10 low-budget thrillers

Blood Simple

Back before they were the Coen Brothers, Joel and Ethan Coen decided to make a movie. That movie was 1984’s Blood Simple, and from it came a body of work to rival anything in post-war American cinema.

Telling the story of Texas barman Ray (John Getz) and his affair with Abbey (Frances McDormand), the wife of his boss, Julian Marty (Dan Hedaya), the movie rather leisurely and moodily follows the gradual interweaving of its characters’ fates.

Mona Lisa

Director Neil Jordan’s 1986 London-set thriller, Mona Lisa is probably the finest film that Jordan, and its star, Bob Hoskins, ever made.

A far more intimate and contained film than the similarly London-set Hoskins starrer, The Long Good Friday, or Jordan’s more obviously shocking and internationally successful, The Crying Game, Mona Lisa is a woozy, bluesy movie that perfectly captures the seedy, run-down feel of mid-80s London.

Reservoir Dogs

When it comes to the more recent independent wave of thrillers, Reservoir Dogs (1991) is the undisputed daddy of them all. Made for a paltry $1.2m by writer and director Quentin Tarantino, Reservoir Dogs was an exocet missile across the bows of a complacent and overly formulaic Hollywood.

A talky, bloody, pithy and pop culture-savvy piece of work, Dogs gave Michael Madsen, Steve Buscemi and Tim Roth breakout roles, revitalised the careers of both Harvey Keitel and Chris Penn, and launched the love-him-or-loathe-him figure of Tarantino onto the world stage.

El Mariachi

The story of the making of Robert Rodriguez’s Mexican action movie, El Mariachi (1992), with its less-than-shoestring $7,000 budget, is an amazing story in itself, and one better read in Rodriguez’s own self-mythologising book, Rebel Without A Crew.

However, that self-mythologising shouldn’t detract from what Rodriguez managed to achieve on a budget that probably wouldn’t cover the catering on a major American movie for more than a couple of days.

The Usual Suspects

Famously described by director Bryan Singer as “Double Indemnity-meets-Rashomon”, The Usual Suspects firmly established director Singer, writer Chris McQuarrie and star Kevin Spacey as part of the Hollywood A-list after its Oscar winning success in 1995.

Budgeted at a mere $6m dollars, Singer managed to expertly manage his resources to deliver a picture that looked a darn sight more expensive.

BoundBefore the Matrix trilogy made them synonymous with wire-fu, bullet-time and gnomic utterances that’d make George Lucas blush, the Wachowski Brothers were simply the two guys who made that rather cool lesbian crime film, Bound.

Made on a budget of $6m dollars and imaginatively shot by cinematographer Bill Pope, Bound riffled heavily on the comic book styling's of Frank Miller’s Sin City series, and in many ways paved the way for its eventual adaptation some years later.

The Limey

While it may not be his most well-known thriller – the Ocean’s films and Out Of Sight win there – Stephen Soderbergh’s The Limey is arguably his most efficient, lean and effective stab at the genre.

While it may not be his most well-known thriller – the Ocean’s films and Out Of Sight win there – Stephen Soderbergh’s The Limey is arguably his most efficient, lean and effective stab at the genre.

Sexy Beast

Opening the new millennium with a bang, the Costa Del Crime-set Sexy Beast was a welcome and stylish change from the depressingly misogynistic rut that British crime films had fallen into after the success of Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch.

However, the film’s most memorable character was psychopath Don Logan. Brilliantly brought to life by Sir Ben Kingsley, Logan gave the film an unpredictable energy and made the Academy Award-winning actor hot property once again.

Memento

After his impressive, no-budget debut, Following, bowed in 1998, director Christopher Nolan graduated to the big leagues with the stunning Memento (2000).

Based around the brilliant central conceit of a man who’s unable to form new memories, Memento is at once a classic memory loss film noir spliced with a revenge thriller, while at the same time serving as a deconstruction of both character and narrative, with its backwards structure and haunting depiction of a man literally cut loose from cause and effect.

The American

Featuring Hollywood icon George Clooney in an unusually ruthless leading role, director Anton Corbijn’s taut euro thriller is a bleak yet hugely impressive film, which takes Clooney out of his usual comfort zone and teases out one of his most affecting and impressive performances.

Using both minimal dialogue, stunning yet haunting locations, and a very deliberate and controlled camera style, Corbijn evocatively conjures a mood of dark secrets, hidden agendas and fatal betrayal that are forever lurking just out of frame.