Comes with Chicago showtimes, you may or may not live in Chicago but many of these movies are or will be available online or on DVD.
posted by mai at 4:40 PM on February 8, 2015

I haven't yet seen A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, but you might also like the (original) Swedish Let the Right One In.
posted by blueberry at 9:34 PM on February 8, 2015