Earlier this week we celebrated Alfred Hitchcock’s birthday by ranking his films. Today we continue to celebrate the auteur’s work by listing indie films which remind us of his work. And because Hitchcock inspired so many filmmakers over the years with his innovative storytelling and crafty camera shots, we had a ton of films to choose from. The films below are the kind Hitch would have made if he were still live, or at the very least, films he would have enjoyed watching himself.

9 Indie Films That Remind Us Of Alfred Hitchcock

Tell No One

A married couple goes skinny dipping in a lake at night. After an argument, the woman swims to shore to clear her head. Suddenly, the man hears her scream and swims to shore to investigate only to be knocked unconscious by an off-screen culprit. Jump ahead eight years, and two bodies have mysteriously surfaced at the site where it’s believed the wife was murdered, reopening the case with the husband as the primary suspect. A classic cocktail of mystery, suspense and paranoia, Guillaume Canet’s Tell No One is a tense thriller with a knotty plot that harkens back to Hitch in its themes while satiating modern audiences with its brisk narrative momentum and elaborate action sequences. Francois Cluzet exudes intensity in the lead role, his frazzled charm making him a more volatile man-on-the-run than Cary Grant’s Roger O. Thornhill (North By Northwest) or Robert Donat’s Hannay (The 39 Steps), though he’s no less riveting. Like any good Hitchcock film (or any good mystery, for that matter), Tell No One always keeps you guessing and never fails to surprise, all while continuously building an emotional foundation that makes the shocker ending feel like a shotgun to the chest. [Bernard]

The Usual Suspects

Alfred Hitchcock was masterful at creating mesmerizing characters who often danced on the edge of suspicion. Sometimes mysterious, sometimes charismatic, but always fascinating, these antagonists (to call them villains is a little too much) aren’t necessarily the kind to root for, but it isn’t a bad thing they get away with what they get away with for as long as they can. More than just foils, the greats include Madeleine Elster (Vertigo), Uncle Charlie (Shadow of a Doubt), and even Lars Thorwald (Rear Window) who, in Hitch’s hands, is captivating as little more than an object of observation. The modern indie film equivalent of these delicious baddies, a character Hitchcock would have had a blast with, is Verbal Kint, from Bryan Singer’s The Usual Suspects. What makes Kint, as played by Kevin Spacey, the archetypical Hitchcock antagonist is how ordinary he seems—the most usual of the usual suspects—until he weaves a hypnotic narrative tale about five villains, three heists, and one crime lord: Keyser Söze, a man whose reputation is so fearsome, he’s more than legendary, he’s mythological. Yet from Kint’s lips to the cops’ ears floats a story told with such subtle conviction and drenched in such rich detail, every last word is believable. Or is it? This is the Hitchcockian genius of him. Kint is known to be one of those five criminals and a man who simply cannot be trusted, but his feeble physicality is disarming. This allows his hypnotic storytelling acumen to take charge (Verbal is verbal, indeed). As Hitchcock would have wanted, Kint is a character the viewer should see coming, and yet fails to do so. As for the stunning reveal at the end, it’s Hitchcockian too, and one of the greats of movie history. [Michael]

Buried

Hitch wasn’t just the master of suspense, but he was also an expert at single location filmmaking (Lifeboat, Rope, Rear Window). Rodrigo Cortés applied Hitchcockian attributes in his 2010 indie thriller Buried, where Ryan Reynolds (his best performance to date) finds himself trapped inside a coffin with only a lighter, a cell phone, and enough oxygen for 90 minutes. It’s a gripping race against the clock shot entirely in a claustrophobic setting. While it contains a super simple setup, the film is full of technical challenges. But Buried makes great use of constrained space, using careful camera framing and a sharpened sense of hearing to obtain a high level of suspense, all while opting not to show any shots outside the coffin. A less ambitious filmmaker would’ve added some flashbacks or cuts to a grieving spouse. But not Cortés. By leaving these shots out, the audience remains isolated with the character and the results are so suffocating they’ll leave you gasping for air. Hitchcock would have admired such an impressive feat. [Dustin]

Timecrimes

When one thinks of Hitchcock-inspired films, works of science fiction usually aren’t the first to come to mind. Nonetheless, Spanish filmmaker Nacho Vigalondo’s 2007 Timecrimes, proves that Hitch’s impact stretches to all corners of the contemporary cinematic realm and can even be found in the likes of foreign language time travel flicks. Like other modern films containing narratives dealing with the manipulation of time (such as Shane Carruth’s Primer and Bradley King’s recent Time Lapse), Timecrimes has a relatively complex plot that unfolds gradually and only fully presents itself to viewers during its third act. Vigalondo’s film follows a married ogler by the name of Héctor (Karra Elejalde). One quiet afternoon, after spotting a naked woman through a pair of binoculars, he wanders over to get a closer look; by the time he reaches the woman, she’s unconscious, slumped against a large rock, and suddenly Héctor is stabbed with a pair of scissors by a second, masked person. From there, the storyline only becomes more obscure though it certainly evolves in a fascinating and original manner. All originality aside, the Hitchcockian influence is surely present and can be found in qualities such as Timecrimes’ increasingly guilt-ridden protagonist and its utilization of voyeurism, in a similar vein as Hitch’s famous Rear Window and Psycho. [Eli]

Mulholland Drive

Many deem David Lynch a singular artist. Out of his influential oeuvre a whole new adjective was born; one that’s used to describe any picture cloaked in a mysterious, off-kilter atmosphere. So it’s interesting that this one decidedly unique filmmaker’s greatest film, the mesmerizing Mulholland Drive, borrows so directly the themes, aesthetics, and particles from Alfred Hitchcock’s most critically lauded film, Vertigo, in order to help create what’s arguably the most Lynchian atmosphere and story to date. Naomi Watts’ career-making role of a wide-eyed dreamer is an amalgamation of various Hitchcock “classic blonde” heroines, striking the biggest resemblance with Kim Novak from the 1958 classic. Not only is the 1950s aesthetic that provided the contemporary backdrop to Vertigo prevalent in the old-fashioned Hollywood look to Mulholland Drive, but it’s weaved into the thematics as well. Together with fear, manipulation, and spiraling madness, all of which permeate the tone of both pictures. Lynch contorted the very same type of suspense that Hitch mastered in his day; using audience’s’ imaginations and subconscious as a plaything to create unforgettable and influential art. [Nik]

Match Point

While Woody Allen has continued to churn out a movie a year for most of his career, his recent films seem to have narrowed in scope, losing some of the sharp-witted satire that marked many of his earlier films. One film that has poked through this listless drought is Match Point, a flick that saw Allen test the waters of the thriller genre, and most importantly, play homage to the godfather of suspense himself. Allen has never been afraid to wear any particular film’s influences on his sleeve, and Match Point is no exception. The premise alone is rife with nods to Hitchcock’s Strangers On A Train, a film that centers on a tennis star, murder, and, most importantly, chance, which in Match Point is redubbed as luck. The nods don’t stop there. Jonathan Rhys Meyers plays Chris, a handsome, talented charmer with sociopathic tendencies, much in the style of classic Hitchcock villains: men who can literally get away with murder. Most importantly of all, is Scarlett Johansson, the beautiful blonde temptress, the source of all this lust, the carrier of the unwanted child, the catalysis of everything. To put the sexual politics of Allen’s work in question is to be a conscious and critical filmgoer (which we all should be), but while off-putting and dated, the film stays true to its influences, for better or worse. [Gary]

Chuck & Buck

While maybe not an obvious selection for a Hitchcock-inspired film, Miguel Arteta and Mike White’s thoughtfully constructed and hilarious micro-budgeted black comedy, Chuck & Buck, owes a lot to the popular works of Hitchcock including Psycho and Rear Window. Chuck & Buck follows the reunion of two childhood friends, writer Mike White in the role of Buck and filmmaker Chris Weitz (About a Boy, American Pie) plays Chuck who now goes by Charlie. After Buck’s mother passes away, the two friends awkwardly reconnect at her funeral which is followed by Buck following Chuck (and his wife) to Los Angeles. Buck tries desperately to fit himself into Chuck’s life as his obsession becomes increasingly more sexual and invasive. Instead of taking the path of someone like Brian De Palma (whose fantastic Blow Out I nearly chose for this list) where the Hitchcock influence is more authentic and direct, Arteta and White twist the voyeuristic themes and Norman Bates-like qualities of Buck to a wildly different effect. It plays up these qualities pushing them to levels of uncomfortable and sometime gut-busting laughter as the film brilliantly satirizes the irrational homophobic fear that can exist in straight men. [Ryan]

Stoker

The screenplay of Stoker is what most recalls Hitchcock’s work. Revolving around a teenage girl (Mia Wasikowska) and her prickly mother (Nicole Kidman) mourning the loss of a father and husband as a mysterious relative (Matthew Goode) slowly moves into the picture, the plot draws comparisons to Shadow of a Doubt, but Director Park Chan-Wook makes it his own uniquely twisted beast. While the story pays clear homage in the structuring of gradually built dread and distrust, Park’s offbeat and richly sensual direction marks the singular vision of a true auteur. Through detailed mise-en-scène and slick, haunting visuals, we are steered through an unsettling vision of sexual awakening and hereditary depravity. The film crawls under one’s skin as it pries open narrative and thematic doors initially closed tightly. The film resembles Marnie in its Freudian hang-ups and Frenzy in its relative grittiness, and although it’s far bleaker and bloodier than Hitch had the ability to be in his time, something tells me that fans of his distinct brand of psychological terror would be tickled by this one-of-a-kind experience. [Byron]

Misery

It feels almost as though any horror, thriller, or psychological suspense film we could possibly think of and include on this list would feel obvious in some way. There isn’t a great movie out there among these genres that doesn’t herald back to something Hitchcock either invented or did so well it merited emulation. But in terms of Hitchcock signature moves, Rob Reiner’s 1990 Misery uses all the very best. Single-location by way of a secluded country house. Slow zooms into character’s faces as anxiety builds giving a sense of claustrophobia. And of course, a main character with alarmingly obsessive tendencies. Hitch knew that love could be a far scarier emotion than hate. Vertigo taught us the price of obsessive love, and Misery’s Annie Wilkes is a fan whose love of a book series is more than a little unbridled. Rear Window established that a character immobilized and trapped in a small space is more horrifying than any dark castle, and Paul Sheldon learns just how harrowing four walls are when your ankles are smashed to bits. Those who appreciate the simmering, confined, tension-filled thrillers Hitchcock made his name on, will find themselves satisfied by Misery. [Ananda]

When you think sci-fi movies, you might think of the low, swirling drone of a lightsaber. You might think of a DeLorean barreling through a parking lot at 88mph and vanishing into thin air as it leaves a trail of fire in its wake. You might think of Sigourney Weaver going toe to toe with an Alien Queen in a badass power-loader. You might even think of “Khaaaaaaan!” or “I know Kung-Fu.”

We don’t. We’re Way…Too…sophisticated for that (buh-dum-psh!)

All joking aside, we love sci-fi movies of all shapes and sizes, including big-budget ones. The problem is, since the advent of CGI, it feels like it’s a requirement for every sci-fi film to cram a mind-numbing amount of digital effects into every frame. Transformers and the Star Wars prequels, for example, abuse CGI so egregiously that they feel like half-films. They’re hardly ‘filming’ anything and—more importantly—they’re missing the point.

Science fiction at its core is about exploring the dangers and consequences of abusing science. It’s about peering into another world and learning from it so as to better our own. It’s about sparking philosophical discussion—Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? It’s about scientific allegories, not data—‘the force’ is about faith, not ‘midi-chlorians.’

These ten films get it. Their directors have created incredible works of sci-fi, and they’ve achieved it without spending exorbitant amounts of cash on lasers and explosions and spaceships and frivolous bullshit. These films aren’t extravagant or shiny—they’re gritty, tethered to reality. Tethered to our reality. They tackle subjects like self-identity, discrimination, envy, and regret through the power of blow-your-freakin’-mind science.

Some might view a ‘low-budget’ as a disadvantage, but these filmmakers used their meager funds as a catalyst for innovation. These films are every bit as good as their bloated-budget brothers. They prove that Monsters we barely see can be just as fascinating as blue-skinned, long-limbed, cat-faced, Disney-eyed cartoon characters. No offense, Mr. Cameron. T2 was the shit. You don’t need expensive special effects and costumes to tell an amazing science fiction story—all you need is a great idea and the talent and imagination to represent it on screen. Without further ado, here are our Top 10 Indie Sci-fi Films.

Top 10 Indie Sci-fi Films

#10 – Akira

When people hear the word Anime most people run away. They are, unfortunately, missing out on some really exciting films. Akira is one such film. It’s easy to see where the film gets its influences from, but boy oh boy is it very good at showing them off. Akira is that film that has everything a Sci-Fi fan will love; absurdly high buildings, fast vehicles and loads of violence. I’ve seen the film countless times now and honestly I don’t know if I could tell what all actually happens in Akira, but what I will say is that this is one film that has to be seen to be believed. Akira features some of the best imagery in sci-fi for me and it’s all set to a pulsating score that drives the film into a final 30 minutes that will quite literally blow your mind. [Blake]

#9 – Another Earth

Another Earth is a fantastic indie sci-fi film about the discovery of a planet close to ours called Earth 2. However, instead of traveling down the path that most films would attempt to go, Another Earth wisely chooses not to exploit the concept and instead only explores the idea of a second chance in another life. The final scene in the film is one of the most shocking and eerie endings that I have seen in years. The film serves as a great reminder that it is possible to create a terrific sci-fi film without a ton of effects and a large budget. [Dustin]

#8 – Primer

Shane Carruth is a name that is being circulated at high speed this last year due to his recent Sundance success Upstream Color. Primer is the prime example of how to make an independent film with little to no budget– it was so perfect in its visual storytelling that the dialogue did not have to play a key part but just added to the aesthetic and the illusion of two men hooked on physics that happen to accidently create a time machine. Primer is a very intense and an incredibly well put together intellectual indie sci-fi. [Amy]

#7 – Being John Malkovich

It may come as a bit of a shock that Being John Malkovich could be considered an “indie” film based on it’s commercial success and big named cast list, but the film was made for just thirteen million dollars and despite being nominated for the huge award shows such as the Oscars and Golden Globes, the film also qualified for the Independent Spirit Awards that year. This wild fantasy science fiction film was all about getting into someone’s head, literally. Being John Malkovich is fun mind-trip adventure that is completely original. [Dustin]

#6 – Stalker

Stalker is a brilliant Sci-Fi film almost for one simple reason. It’s aesthetics. It features no ray guns, no flying cars or any massive skyscrapers tickling the feet of clouds. No teleportation machines, no androids or cool gadgets. Stalker works purely on the way Andrey Tarkovskiy chooses to show you his story. The film is simple tale of a man (a stalker) who is tasked with taking two men to The Zone, a forbidden land where a room exists that grants wishes. The film is essentially two and a half hours of men walking slowly through wastelands of a forgotten world, philosophizing about life and its meaning. But it’s Tarkovskiy’s direction that dazzles us. Featuring long takes and extreme close ups to show a life ravaged by the evil of humanity, Tarkovskiy hypnotizes his audience into a maddening and yet, very fulfilling journey into the soul of men. [Blake]

#5 – Brazil

Terry Gilliam’s Brazil provides a cautionary, paranoid glimpse into a future where the technology we birthed with our own hands begins to swallow us whole. Gilliam shows us thick jungles of wire and tubing spilling into an apartment like spaghetti. We see an old lady so obsessed with recapturing her former beauty that she hires people to pull the skin on her face back so hard that it stretches like silly putty, ready to rip. Though rife with techno-horror, Gilliam finds room to inject his signature sense of whimsy, surrealism, and adventure as well. Few cinematic minds are as imaginative and eccentric as Gilliam’s, and Brazil is his magnum opus. [Bernard]

#4 – Cube

Six strangers wake up in a cube shaped room, with a door on each side leading to another room exactly like it. As they try to find a way out of the seemingly endless series of rooms (some of which are booby trapped to kill whoever enters them), tensions begin to rise until finding a way out is the least of their concerns. The best part about Cube, other than its ingenious concept, is how well it maintains the mystery of what exactly the cube is. With a budget of less than $400,000 (the entire film was shot within one cube ‘room’), Cube has more excitement and smarts than most sci-fi blockbusters from the last decade combined. A quick tip for anyone willing to give Cube a try: Pretend the film’s two sequels don’t exist. It’ll save you plenty of time. [CJ]

#3 – Moon

Rarely does a sci-fi movie allow for an Oscar-worthy performance from an actor, but Moon is outstanding entirely because of Sam Rockwell, who is the only actor onscreen for about 95% of the film. Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is the sole worker for Lunar Industries’ Moon-based mining site. Sam is in his last two weeks of a three-year assignment before returning to Earth, where his wife and child wait. In a routine trip out to the mining site, Sam is distracted by one of the recent hallucinations he’s been having and ends up unconscious. When he wakes, he’s back in the base unable to quite explain how. But it’s when he finds an identical version of himself out on the surface that Sam’s reality starts to bend and shift, slowly building to an exciting conclusion. The benefit of low-budget sci-fi is that bells and whistles are beyond the means of the production, and the simplicity of Moon is what really sells it. The quiet moon-base and Sam’s interaction with GERTY, his AI companion (voiced in dulcet tones by Kevin Spacey), who uses cartoony emoticon-style expressions, only mocks Sam’s growing paranoia as he unravels a disturbing mystery. Perfectly performed, Moon is a rare slow-building but psychologically thrilling sci-fi gem. [Ananda]

#2 – Timecrimes

A man notices a naked woman in the woods behind his home, and his decision to take a closer look leads him down a path involving time travel and masked murderers. Director Nacho Vigalondo has a surprisingly airtight narrative (mainly helped by his use of a secluded location), with all of the fun coming from exactly how every piece of the story fits together. At times eerie, funny and intense, Timecrimes is a perfect example of how to make a great time travel movie. [CJ]

#1 – Monsters

Though it’s title doesn’t accurately indicate the cleverness of the film, Monsters stands out among indie sci-fi films as an alien creature-feature with heart. Taking place 6 years after a NASA space probe crash landed in Mexico and large tentacled alien creatures began their reign of terror; photo-journalist Andrew (Scoot McNairy) begrudgingly agrees to chaperon his boss’s daughter, Sam (Whitney Able), out of quarantined Mexico back to the States. Newby-Brit director Gareth Edwards has a refreshingly firm grasp on utilizing off-screen presence to build suspense, especially using sound. And while we see glimpses of the alien early in the film, the focus remains on the daily terror of the people living in this invaded country, giving the film a thoughtful humanistic vantage. Monsters also satisfies the sci-fi viewers most basic need to see the monster in it’s entirety at the very end, but in a way that is both provoking and beautiful. The ad-libbed performances of the main actors and the off-the-cuff low-budget cinematography, combined with the tasteful special effects (done entirely by Edwards with prosumer software in his bedroom!), make Monsters an indie sci-fi must-see. [Ananda]

It does not take long to notice that even the smallest of details in Nacho Vigalondo’s Timecrimes are not without purpose. As with most time-travel films, if you were to break everything down you are bound to find plot holes here and there. But over-thinking the logic ruins the entertainment the film provides and what would be the fun of that? The rapid pace of this independent science fiction film keeps one from dwelling very long on what transpires but the whole point of the film is not the outcome itself, but rather what caused the outcome to occur.

Timecrimes gets your pulse going right off the bat by starting out with a setup similar to that of a campy horror film. Héctor (Karra Elejalde) is minding his own business in his backyard as his wife (Candela Fernandez) moves some items into their new country home. Using a pair of binoculars, Héctor gazes around the woods that surround his home when much to his surprise he spots a woman undressing. When his wife heads to town for groceries he decides to get a closer look by heading into the woods. Just as he approaches the nude woman he is suddenly stabbed in the shoulder with a pair of scissors by a man with a pink bandaged head.

It is hard to describe in detail the rest of the film as it runs the risk of spoiling the experience for those who have not seen it. But without giving too much away I will say that Héctor does travel back in time and makes some mistakes, hence the title of the film. And the series of events that follows makes Timecrimes a film that is fascinating, bone-chilling, and confusing, all at the same time.

Just like other well-made time travel films the element of time paradoxes becomes the true enemy. Here they are explored with a butterfly-effect style that may make your head spin. However, Vigalondo does a good job of feeding answers to the audience, while wisely holding a couple cards up his sleeve. Because many of the scenes are re-shown throughout the film, it becomes less about what is happening and more about why it is happening. The pacing of the film is important as it does not allow much time, pun intended, to ask why certain things are happening until after the fact.

Vigalondo handles the intricate time-traveling details rather well while at the same time carefully constructing a puzzle that he eventually reveals. Timecrimes makes it seem like you are one step ahead, but in reality that is exactly what the film wants you to think before pulling the rug beneath your feet. As equality impressive as the brilliant storyline is the range of mixed reactions the film conjures up. The opening scenes the film hooks you with intrigue, followed closely by heart-pounding terror and by the end of the film you will have laughed, been confused, but most importantly, engaged the whole way through. That kind of feat is rarely achieved by films with budgets tenfold that of this indie sci-fi thriller.