The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Budget $500,000–$750,000
Box Office $248,639,099
First-time feature filmmakers Directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez laid the groundwork for their shaky cam classic The Blair Witch Project with a creepy, early viral marketing campaign online. Their eerily true-to-life reports and interviews posted online sparked a theatrical sensation that left audiences wondering if the film they had just watched was really about missing teenagers, or just a piece of well-crafted fiction. The improvised performances added to the unsettling realism and also saved money in the duo’s estimated $25,000 budget. Sánchez and Myrick were aiming for a cable movie at most and after grossing a surprising $248,639,099 million worldwide, they had brought found footage-style films to the mainstream.
Inbetweeners (2011):
Budget $5.3 million
Box Office: $88,025,781
TV shows that become movies have a notoriously bad pedigree. Especially British comedy shows, which decide to send their cast off on holiday for their big screen adventure… Luckily, The Inbetweeners has never exactly played by the rules, first by becoming an unlikely foul-mouthed success, and then by going stratospheric at the box-office, notching up £44 million at UK cinemas and helping audience numbers actually rise last year. The film remained true to the series’ rather sweet ethos about what makes friendship, as well as finding a fitting ending to the story.
Beginners (2011):
Budget $3.2 million
Box Office $14,311,701
Told using an ambitious structure of flashbacks and flashforwards, Beginners follows Oliver (Ewan McGregor) as he deals with two events that rock his world; first, the fact his father has come out as gay, and then his subsequent cancer diagnosis and death. It wasn’t a surprise to me to learn that this was based on director Mike Mills’ person experience of his father coming out at the age of 75.
The thing this film has in bucket loads is heart, never straying into the saccharine despite being a romantic-comedy-drama. The film also includes a standard boy meets girl at party, boy and girl fall instantly head over heels in love sub-storyline, of which it’s so difficult to do anything new with, but their meeting is the best part of the film.
Submarine (2010):
Budget $1.5 million
Box Office $3 million
Shot in less than two months and on a small budget, this is a phenomenal directing debut from Richard Ayoade, and a truly British offering on this list. Based on the coming-of-age novel by Joe Dunthorne, Submarine charts 15-year-old Oliver Tate as he struggles with school, his first girlfriend Jordana (who has pyromaniac tendencies) and his attempts to save his parents’ failing marriage. Beautifully shot with a great soundtrack from Alex Turner (Arctic Monkeys) this film couldn’t more accurately stir up those forgotten memories of the self-indulgent, uncertain hell that being a teenage boy (or girl) was.
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