It is always not necessary to have a large budget for a feature to be commercially successful and relevant!
In most analyses and stats about cinema, it is clearly visible that the works that are generally considered successful are the ones that already have a hefty budget already invested in their productions. This phenomenon can be in part attributed to the large marketing campaigns that these big budget production companies use as a strategy before the release of a film. This ensures that there are enough people in the general audiences and they are aware when the project is being released.
Another very important factor in these productions are that hugely famous and successful actors are usually playing the lead roles in these projects and they already have a large fan base who are always up to date with their latest work and releases, and there is always additional merchandising which also boosts the overall release of the and adds to the collection of the project. Yet that does not always mean that the project will be successful, and most importantly be culturally relevant, that is still determined by the strength of the content and the purity of the craft. There have been many such projects that have been massively successful by just the sheer narrative brilliance and also the ingenuity in their cinematic craft. These are most extremely low budget independent works often made with an auteurist vision and produced by the director himself with a very small crew, these works often don’t have many stars or just one star to lend credibility to these works, and they premier in smaller film festivals and then are picked up by distributors for larger showings. This list contains such independent works that were made with low budgets and with very little crew or support from a large production company yet they managed to make their mark on the history of the medium, the list isn’t specified to one particular country.
A debut feature by one the most famous Director duos of modern Hollywood, Blood Simple was a gritty thriller that made use of its smaller budget by brilliant screenwriting and stellar performances solidifying its status as a cult classic.
Again a work that was successful based solely on the strength of its script and characters, made in a convenience store with the help of local residents, this work is now iconic in the history of cinema.
The only French feature on this list, the work, deals with the housing projects in Paris that won a lot of critical and commercial acclaim, with stellar performances all across the board.
