After eight weekends in release, “Obsession” has crossed the $400M mark worldwide and has officially become the highest-grossing film ever made on a budget of under $1M.
Bruce Lee’s “Enter the Dragon” was produced for $850,000 in 1973 and went on to gross $400M worldwide—roughly $2 billion in today’s money. A major reason for its success was that the film was released around the time of Lee’s death. Then again, that $850,000 production budget would be equivalent to roughly $6.4M today.
In fact, if the budgets of many films in the top 20 were adjusted for inflation, they would exceed the $1M threshold, including “Rocky” and “American Graffiti.” Take a look at the list below.
In an era of Hollywood overspending—where it has become completely normal to greenlight a $200M budget for a movie—there have been growing calls to rein in costs and return to making more mid-budget cinema. “Obsession” might represent a shift in the right direction.
It’s important to shine a light on ultra-low-budget cinema and highlight the incredible films made under these constraints. Despite severe financial limitations, there have been wildly successful movies that struck a chord with both audiences and critics alike. It’s damn near inspiring—exhilarating, even—to watch a filmmaker push beyond the limits of money and create a film that ultimately feels greater than almost any movie made with 100 times the budget.
Not taking box office into account, but rather focusing purely on the quality of filmmaking, I recently compiled a list of films made before 1980 that had budgets under $1M and proved that you can make a great movie without excessive spending.
“Primer” (Shane Carruth) — $7k budget
“Slacker” (Richard Linklater) — $23k
“Clerks” (Kevin Smith) — $27k
“El Mariachi” (Robert Rodriguez) — $7k
“Pi” (Darren Aronofsky) — $134k
“The Blair Witch Project” (Myrick/Sanchez) — $60k
“Stranger Than Paradise” (Jim Jarmusch) $100k
“Swingers” (Doug Liman) — $200k
“Brick” (Rian Johnson) — $450k
“Bronson” (Nicolas Winding Refn) — $280k
“Once” (John Carney) — $150k
“Paranormal Activity” (Oren Peli) — $150k
“Upstream Color” (Shane Carruth) — $50K
“Wendy and Lucy” (Kelly Reichardt) — $300k
“Short Term 12” (Daniel Destin Cretton)— $400k
“Tangerine” (Sean Baker) — $400k
“Dogtooth”(Yorgos Lanthimos) — $275K
“Victoria” (Sebastian Schipper) — $500K
“A Separation” (Asghar Farhadi) — $400K
“Krisha” (Trey Edward Shults) — $30K
“A Ghost Story” (David Lowery) — $100K