Published by Guillaume Antignac, 30th April 2025

Just take a camera and shoot something. Get a few people together and tell them to act a scene. You don’t need a studio or an expensive camera. Find an actual street and shoot some grainy footage. Underground is cool! And even if it isn’t, many will agree on the same thing: mainstream cinema sucks!

The soliloquy of an independent filmmaker might sound something like this. Overtones of ‘anti-establishment’ and ‘real art cinema’ have always embellished the cause of independent film, burying some more painful truths. A reality most independent filmmakers also contend with is the often exiguously low funding they get to finance production of their films, and the often frustratingly few people that end up watching them.

And yet, Keri Putnam says: “Independent films illuminate untold stories, spark discourse, and broaden our perspectives.” Once an Ex-VP at HBO, President for Production at Miramax, and notably Director of the Sundance Institute, one of the largest independent film festivals in the world, she recently published a study with Harvard’s Shorenstein Center called US Independent Film Audience & Landscape study. In it, she claims that despite its short falling reception, independent cinema has the potential for a much larger market than the industry currently makes room for.

“Independent Film in the US is at risk” is a headline of the study. But this wasn’t always the case. At the start of the century, independent film production exploded. The digitization of film equipment, and with this democratisation of filmmaking, meant that film production became less expensive. Adding to this the rise of independent TV networks, and later the internet, filmmaking transformed from a big-budget enterprise into something most people could learn to do.

In 2005, just 50 independent films were released in US theatres. In 2017, it was 200. At least 700 independent films were also commercially released in the US, the highest ever. In just over ten years, the number of independent films that were given the possibility for commercial, box-office success grew by 400%.

Some managed to outperform the productions of established studios and distributors, and even win a Golden Globe or Oscar for Best Picture. To a large extent, independent distributors, famously A24, helped change the film industry in this period. Yet, the data collected from Putnam’s study indicated that revenue and attendance of independent films declined by 90%. Films that did see commercial success were among a slim minority. The vast majority still went unnoticed.

Many hoped the selective and unreliable success rate for independent films in cinemas would be corrected by subscription streaming services, which boomed in 2017. In their early years, streamers like Netflix or Amazon Prime heavily promoted independent cinema, primarily because films made by independent companies were easier to acquire and use to build streaming libraries.

In 2020, as the global pandemic confined the consumption of films to television, computer or phone screens, streaming services boomed further. A historical deal between AMC and Universal studios, in which the theatrical release of ‘Trolls: World Tour’ for 2020 was slashed from three months to three weeks, reset the precedent of a film’s exclusivity at the time of release. What had once been every cinema’s bread and butter – the exclusive right to screen new releases for a commercial period – was left in dire straits.

Independent Films left in the dark

Big-budget studio productions quickly adapted to the streaming business model, not only rushing to sign exclusive release deals with platforms, but also providing the rights to older films to help streamers garner more attention. The pandemic catalysed the takeover of streaming platforms, and in the process, studios muscled out independent films.

Between 2020 and 2022, viewership of independent films on major platforms dropped from 30 million to just 18 million, a decrease of almost 50%. Meanwhile, the presence of new releases kept growing. But if independent film was left in the dark, it wasn’t because of some fanciful studio takeover, but rather due to streaming platforms’ algorithms.

According to Putnam, “90% of Netflix viewers never leave the home page to decide what to watch.” The algorithm suggests the films it thinks a viewer will most likely watch. Before even that, it puts forward the most popular and most recently released films.

Like cinemas, streaming platforms use a single release logic in which the initial release of a film attempts to gather the most amount of people. The algorithm puts those films at the forefront of everything since revenues hinge on the buzz of the film generated by its release.

Independent films often achieve success through a niche audience which builds over time. Long term returns are more sustainable since there is not enough marketing of the film at the time of release, or else they simply don’t carry enough clout. Streaming algorithms, which tend to crowd out older films that are less watched, therefore make it very difficult for independent films to garner any attention.

The algorithm working against you, also known as being ‘shadowbanned’, is common on many social media platforms. It is also commonly known to be a bit of a myth. On platforms where a product is competing for attention, the metrics of the market simply change. Assuming that streaming platforms are hiding independent films from viewers would be cynical. If anything, streaming platforms bear more potential than they are given credit for.

Among the most interesting findings in Putnam’s study is the conclusion that independent cinema has the potential for a much larger market than it currently serves. She found that 27% of Americans would be willing to pay for a channel dedicated to independent film and documentary.

One in five Americans describe themselves as “definite fans” of independent films, roughly 77 million people. According to a national survey, the current audience of independent cinema in the US is at 36.7 million people. That means 40 million people are not supporting independent cinema even though they want to.

This means that there is much room for an independent film market to grow. Streaming platforms such as Mubi or Kanopy, the fastest-growing streaming platform for independent films, have the potential to double their subscriptions in the US. At the moment, they are missing out. As Keri Putnam herself states:

“A far larger audience is interested in independent film in the US than current viewership. This gap between potential and actual audiences offers an exciting opportunity to reinvigorate the sector.”

Written by Guillaume Antignac