Frequently Asked Questions

Indie Gems is a membership platform dedicated to celebrating independent filmmakers and their work. It's a place you can go to get interesting film recommendations you won't get anywhere else. It's also a launchpad for filmmakers with upcoming releases to connect with an audience and boost their existing marketing.

Yes. We believe independent movies should be as accessible as possible to as many people as possible. For that reason, membership is free and all of the basic features necessary for discovering new movies will remain free. As we continue building out the platform, we will be rolling out some premium features for members who want to upgrade their curated experience. We will be sure to share news about any upcoming expansion of our offerings via our newsletter and blog posts.

Indie Gems' mission is to celebrate independent filmmakers, their work, and all of the important work of festival programmers, movie critics, indie distributors and other indispensable curators who put their hearts and souls into discovering the best films from around the world every year. We're working hard to create access to indies for film lovers wherever they are and whatever streaming service they may have. Our goal is to create an experience that's personalized not just to your taste, but also one that's attune to where you are in your movie journey. That means lots of opportunities to discover more of what you love as well as to expand your horizons into new creative territory.

An independent film (indie) is any film that did not receive its production financing from a major Hollywood studio. Films that are financed independently and later sell to a major studio or streamer at a film festival or market are still considered "indies." Most European films are also indies by nature of Europe having a totally different film finance system than the U.S., which depends more on soft money and independent funding. For every one movie made and released by the major studios (Disney, Netflix, Paramount, Amazon/MGM, Sony, Universal, and Warner Bros), there are twenty times more features made independently around the world. Yet, major studios own most streaming platforms, which means most independent films are often buried below streamer-made 'originals,' regardless of quality.

Independent films are the result of passionate people working hard for many, many years to tell the best story they can. Much of the financing often comes from individuals, and many of the cast and department heads work for well below their normal rates because they love the project. Unlike major studio movies, which are often owned by multi-billion dollar corporations, independent productions are often owned by the people who made them. When an indie does well, it can launch the career of that artist or change the conversation around important topics. And when an indie succeeds, they've often done so against the odds, on a tiny fraction of the budget their studio equivalent would have had. To be clear, we like studio movies, too. They just don't need our financial sponsorship in the same way. Using Indie Gems to find exceptional indies means supporting artistic freedom and a participating in an open market of the best stories that exists outside the streamer algorithms. Plus, we just find that indies tend to be more interesting, unique, and risk-taking on the whole.