13 Independent Sci-Fi/Fantasy Movies You Need To Watch Power Grid By Rebecca PahleJun 27th, 2013, 12:30 pm You are seeing this message because you have javascript disabled. To use our slideshows you need to enable javascript. There's no cross domain hackery or tracking voodoo, it's just some sweet jQuery animations. Please, think of the animations. In the meantime, enjoy the html version below. I guess. If that's your thing. Allow Us To Explain When it comes to film, we write about the big dogs a lot here at The Mary Sue. Your Marvel and DC movies. Your Stars Trek and Wars. Whatever fairy tales are being rebooted by major studios at any given time. And those are (or can be) good. Great, even. But there's a special place in my heart for indie movies, and there always has been. Independent moviemakers have more leeway to do interesting, creative things than their studio counterparts. And, look… this might be blasphemous of me, but a lot of the bigger-budget sci-fi movies, particularly comic book movies, have begun blending together in my head as of late. The Amazing Spider-Man, X-Men: First Class, Man of Steel... they're turning into one amorphous blob. Sometimes I'm in the mood for something a little different. To that end, here are my suggestions for 13 Independent Sci-Fi/Fantasy Movies You Should Watch. I've disqualified those lucky indie movies that have garnered mainstream success. It's not that I don't think Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Pan's Labyrinth, Brazil, or Being John Malkovich are great films, and it's not that their popularity somehow invalidates their quality, but... look, does anyone need to be told they should see District 9 at this point? This list is for the little guys. Finally, let's pour one out for the runners-up: The Host (2006), Trollhunter, Timecrimes, Monsters, Thirst, and Citadel. Attack the Block What Is It?A sci-fi comedy about a group of teenagers who have to defend their housing project when it's attacked by aliens. It’s also my favorite movie on this list by a mile. Watch It If You Like: British comedies in the strain of Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Wright executive produced Attack the Block, and he and Attack the Block writer/director Joe Cornish are re-teaming for another movie you may have heard of: Ant-Man. (Wright is directing, Cornish is writing.) "OK, Sell Me": One: It’s hilarious. Some of the accents are quite heavy, so it can be hard to catch the dialogue. Put on subtitles. It’s worth it. Two: It has great acting, especially from John Boyega, who plays gang leader Moses. Three: It features some of the best, most innovative creature design to hit my eyeballs in a long damn time. Attack the Block is a low-budget movie, so Cornish & co. didn’t have a lot to work with when crafting the aliens referred to by the characters as “alien gorilla wolf motherf***ers.” They're basically shadows with glow-in-the-dark mouths. But they’re approximately 58 thousand times scarier, cooler, and just better than that sounds. And finally: You might not think it of a sci-fi comedy with repeated use of the phrase "alien gorilla wolf motherf***ers," but Attack the Block has better, more insightful things to say about racism and classism than most movies about racism and classism. But it's not preachy or heavy-handed about it. You're just watching this funny, occassionaly violent movie about teens fighting off aliens, and then you slowly begin to realize… Moses and his friends have to deal with the alien invasion themselves, because they live in a low-income, primarily black area, and the government doesn't really care what happens to them unless it's something the police can arrest them for. Huh. This movie’s pretty deep. And then the final scene comes, and with it feels. And finally, the most important thing: It it on Netflix Instant? No. Buy it on iTunes or track down the DVD to rent, if you happen to be near one of the ever-dwindling number of rental stores. Do it. Do it now. The Fall What Is It? At a hospital in 1920s Los Angeles Alexandria (Catinca Untaru), a little girl with a vivid imagination, meets Roy (Lee Pace), a Hollywood stuntman left paralyzed and suicidal after a film shoot gone wrong. Roy tells Alexandria a fantastical story of noble heroes on a quest to vanquish an evil governor, but as the story goes on and Roy's mental state begins to deteriorate the line between the real world and the fantasy one begins to blur. Watch It If You Like: Fantasy, movies that will rip your heart out, Lee Pace. (I know there are some of you reading this. Pushing Daisies fans, show yourselves!) "OK, Sell Me”: Don’t let the recent films of The Fall director Tarsem Singh fool you: Immortals and Mirror Mirror might’ve been bad, but The Fall is amazing. What sets Singh apart is that his films look absolutely amazing; in terms of visuals, the man’s a genius. But The Fall has all the emotion and brilliant storytelling that his later films lack. The Fall moves seamlessly between fantasy and reality, making the movie feel like a dream—and, near the end, a nightmare. Pace and Untaru both give brilliant, heart-wrenching performances. The climactic scene when Roy finishes telling the story is on par with Artax's death in The Neverending Story. I'm not even kidding. It's a great scene, but it's rough on your emotions. Have Kleenex nearby. Netflix Instant? No Primer What Is It? The most hardcore time travel movie that’s ever been or probably ever will be, Primer follows two engineers who accidentally invent time travel in one of their garages. In exploring their new discovery’s more, shall we say, financially lucrative uses, they screw things up big time. Their lives. The lives of those around them. Maybe the space-time continuum. Watch It If You Like: Time travel, movies that will break your brain. "OK, Sell Me": What sets Primer apart from every other time travel movie out there? The key is in the tagline: "What happens if it actually works?" Primer explores its subject in a realistic manner, meaning it's insanely complicated and nearly impossible for a layperson to understand, just like time travel would be if it were real. There's a ton of unexplained technical jargon and multiple timelines (nine, according to this chart), which is completely normal for a time travel movie except that writer/director Shane Carruth rarely bothers to tell you which one you're watching at any given time. Put simply, the movie makes no sense… except that it does. You just have to unravel it. There's an entire blog and several academic papers devoted to doing just that. Like most cult movies, Primer's a love-it-or-hate-it kind of thing. Either way, it'll leave you blinking at your screen in complete and utter confusion after the first (and second, and third, and fourth…) viewing. Netflix Instant? Yes Sunshine What Is It? It's the year 2057, and the sun is on the verge of going out. In a last-ditch effort to avoid the Earth turning into an Earthsicle a crew of astronauts are sent to deposit a nuclear bomb in the center of the sun, hopefully reigniting it. Watch It If You Like: Sci-fi movies with a psychological bent, sci-fi horror. "OK, Sell Me": If you want a sci-fi epic, look elsewhere. Sunshine is a small movie, taking place almost entirely on a single spaceship, with just a few actors. There are no space battles or exotic alien species. But if you want a film that explores the psychology of space travel you'd be hard-pressed to find a better one. Well, OK, there's 2001: A Space Odyssey, but Sunshine's approach to how the darkness of space can mess with one's brain is more direct. One might not consider it an indie film, since it was distributed by Fox. But it didn't get much attention when it came out, plus it's so brilliant and innovative and terrifying (in a good way) that I wouldn't feel right not including it. Plus it has a really geeky cast. I'm talking Captain America (Chris Evans) and Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy), plus X-Men: First Class’s Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne) and Green Lantern’s Sinestro (Mark Strong). Also Michelle Yeoh, who's never been in a comic book movie to my knowledge, but she's still Michelle em-effing Yeoh. Netflix Instant? No Iron Sky What Is It? Space Nazis. That’s all you need to know. Watch It If You Like: B-movies. Look, you know if you might like a movie about Space Nazis. "OK, Sell Me": Iron Sky is a ridiculous movie, and I mean that in the best possible way. It was directed by Timo Vuorensola, who made the movie bit-by-bit over a period of years, getting funding via donations from people who really, really wanted to see a movie about Nazis who fled to the moon after WWII and, decades later, come back and try to take over the world. It didn’t fare too well with critics; one reviewer said it "feels more and more like a lost Austin Powers sequel that already feels exceedingly dated in its humor." Honestly, I think Austin Powers is too serious a movie to compare it to. Austin Powers has structure to its satire, while Iron Sky is more "let's see how much crazy stuff we can put on-screen in 93 minutes." The Nazis have space zeppelins that they use to lauch a “meteorblitzkrieg” while a modified version of “The Flight of the Valkyries” plays in the blackground. There are hammy German accents and a mad scientist who’s created a potion that turns black people white. Udo Kier plays the Nazi leader, there's a scene that parodies the "Hitler reacts" meme, and the US President is Sarah Palin. Don’t let the actually-quite-good special effects fool you: Iron Sky is a B movie, through and through. Netflix Instant? Yes Moon What Is It? Astronaut Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) lives alone on a lunar mining station, where he has only a few more weeks in his three-year shift to go before he can return to his wife and daughter on Earth. That's when the hallucinations start. Watch It If You Like: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Sam Rockwell. (There'd better be a lot of Sam Rockwell fans on this site. I won't accept otherwise.) "OK, Sell Me": Moon is one of the most obvious inclusions on this list, and for good reason. Sam Rockwell is excellent as the stir-crazy, possibly just crazy-crazy astronaut who begins to suspect that what he knows about his life, even about himself, might be a lie. That's no surprise, though, because Sam Rockwell is just generally excellent. Creating a movie set on the moon isn't something you can easily do on a modest $5 million budget (if $5 million seems like a lot, consider that Iron Sky reportedly had between $10 and $15 million, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind had $20 million). Director Duncan Jones overcame budgetary limitations by creating a movie that's set in pretty much one location with only a few actors. There's Rockwell; Kevin Spacey as the voice of the robot GERTY, Sam's only companion; and a few other cast members with a scene or two each. It paid off. The movie looks like it cost much more than $5 million, owing in part to how Jones used models for much of the film instead of relying on digital animation. And if you're going to rest your movie on the shoulders of one actor, Rockwell is a damn good choice. Moon is surprising, original, and brilliant. It's well worth your 97 minutes. Netflix Instant? No Byzantium What Is It? The long, unchanging lives of mother-daughter vampire duo Clara (Gemma Arterton) and Eleanor (Saoirse Ronan) take a turn for the bloody (well, bloodier) when mysterious figures from Clara's past show up. Watch It If You Like: Vampire movies that are neither actioners like Blade or Underworld nor paranormal romances like Twilight. Fans of Interview with the Vampire should give Byzantium a shot, since they’re both directed by Neil Jordan. "OK, Sell Me”: This one comes out in theaters in limited release tomorrow, June 28th. If it's playing near you, you should see it. The way it examines vampire mythology from the female perspective is interesting—vampirism can be interpreted as one big sex metaphor, after all, but one that we usually only see the male side of. It’s not a perfect movie by any means. At times it gets a little campy (a character falls through a skylight onto a conveniently placed bouncy castle, I kid you not), and it can be heavy-handed in its symbolism. (The evil male vampires form a group called the Brotherhood, and one of the bad things they do is tell female vampires they can’t create—are you getting the metaphors yet?) But hell, it’s a gothic vampire movie by the guy who directed Interview with the Vampire. I am fine with a lack of subtlety. It's far and away better than Interview, too. The acting is good, it’s beautifully shot, and it’s not about romance or gunfights, which is rare for vampire movies these days. There is a romance subplot between Eleanor and a human teenager played by Caleb Landry Jones, but the relationship at the center of the movie is between mother and daughter. Netflix Instant? Not yet, if ever. Get ye to a movie theater. Another Earth and Sound Of My Voice What Is It? The Sundance Film Festival found itself overcome with sci-fi love when these two films, both starring Brit Marling, debuted there in 2011. The central premise of Another Earth is that… wait for it… another Earth, one exactly like ours, shows up in the sky one night out of nowhere. In it Marling plays Rhoda, a young woman who sees in Earth 2 a way to cope with a tragic accident that took place on the night of its discovery. In Sound Of My Voice Marling plays Maggie, an enigmatic cult leader who may or may not be a time traveller. Watch It If You Like: Character pieces, movies like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind where the sci-fi comes from a fantastic element added to the normal world. "OK, Sell Me”: Fair warning: If you don't like movies with ambiguous endings, avoid these two. But if you're OK with a little bit of "Wait, what was with…?" after the credits roll, Another Earth and Sound of My Voice might be right up your alley. Both movies present a situation and allow the audience to make their own judgment on characters' meanings and motivations. The sci-fi element of Another Earth is almost incidental; writers Marling and Mike Cahill (who's also the director) have just taken a normal person—albeit one with a serious guilt complex—and examined how a crazy random happenstance like the appearance of Earth 2 would affect them. With Sound Of My Voice things get weirder, but by the end of the movie the two main characters—amateur filmmakers who infiltrated Maggie's cult to make a documentary exposing her—still haven't had all their questions answered, and neither have we. Another Earth and Sound Of My Voice are smart, thoughtful films, ones that ask questions of their viewers and don't hold their hands. They're about as far on the other end of the spectrum from Iron Sky as it's possible to get, basically. Netflix Instant? Nope, neither. Safety Not Guaranteed What Is It? A trio of magazine editors respond to an ad placed by a mysterious loner named Kenneth that reads: "Wanted: Someone to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. I have only done this once before. Safety not guaranteed." (The ad itself is real: The man who posted it has a cameo in the movie.) Watch It If You Like: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, time travel, indie comedy. "OK, Sell Me": Have you caught on that I love time travel movies yet? Safety Not Guaranteed is different from most time travel movies, though—indeed, from most sci-fi movies—because for most of the movie it's not clear if Kenneth's actually built a time machine or if he's just deluded and/or insane. You literally don't know the genre of the movie until the very end. I for one found the mystery refreshing given how with most movies you know more or less exactly what you're getting before it even starts. (Rest assured that Safety Not Guaranteed being on a list of sci-fi movies does not mean that the sci-fi part of it actually happens; I wouldn't spoil it for you guys like that. Its inclusion is more a reflection of my love of movies about time travel—which Safety Not Guaranteed is, even if time travel may not be in it—and good comedy.) Netflix Instant? Yes. La Jetée What Is It? A 1962 French film about time travel and the aftermath of World War III. It’s also the film Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys is based on. Watch It If You Like: Time travel, dystopias, fancy-pants experimental films. "OK, Sell Me": La Jetée might just be the strangest entry on this list. And for a list that also includes Space Nazis: The Movie and Primer, that’s saying something. It’s shot in black and white using still photos almost entirely; as such it's almost like a comic book brought to life, if the comic book were art house-y and French. But even if your tastes don’t tend toward “experimental French movies” (mine don’t either, for the most part), La Jetée is still more than worth the watch. Its take on time travel is interesting, as is its story (gotta love a dystopia), and its atmosphere is delightfully creepy. Plus it’s under 30 minutes long and available on YouTube. So just close your Tumblr tab for half an hour (if you’re like me you’re incapable of Tumbling for less than three, so half of one isn’t really a big deal) and take the plunge. If you don’t like it, you can come yell at me. Netflix Instant? Nope. It's on Hulu Plus if you have it, though. The Secret of Kells What Is It? Set in eighth century Ireland, this animated film follows Brendan, a young monk-in-training who befriends a pagan forest spirit named Aisling. Watch It If You Like: Brave, mythology, Hayao Miyazaki movies "OK, Sell Me”: Animated kid's movies can be really similar to one another, at least when you're talking your Madagascar 2s, your Ice Age 3s, and your [insert Disney Princess movie here]s. But The Secret of Kells is a true original, for all that it has elements viewers will be familiar with. It shares its redhead-goes-off-into-the-forest-and-has-adventures plotline with the later Brave, plus the environmental spiritualism (Is that a phrase? It is now.) of a Miyazaki movie. (Except instead of Japanese nature spirits you get Irish nature spirits, obviously.) What’s stuck with me most in the years since I’ve seen it, though, is how the film looks. A key element in the plot of The Secret of Kells is an illuminated manuscript. Fittingly, the movie looks like an animated version of that book. I've never seen anything like it before. It's brilliant. Oh, and there’s also a little girl (well, a faerie who looks like a little girl) who can turn into a wolf. So that’s cool. Netflix Instant? Yes Cube What Is It? Seven people wake up in a maze of cubes, some of which contain deadly traps. They try to get out. That's it. That's the movie. Watch It If You Like: Horror movies like Saw, but not so gory. Also possibly relevant to your interests: Two of the characters are played by Stargate: Atlantis' David Hewlett and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Nicole deBoer. "OK, Sell Me”: Cube is far from being a perfect movie. The acting is shaky at times, and there's a character who fulfills the Scary Black Man trope to an uncomfortable degree. For all that, I count it among my favorite indie sci-fi movies because it does so much with so little. It's literally just a group of people traveling through a series of tubes cubes, trying to figure out where they are and who put them there, working together so they can escape, and occasionally dying. Yet it's such an intense, original, suspenseful movie that it stuck with me long after I'd watched it. Hollywood keeps churning out mediocre $250 million popcorn movies with A-list actors and crappy scripts, but Cube is proof of what you can do with a tiny budget, a small cast, and one set (the movie was shot in a single 14'x14' cube; the colors were changed by switching out sliding panels in the walls). Flawed? Sure. But it also represents, in a way, the best of cinema. Netflix Instant? No [View All on One Page] Are you following The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +? 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