A low-budget film is a motion picture shot on limited budget. Young or unknown directors often make low-budget films due to a lack of funding from studios, who are not willing to invest in a film which appears unlikely to become successful.

It is not determined what qualifies a film as a low budget production. The term "low budget" is relative to a certain country and varies upon genre. For example, a comedy film made for $20 million would be considered a modest budget, whereas an action film made for the same amount of money would be considered low budget.

Notable low budget films

The most successful low-budget film was 1999's The Blair Witch Project. It had a budget of $22,000 but grossed over $248 million worldwide. It had the highest ratio of box office sales to production cost in American film making history. It spawned books, a trilogy of video games, and a less-popular sequel.

Possibly an even more successful low-budget film was the 1972 film Deep Throat which cost only $22,500 to produce, yet was rumored to have grossed over $600 million, though this figure is often disputed as unrealistic.

Another successful low-budget film is Clerks by director Kevin Smith. Clerks was made on less than $27,000 (an enormous portion of which was spent on the film's soundtrack rather than the actual production), but its success helped launch the career of Kevin Smith, who as of September 2007 has made six more films.

Micro budget

A micro budget film is that which is made on an extremely low budget, sometimes as little as a few thousand dollars. An example of such would be the popular 1992 El Mariachi, in which the director Robert Rodriguez was unable to afford second takes due to the $7000 budget. Despite this, it was a success both critically and commercially, and started the young director's career.

Another example would be the 1977 cult film Eraserhead, which cost only $100,000 to produce (Although it may be worth noting 30 years of inflation since the film was made). Director David Lynch had so much trouble securing funds that the film had to be made over a 6 year period, whenever Lynch could afford to shoot scenes.

In 2006, Richard Rossi made his debut feature "Aimee Semple McPherson" with a consumer camcorder and Mini DV tapes he bought at a drugstore. Shot for a few thousand dollars, it was voted one of the top low budget films of all time and has generated mostly positive feedback since its worldwide release by Maverick Entertainment under the new title "Sister Aimee: The Aimee Semple McPherson Story."

See also

• B-movie
• No budget film
• Experimental film
• Video art