Top 10 Most Anticipated Indie Movies of 2015

Here is my "Top 10 Most Anticipated Indie Movies of 2015" list. The definition of "indie movie" for this list is anything getting an initial limited release or distributed by an independent production company, or a film most people just plain don't know about. If you want to see the list of major releases I am looking forward to, that list is here.

#10 Umrika - Umrika has become one of the most widely sold Indian films of all-time. The winner of the World Cinema - Dramatic Audience Award at Sundance this year, Umrika is the story about a boy looking for his brother after he has gone missing while traveling to America. According to director Prashant Nair, the film is "about mythology of America and, more generally, how cultures perceive each other: the stereotypes, assumptions, misunderstandings, and labeling as 'exotic' of all things unfamiliar." The movie stars Suraj Sharma who folks should recognize from Life of Pi, as well as Tony Revolori from The Grand Budapest Hotel.
Release date: TBD 2015
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#9 Slow West - Slow West is a British made American western, which is interesting. The film wasn't even filmed in America, but it's supposed to take place in Colorado. Instead, parts of New Zealand were used to mimic the look of the American west back then. Slow West starts out with a simple premise of "traveling across the west to save the girl he loves" sort of thing, but gets complicated when the boy runs into some dangerous characters. The movie stars some sizable names in Michael Fassbender, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Ben Mendelsohn, and it also won the Sundance World Cinema Jury Prize: Dramatic.
Release date: May 15, 2015
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#8 The Stanford Prison Experiment - Based on the 1971 real study at Stanford University, The Stanford Prison Experiment looks to illustrate cognitive dissonance theory and the power of authority. The experiment is a very interesting read if you ever get the chance. 24 males deemed to be psychologically stable and healthy were split into two groups in a mock prison: prisoners and guards. The psychological effects were so outstanding, that the study only lasted 6 days. Olivia Thirlby and Ezra Miller lead the cast full of young talent. The film won the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize and Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at Sundance earlier this year.
Release date: July 17, 2015
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#7 He Named Me Malala - By now, you've likely heard of Malala Yousafzai. At age 17, Yousafzai is the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate. She is a Pakistani activist for female education who was shot in the face by Taliban in 2012. She survived and the whole event only made her stronger. Since then, she's given many speeches, won many awards, and has decided to follow in her father's footsteps as a politician. What I think I am going to love about this documentary is that it's not a film just about Malala, but it sounds like it's also about her father, who is the "He" in the movie's title. Fathers have a huge impact on their children's lives and this is one of the greatest examples of it. Her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, has been an educational activist for a long time now running a chain of private schools known as the Khushal Public School. It's should be as much his story as it is her's. Their tale is told on screen by director Davis Guggenheim, who also did An Inconvenient Truth and Waiting for Superman.
Release date: October 2, 2015
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#6 A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence - Director Roy Andersson's "Living" trilogy is one of those lesser known film series, but is one I predict will become more well-known through this year and next thanks to A Pigeon. The movie premiered at the 71st Venice International Film Festival where it was awarded the Golden Lion for Best Film. Coming with the approval of master directors Alejandro G. Iñárritu and Darren Aronofsky, A Pigeon is inspired by the 1565 painting The Hunters in the Snow by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The painting depicts a rural wintertime scene, with some birds perched on tree branches. Andersson said he imagined that the birds in the scene are watching the people below and wonder what they are doing. He explained the title of the film as a "different way of saying 'what are we actually doing,' that's what the movie is about."
Release date: June 3, 2015
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#5 The Lobster - Yorgos Lanthimos' 2009 film Dogtooth was both controversial and well-received and now he returns with The Lobster. Seemingly more conventional, The Lobster is a sci-fi romantic thriller set in a dystopian near future. In this future, single people are taken to The Hotel where they are obliged to find a matching mate in 45 days. If they fail, they are transformed into animals and sent off into The Woods. The movie stars the very talented Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz. It was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival and won the Jury Prize.
Release date: TBD 2015
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#4 Fort Tilden - This is one of those moments where I look at a movie and can feel like I am totally going to enjoy it. Fort Tilden follows two young ladies going through their quarter-life crises. It's that time between college and starting your career when you might still not know what you're going to do with your life. Anyway, these two ladies decide to take a day off from their worries and go up to Fort Tilden, a secluded beach where Brooklyn's hip millennials flock on sweltering weekend afternoons. The movie can probably be seen a little bit as a road trip comedy where everything that can go wrong, does.
Release date: August 14, 2015
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#3 Ex Machina - Writer and Director Alex Garland has written some of the best screenplays since the new millennium. Films like The Beach, 28 Days Later, Sunshine, Never Let Me Go, and Dredd all came from the tip of his pen. For the first time, Garland is stepping into the director's chair with Ex Machina, a sci-fi thriller about a programmer who is invited by his employer to administer the Turing test to an android with artificial intelligence. Early reviews are already looking pretty positive, so there's a lot to be excited about, including a fantastic cast headed by Star Wars: Episode VII buddies Domhnall Gleeson and Oscar Isaac.
Release date: April 24, 2015
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#2 What We Do in the Shadows - All I needed to know was that one of the creators and one of the directors from Flight of the Conchords were teaming up again to make a vampire mockumentary. I was in after that. Taika Waititi, New Zealander director of Eagle vs Shark and Boy, and Jemaine Clement from Flight of the Conchords wrote, directed, and star in What We Do in the Shadows. It is being called a vampire version of Best in Show and has been getting very favorable reviews, so far. The mockumentary and the vampire genre have been needing a film like this.
Release date: February 13, 2015
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Here it is, the moment you've all been waiting for...





#1 Me and Earl and the Dying Girl - I don't know what it is about this movie, but it looks like a good coming-of-age movie that has a fair mix of serious with comedy. It's also a movie that is a fan of movies taking some notes from Be Kind Rewind where the main character enjoys making cheap parody versions of popular films. His outlook is forever altered after befriending a classmate who has just been diagnosed with cancer, played by Bates Motel's Olivia Cooke. M&E&TDG has been sweeping the festival circuit with its biggest wins being at Sundance where it won the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award.
Release date: June 12, 2015
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Runners up: White God, Knight of Cups, Equals, Spotlight, GETT: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem, Timbuktu, About Elly.