Every Best First Feature from Independent Spirit Award
by kawhansantos | created - 2 weeks ago | updated - 22 hours ago | PublicThe Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature is one of the annual Independent Spirit Awards. It is usually given to the director (or directors) and producer (or producers). The "first feature" designation is applied to the director not the producer(s). Therefore, producers have been nominated multiple times. It was first presented in 1986 with Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It being the first recipient of the award.
In 2000, this category was split into two separate categories: one for films with budgets over $500,000 and a new category, the Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award, which was restricted to films with budgets under $500,000. In 2001, films could be eligible regardless of their budget as long as it was feature film directorial debut.
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1. She's Gotta Have It (1986)
R | 84 min | Comedy, Romance
Story of a woman and her three lovers.
Director: Spike Lee | Stars: Tracy Camilla Johns, Tommy Redmond Hicks, John Canada Terrell, Spike Lee
Votes: 16,315 | Gross: $7.14M
2. Dirty Dancing (I) (1987)
PG-13 | 100 min | Drama, Music, Romance
Spending the summer at a Catskills resort with her family, Frances "Baby" Houseman falls in love with the camp's dance instructor, Johnny Castle.
Director: Emile Ardolino | Stars: Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Grey, Jerry Orbach, Cynthia Rhodes
Votes: 256,493 | Gross: $0.62M
3. Mystic Pizza (1988)
R | 104 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Three teenage girls come of age while working at a pizza parlor in the Connecticut town of Mystic.
Director: Donald Petrie | Stars: Annabeth Gish, Julia Roberts, Lili Taylor, Vincent D'Onofrio
Votes: 32,487 | Gross: $12.79M
4. Heathers (1988)
R | 103 min | Comedy, Crime
At Westerburg High where cliques rule, jocks dominate and all the popular girls are named Heather, it's going to take a Veronica and mysterious new kid to give teen angst a body count.
Director: Michael Lehmann | Stars: Winona Ryder, Christian Slater, Shannen Doherty, Lisanne Falk
Votes: 115,901 | Gross: $1.11M
5. Metropolitan (1989)
PG-13 | 98 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A group of young upper-class Manhattanites are blithely passing through the gala debutante season, when an unusual outsider joins them and stirs them up.
Director: Whit Stillman | Stars: Carolyn Farina, Edward Clements, Chris Eigeman, Taylor Nichols
Votes: 12,406 | Gross: $2.94M
6. Straight Out of Brooklyn (1991)
R | 91 min | Crime, Drama
A young man living in poverty makes a plan to rob a drug dealer and change the life of his family.
Director: Matty Rich | Stars: George T. Odom, Ann D. Sanders, Lawrence Gilliard Jr., Barbara Sanon
Votes: 667
7. The Waterdance (1992)
R | 106 min | Drama, Romance
A young man learns how to come to terms with his disability after becoming paralyzed in a hiking accident.
Directors: Neal Jimenez, Michael Steinberg | Stars: Eric Stoltz, Helen Hunt, Wesley Snipes, William Allen Young
Votes: 4,191 | Gross: $1.72M
8. El Mariachi (1992)
R | 81 min | Action, Crime, Thriller
A traveling mariachi is mistaken for a murderous criminal and must hide from a gang bent on killing him.
Director: Robert Rodriguez | Stars: Carlos Gallardo, Consuelo Gómez, Jaime de Hoyos, Peter Marquardt
Votes: 71,313 | Gross: $2.04M
9. Spanking the Monkey (1994)
Unrated | 100 min | Comedy, Drama
A med student is forced by his traveling salesman dad to cancel a top summer internship and look after his hot mom, who's bedridden with a broken leg. Applying lotion to her legs arouses him.
Director: David O. Russell | Stars: Jeremy Davies, Alberta Watson, Benjamin Hendrickson, Elizabeth Newett
Votes: 6,768 | Gross: $1.36M
10. The Brothers McMullen (1995)
R | 98 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Three Irish Catholic brothers from Long Island struggle to deal with love, marriage, and infidelity.
Director: Edward Burns | Stars: Jack Mulcahy, Michael McGlone, Edward Burns, Shari Albert
Votes: 8,190 | Gross: $10.25M
11. Sling Blade (1996)
R | 135 min | Drama
Karl Childers, a simple man hospitalized since his childhood murder of his mother and her lover, is released to start a new life in a small town.
Director: Billy Bob Thornton | Stars: Billy Bob Thornton, Dwight Yoakam, J.T. Walsh, John Ritter
Votes: 98,818 | Gross: $24.48M
12. Eve's Bayou (1997)
R | 108 min | Drama
What did little Eve see--and how will it haunt her? Husband, father and womanizer Louis Batiste is the head of an affluent family, but it's the women who rule this gothic world of secrets, lies and mystic forces.
Director: Kasi Lemmons | Stars: Samuel L. Jackson, Jurnee Smollett, Meagan Good, Lynn Whitfield
Votes: 11,619 | Gross: $14.82M
13. The Opposite of Sex (1998)
R | 105 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A 16-year-old girl visits her gay half-brother and ends up seducing his boyfriend, thus wreaking havoc on all of their lives.
Director: Don Roos | Stars: Christina Ricci, Martin Donovan, Lisa Kudrow, Lyle Lovett
Votes: 21,764 | Gross: $5.88M
14. Being John Malkovich (1999)
R | 113 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
A puppeteer discovers a portal that leads literally into the head of movie star John Malkovich.
Director: Spike Jonze | Stars: John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener, John Malkovich
Votes: 353,406 | Gross: $22.86M
15. You Can Count on Me (2000)
R | 111 min | Drama
A single mother's life is thrown into turmoil after her struggling, rarely seen younger brother returns to town.
Director: Kenneth Lonergan | Stars: Laura Linney, Matthew Broderick, Amy Ryan, Michael Countryman
Votes: 31,427 | Gross: $9.18M
16. In the Bedroom (2001)
R | 131 min | Crime, Drama
A New England couple's college-aged son dates an older woman who has two small children and an unwelcome ex-husband.
Director: Todd Field | Stars: Tom Wilkinson, Sissy Spacek, Nick Stahl, Marisa Tomei
Votes: 42,435 | Gross: $35.93M
17. The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (2002)
R | 104 min | Comedy, Drama
A group of Catholic school friends, after being caught drawing an obscene comic book, plan a heist that will outdo their previous prank and make them local legends.
Director: Peter Care | Stars: Kieran Culkin, Jena Malone, Emile Hirsch, Vincent D'Onofrio
Votes: 14,183 | Gross: $1.78M
18. Monster (2003)
R | 109 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
Based on the life of Aileen Wuornos, a Daytona Beach prostitute who became a serial killer.
Director: Patty Jenkins | Stars: Charlize Theron, Christina Ricci, Bruce Dern, Lee Tergesen
Votes: 161,854 | Gross: $34.47M
19. Garden State (2004)
R | 102 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A quietly troubled young man returns home for his mother's funeral after being estranged from his family for a decade.
Director: Zach Braff | Stars: Zach Braff, Peter Sarsgaard, Natalie Portman, Ian Holm
Votes: 223,217 | Gross: $26.78M
20. Crash (I) (2004)
R | 112 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
Los Angeles citizens with vastly separate lives collide in interweaving stories of race, loss and redemption.
Director: Paul Haggis | Stars: Don Cheadle, Sandra Bullock, Thandiwe Newton, Karina Arroyave
Votes: 449,060 | Gross: $54.58M
21. Sweet Land (2005)
PG | 110 min | Drama, Romance
In 1920, Inge, a German national, travels from Norway to rural Minnesota for her arranged marriage to Olaf, a Norwegian farmer; bureaucracy and prejudice cause major complications.
Director: Ali Selim | Stars: Elizabeth Reaser, Lois Smith, Patrick Heusinger, Stephen Pelinski
Votes: 4,152 | Gross: $1.71M
22. The Lookout (2007)
R | 99 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
Chris is a once promising high school athlete whose life is turned upside down following a tragic accident. As he tries to maintain a normal life, he takes a job as a janitor at a bank, where he ultimately finds himself caught up in a planned heist.
Director: Scott Frank | Stars: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jeff Daniels, Matthew Goode, Isla Fisher
Votes: 60,549 | Gross: $4.60M
23. Synecdoche, New York (2008)
R | 124 min | Drama
A theatre director struggles with his work, and the women in his life, as he creates a life-size replica of New York City inside a warehouse as part of his new play.
Director: Charlie Kaufman | Stars: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Samantha Morton, Michelle Williams, Catherine Keener
Votes: 98,248 | Gross: $3.08M
24. Crazy Heart (2009)
R | 112 min | Drama, Music, Romance
A faded country music musician is forced to reassess his dysfunctional life during a doomed romance that also inspires him.
Director: Scott Cooper | Stars: Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Colin Farrell, James Keane
Votes: 94,695 | Gross: $39.46M
25. Get Low (2009)
PG-13 | 103 min | Drama, Mystery
A movie spun out of equal parts folk tale, fable and real-life legend about the mysterious, 1930s Tennessee hermit who famously threw his own rollicking funeral party... while he was still alive.
Director: Aaron Schneider | Stars: Robert Duvall, Bill Murray, Sissy Spacek, Lucas Black
Votes: 24,032 | Gross: $9.18M
26. Margin Call (2011)
R | 107 min | Drama, Thriller
Follows the key people at an investment bank over a 24-hour period during the early stages of the 2008 financial crisis.
Director: J.C. Chandor | Stars: Zachary Quinto, Stanley Tucci, Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany
Votes: 144,348 | Gross: $5.35M
27. The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)
PG-13 | 103 min | Drama
Charlie, a 15-year-old introvert, enters high school and is nervous about his new life. When he befriends his seniors, he learns to cope with his friend's suicide and his tumultuous past.
Director: Stephen Chbosky | Stars: Logan Lerman, Emma Watson, Ezra Miller, Paul Rudd
Votes: 548,120 | Gross: $17.74M
28. Fruitvale Station (2013)
R | 85 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
The story of Oscar Grant III, a 22-year-old Bay Area resident, who crosses paths with friends, enemies, family, and strangers on the last day of 2008.
Director: Ryan Coogler | Stars: Michael B. Jordan, Melonie Diaz, Octavia Spencer, Kevin Durand
Votes: 85,903 | Gross: $16.10M
29. Nightcrawler (2014)
R | 117 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
When Louis Bloom, a con man desperate for work, muscles into the world of L.A. crime journalism, he blurs the line between observer and participant to become the star of his own story.
Director: Dan Gilroy | Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Bill Paxton, Riz Ahmed
Votes: 604,779 | Gross: $32.38M
30. The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015)
R | 102 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A teen artist living in 1970s San Francisco enters into an affair with her mother's boyfriend.
Director: Marielle Heller | Stars: Bel Powley, Alexander Skarsgård, Kristen Wiig, Christopher Meloni
Votes: 33,567 | Gross: $1.48M
31. The VVitch: A New-England Folktale (2015)
R | 92 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
A family in 1630s New England is torn apart by the forces of witchcraft, black magic and possession.
Director: Robert Eggers | Stars: Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie, Julian Richings
Votes: 301,029 | Gross: $25.14M
32. Ingrid Goes West (2017)
R | 98 min | Comedy, Drama
An unhinged social media stalker moves to LA and ingratiates herself into the life of an Instagram star.
Director: Matt Spicer | Stars: Aubrey Plaza, Elizabeth Olsen, O'Shea Jackson Jr., Wyatt Russell
Votes: 47,952 | Gross: $3.02M
33. Sorry to Bother You (2018)
R | 112 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
In an alternate present-day version of Oakland, telemarketer Cassius Green discovers a magical key to professional success, propelling him into a universe of greed.
Director: Boots Riley | Stars: LaKeith Stanfield, Tessa Thompson, Jermaine Fowler, Omari Hardwick
Votes: 88,216 | Gross: $17.49M
34. Booksmart (2019)
R | 102 min | Comedy
On the eve of their high-school graduation, two academic superstars and best friends realize they should have worked less and played more. Determined not to fall short of their peers, the girls try to cram four years of fun into one night.
Director: Olivia Wilde | Stars: Kaitlyn Dever, Beanie Feldstein, Jessica Williams, Jason Sudeikis
Votes: 131,165 | Gross: $22.68M
35. Sound of Metal (2019)
R | 120 min | Drama, Music
A heavy metal drummer's life is turned upside down when he begins to lose his hearing and he must confront a future filled with silence.
Director: Darius Marder | Stars: Riz Ahmed, Olivia Cooke, Paul Raci, Lauren Ridloff
Votes: 150,405
36. 7 Days (I) (2021)
86 min | Comedy, Drama
As if their pre-arranged date, organized by their traditional Indian parents, wasn't uncomfortable enough, Ravi and Rita are forced to shelter in place together as COVID-19's reach intensifies.
Director: Roshan Sethi | Stars: Karan Soni, Geraldine Viswanathan, Gita Reddy, Zenobia Shroff
Votes: 1,356
37. Aftersun (II) (2022)
R | 102 min | Drama
Sophie reflects on the shared joy and private melancholy of a holiday she took with her father twenty years earlier. Memories real and imagined fill the gaps between as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with the man she didn't...
Director: Charlotte Wells | Stars: Paul Mescal, Frankie Corio, Celia Rowlson-Hall, Sally Messham
Votes: 93,759
38. A Thousand and One (2023)
R | 117 min | Crime, Drama
After unapologetic and fiercely loyal Inez kidnaps her son Terry from the foster care system, mother and son set out to reclaim their sense of home, identity, and stability, in a rapidly changing New York City.
Director: A.V. Rockwell | Stars: Teyana Taylor, Aaron Kingsley Adetola, Aven Courtney, Josiah Cross
Votes: 6,934
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