An underground film is a

film A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...

that is out of the mainstream either in its style, genre or financing. Notable examples include

John Waters John Samuel Waters Jr. (born April 22, 1946) is an American filmmaker, actor, writer, and artist. He rose to fame in the early 1970s for his transgressive cult films, including '' Multiple Maniacs'' (1970), '' Pink Flamingos'' (1972) and '' Fe ...

' ''

Pink Flamingos ''Pink Flamingos'' is a 1972 American surrealist independent black comedy film by John Waters. It is part of what Waters has labelled the "Trash Trilogy", which also includes '' Female Trouble'' (1974) and '' Desperate Living'' (1977). The f ...

'',

David Lynch David Keith Lynch (January 20, 1946 – January 16, 2025) was an American filmmaker, visual artist, musician, and actor. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, Lynch was often called a "visionary" and received acclaim f ...

's ''

Eraserhead ''Eraserhead'' is a 1977 American independent surrealist body horror film written, directed, produced, and edited by David Lynch. Lynch also created its score and sound design, which included pieces by a variety of other musicians. Shot in bl ...

'',

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (;''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''"Warhol" born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol ...

's ''

Blue Movie ''Blue Movie'' (also known as ''Fuck'' and ''F,k'') is a 1969 American erotic film written, produced and directed by Andy Warhol. It is the first adult erotic film depicting explicit sex to receive wide theatrical release in the United States ...

'',

Rosa von Praunheim Holger Bernhard Bruno Mischwitzky (born Holger Radtke; 25 November 1942), known professionally as Rosa von Praunheim, is a German film director, author, producer, professor of directing and one of the most influential and famous LGBT social move ...

's ''

Tally Brown, New York '' Tally Brown, New York '' is a 1979 documentary film directed, written and produced by Rosa von Praunheim, centring around the career of Tally Brown. The film received international attention and was shown, for example, at Museum of Modern Ar ...

'',

Frank Henenlotter Frank Henenlotter (born August 29, 1950) is an American film director, screenwriter and film historian. He is known primarily for directing horror comedies, especially '' Basket Case'' (1982), ''Brain Damage'' (1988), and '' Frankenhooker'' (199 ...

's ''Basket Case'',

Nikos Nikolaidis Nikos Georgiou Nikolaidis (; 25 October 1939 – 5 September 2007) was a Greek film director, screenwriter, film producer, writer, theatre director, assistant director, record producer, television director, and commercial director. He is usually ...

' ''Singapore Sling'', Rinse Dreams' ''

Café Flesh ''Café Flesh'' is a 1982 post-apocalyptic cult film, cult Pornographic movie, pornographic science fiction film designed and directed by Stephen Sayadian (under the pseudonym "Rinse Dream") and co-written by Sayadian and Jerry Stahl (credited as ...

'', and

Jörg Buttgereit Jörg Buttgereit (born 20 December 1963) is a German writer/director known for his controversial films. He was born in Berlin and has lived there his entire life. He is best known for his horror films '' Nekromantik'' (1987), '' Der Todesking' ...

's ''

Nekromantik ''Nekromantik'' (stylized as ''NEKRomantik'') is a 1987 West German erotic exploitation horror film co-written and directed by Jörg Buttgereit. It is known to be frequently controversial, banned in a number of countries, and has become a cult f ...

''.

Definition and history

The first printed use of the term "underground film" occurs in a 1957 essay by American film critic

Manny Farber Emanuel Farber (February 20, 1917 – August 18, 2008) was an American painter, film critic and writer. Often described as "iconoclastic",Grimes, William (August 19, 2008) ''New York Times''Kiderra, Inga (August 21, 2008Obituary: Artist and Crit ...

, "Underground Films." Farber uses it to refer to the work of directors who "played an anti-art role in Hollywood." He contrasts "such soldier-cowboy-gangster directors as

Raoul Walsh Raoul Walsh (born Albert Edward Walsh; March 11, 1887December 31, 1980) was an American film director, actor, founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), and the brother of silent cinema actor George Walsh. He wa ...

Howard Hawks Howard Winchester Hawks (May 30, 1896December 26, 1977) was an American film director, Film producer, producer, and screenwriter of the Classical Hollywood cinema, classic Hollywood era. Critic Leonard Maltin called him "the greatest American ...

William Wellman William Augustus Wellman (February 29, 1896 – December 9, 1975) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and military pilot. He was known for his work in Crime film, crime, Adventure film, adventure, and Action film, a ...

," and others with the "less talented De Sicas and Zinnemanns hocontinue to fascinate the critics." However, as in "Underground Press", the term developed as a metaphorical reference to a clandestine and subversive culture beneath the legitimate and official media. In the late 1950s, "underground film" began to be used to describe early

independent film An independent film, independent movie, indie film, or indie movie is a feature film or short film that is film production, produced outside the Major film studios, major film studio system in addition to being produced and distributed by independ ...

makers operating first in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

and

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

, and soon in other cities around the world as well, including the

London Film-Makers' Co-op The London Film-makers' Co-operative, or LFMC, was a British film-making workshop founded in 1966. It was largely responsible for the rise of British avant-garde cinema in the later 1960s. Work produced by members of the LFMC in the late 1960s and ...

in Britain and Ubu Films in Sydney, Australia. The movement was typified by more

experimental film Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that does not apply standard cinematic conventions, instead adopting Non-narrative film, non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many e ...

makers working at the time like

Shirley Clarke Shirley Clarke (née Brimberg; October 2, 1919 – September 23, 1997) was an American filmmaker. Life Born Shirley Brimberg in New York City, she was the daughter of a Polish-immigrant father who made his fortune in manufacturing. Her mother w ...

Stan Brakhage James Stanley Brakhage ( ; January 14, 1933 – March 9, 2003) was an American experimental filmmaker. He is considered to be one of the most important figures in 20th-century experimental film. Over the course of five decades, Brakhage cr ...

Harry Everett Smith Harry Everett Smith (May 29, 1923 – November 27, 1991) was an American polymath, who was credited variously as an artist, experimental filmmaker, bohemian, mystic, record collector, hoarder, student of anthropology and a Neo-Gnostic ...

Maya Deren Maya Deren (; born Eleonora Derenkovskaya; ; Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (;''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''"Warhol" born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol ...

Kenneth Anger Kenneth Anger (born Kenneth Wilbur Anglemyer, February 3, 1927 – May 11, 2023) was an American Underground film, underground experimental filmmaker, actor, and writer. Working exclusively in short films, he produced almost 40 works beginning i ...

Jonas Mekas Jonas Mekas (; ; December 24, 1922 – January 23, 2019) was a Lithuanian-American filmmaker, poet, and artist who has been called "the godfather of American avant-garde cinema". Mekas's work has been exhibited in museums and at festivals world ...

Ken Jacobs Ken Jacobs (born May 25, 1933 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American experimental filmmaker. His style often involves the use of found footage which he edits and manipulates. He has also directed films using his own footage. Ken Jacobs directed ...

Ron Rice Charles Ronald Rice (1935–1964) was an American experimental filmmaker, whose free-form style influenced experimental filmmakers in New York and California during the early 1960s. Biography Ron Rice was born in New York City in 1935. He was ...

, Jack Smith,

George George may refer to: Names * George (given name) * George (surname) People * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Papagheorghe, also known as Jorge / GEØRGE * George, stage name of Gior ...

and

Mike Kuchar Mike Kuchar (born August 31, 1942, in New York City) is an American underground filmmaker, actor, and artist. Kuchar is notable for his low-budget and camp films such as '' Sins of the Fleshapoids'' and ''The Craven Sluck''. Biography Raised in ...

, and

Bruce Conner Bruce Conner (November 18, 1933 – July 7, 2008) was an American artist who worked with assemblage, film, drawing, sculpture, painting, collage, and photography. Biography Bruce Conner was born November 18, 1933, in McPherson, Kansas. His w ...

. By the late 1960s, the movement represented by these filmmakers had matured, and some began to distance themselves from the

countercultural A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Ho ...

psychedelic Psychedelics are a subclass of hallucinogenic drugs whose primary effect is to trigger non-ordinary mental states (known as psychedelic experiences or "trips") and a perceived "expansion of consciousness". Also referred to as classic halluci ...

connotations of the word, preferring terms like "

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

" or "experimental" to describe their work. Having been embraced most emphatically by

Nick Zedd Nick Zedd ( James Franklyn Harding III; January 25, 1956 – February 27, 2022) was an American filmmaker, author, and painter based in Mexico City. He coined the term Cinema of Transgression in 1985 to describe a loose-knit group of like-minde ...

and the other filmmakers associated with the New York–based

Cinema of Transgression __notoc__ The Cinema of Transgression is a term coined by Nick Zedd in 1985 to describe a New York City–based underground film movement, consisting of a loose-knit group of artists using shock value and black humor in their films. Key players ...

and No Wave Cinema of the late 1970s to early 1990s, the term would still be used to refer to the more countercultural fringe of independent cinema.

Latter-day cinema

In the early 1990s, the legacy of the Cinema of Transgression carried over into a new generation, who would equate "underground cinema" with

transgressive art Transgressive art is art that aims to outrage or cause a reaction from the observer. The term ''transgressive'' was first used in this sense by American filmmaker Nick Zedd and his Cinema of Transgression in 1985. Zedd used it to describe his leg ...

, ultra-low-budget filmmaking created in defiance of both the commercialized versions of

offered by newly wealthy

distributors A distributor is an electric and mechanical device used in the ignition system of older spark-ignition engines. The distributor's main function is to route electricity from the ignition coil to each spark plug at the correct time. Design A ...

Miramax Miramax, LLC, formerly known as Miramax Films, is an American independent film and television production and distribution company owned by beIN Media Group and Paramount Global. Based in Los Angeles, California, it was founded on December 19, ...

and

New Line New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 ** "New" (Paul McCartney song), 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, 1995 * "New" (Daya song), 2017 * "New" (No Doubt song), 1 ...

, as well as the institutionalized experimental film canonized at major museums. This spirit defined the early years of underground

film festivals A film festival is an organized, extended presentation of films in one or more cinemas or screening venues, usually annually and in a single city or region. Some film festivals show films outdoors or online. Films may be of recent date and depe ...

(like the

New York Underground Film Festival The New York Underground Film Festival was an annual event that occurred each March at Anthology Film Archives in New York City from 1994 through 2008. It was founded by filmmakers Todd Phillips (''Road Trip (2000 film), Road Trip'', ''Old School ...

Chicago Underground Film Festival The Chicago Underground Film Festival (CUFF) is an annual nonprofit international festival dedicated to the exhibition of underground and avant-garde cinema, video, and performance. The festival offers an opportunity for independent artists who a ...

Boston Underground Film Festival The Boston Underground Film Festival (BUFF) is an annual event held in the Boston area that specializes in alternative film and video. BUFF is the largest underground film festival in New England, spotlighting short films and feature-length films ...

, Sydney Underground Film Festival,

Hamilton Underground Film Festival The Hamilton Underground Film Festival was an annual film festival held in Hamilton, New Zealand between 2006 and 2013. Run on the basis of a DIY ethos the festival was open to all and had no admission fee for film entries. Each entrant received ...

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

Images Festival The Images Festival is a yearly event devoted to independent and experimental film, video art, new media and media installation that takes place each spring in Toronto. History The Images festival was founded in 1987, originally conceived a ...

, and others),

zines A zine ( ; short for ''magazine'' or ''fanzine'') is, as noted on Merriam-Webster’s official website, a magazine that is a “noncommercial often homemade or online publication usually devoted to specialized and often unconventional subject ...

Film Threat ''Film Threat'' is an American online film review publication, and earlier, a national magazine that focused primarily on independent film, although it also reviewed videos and DVDs of mainstream films, as well as Hollywood movies in theaters. ...

, as well as the works of filmmakers like

Craig Baldwin Craig Baldwin (born 1952) is an American experimental filmmaker. He uses found footage (appropriation), found footage from the fringes of popular consciousness as well as images from the mass media to undermine and transform the traditional doc ...

Jon Moritsugu Jon Moritsugu (born February 15, 1965) is an American cult- underground filmmaker and musician. His movies are satiric, protopunk deconstructions of popular genres and formats with scabrous and pointedly garish results. The ''New York Times'' des ...

Carlos Atanes Carlos Atanes (born November 8, 1971) is a Spanish film director, writer and playwright. He was born in Barcelona, and is a member of The Film-Makers' Cooperative, founded by Jonas Mekas, Shirley Clarke, Ken Jacobs, Andy Warhol, Jack Smith (fil ...

Sarah Jacobson Sarah Jacobson (August 25, 1971 – February 13, 2004) was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Early life Jacobson was born in Connecticut, moved to New Jersey in 1975, then to Edina, Minnesota in 1982. She graduated with ho ...

, and

Bruce La Bruce Bruce LaBruce (born January 3, 1964) is a Canadian artist, writer, filmmaker, photographer, and underground director based in Toronto. Life and career LaBruce was born in Tiverton, Ontario. He has claimed both Justin Stewart and Bryan Bruce as ...

. In London, the Underground resurgence emerged as a movement of Underground cinema clubs which included the radical open access group the Exploding Cinema. By the late 1990s and early 2000s, the term had become blurred again, as the work at underground festivals began to blend with more formal experimentation, and the divisions that had been stark ones less than a decade earlier now seemed much less so. If the term is used at all, it connotes a form of very low-budget independent filmmaking, with perhaps transgressive content, or a

lo-fi Lo-fi (also typeset as lofi or low-fi; short for low fidelity) is a music or production quality in which elements usually regarded as imperfections in the context of a recording or performance are present, sometimes as a deliberate stylistic ch ...

analog to post-

punk music Punk rock (also known as simply punk) is a rock music genre that emerged in the mid-1970s. Rooted in 1950s rock and roll and 1960s garage rock, punk bands rejected the corporate nature of mainstream 1970s rock music. They typically produced sh ...

and cultures. A recent development in underground filmmaking can be observed through the

Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Historically, it w ...

–based film production company ASS Studios. Founded in 2011 by writer

Reverend Jen Jennifer Miller (also known as Saint Reverend Jen and Reverend Jen; born July 24, 1972, in Silver Spring, Maryland) is an American performer, actress, author, painter, director, and poet residing in Brooklyn, New York City. In 2002, Miller wa ...

and filmmaker Courtney Fathom Sell, the group avoided most modern methods of production, choosing to shoot all of their work on an outdated

Hi8 The 8mm video format refers informally to three related videocassette formats. These are the original Video8 format (analog video and analog audio but with provision for digital audio), its improved variant Hi8, as well as a more recent digit ...

format and usually with no budget. Utilizing many New York based performers, their work generally contained

camp Camp may refer to: Areas of confinement, imprisonment, or for execution * Concentration camp, an internment camp for political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or minority ethnic groups * Extermination ...

elements and taboo themes. These films were commonly screened at venues and bars in and around New York City.

Underground versus cult

The term "underground film" is occasionally used as a synonym for

cult film A cult film, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a cult following. Cult films are known for their dedicated, passionate fanbase, which forms an elaborate subculture, members of which engage in repeated ...

(as in the case of films like ''

Eating Raoul ''Eating Raoul'' is a 1982 American black comedy film written, directed by and starring Paul Bartel with Mary Woronov, Robert Beltran, Ed Begley Jr., Buck Henry, and Susan Saiger. It is about a prudish married couple (Bartel and Woronov) who r ...

''). Though there are important distinctions between the two, a significant overlap between these categories is undeniable. The films of

, for example, could arguably be described as underground while a studio film like ''

Heathers ''Heathers'' is a 1988 American teen dark comedy crime film written by Daniel Waters and directed by Michael Lehmann, in both of their respective film debuts. The film stars Winona Ryder, Christian Slater, Shannen Doherty, Lisanne Falk, K ...

'' (

New World Pictures New World Pictures (also known as New World Entertainment, New World Communications Group, Inc., and New World International) was an American independent production, distribution, and (in its final years as an autonomous entity) multimedia com ...

) may have a

cult following A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some medium. The latter is often called a cult classic. A film, boo ...

but could not be accurately described as an underground film.

Criticism

Film critic

Pauline Kael Pauline Kael (; June 19, 1919 – September 3, 2001) was an American film critic who wrote for ''The New Yorker'' from 1968 to 1991. Known for her "witty, biting, highly opinionated and sharply focused" reviews, Kael often defied the conse ...

called most underground cinema "a creature of publicity and mutual congratulations on artistry".

Notable underground cinema figures

List is incomplete.50 Underground Filmmakers Everyone Should Know-Flavorwire
/ref> *

Usama Alshaibi Usama Alshaibi () (born in Baghdad, Iraq on November 20, 1969) is an Iraqi American, Iraqi-American independent film, independent filmmaker and visual artist. Life and career Alshaibi's mother was born in Jaffa, Palestine and met his Iraqi fat ...

Gregg Araki Gregg Araki (born December 17, 1959) is an American filmmaker. He is noted for his involvement with the New Queer Cinema movement. His ''Teenage Apocalypse'' film trilogy, consisting of ''Totally F***ed Up ''(1993), ''The Doom Generation ''(1995) ...

Michel Auder Michel Auder (born 1945) is a French and American photographer and filmmaker. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Art career His earliest works are travel logs and endearing portraits of friends including Hannah Wilke, Alice Neel, Annie S ...

* Scott Barley *

Carmelo Bene Carmelo Pompilio Realino Antonio Bene (1 September 1937 – 16 March 2002) was an Italian actor, poet, film director, and screenwriter. He was an important exponent of the Italian avant-garde theatre and cinema. In 1968, his movie Our Lady ...

Jean-Pierre Bouyxou Jean-Pierre Bouyxou (born 16 January 1946) is a French film critic, author, filmmaker and actor. Career He started his career as a writer in 1964 when his article was published in fanzines ('' Mercury'', '' Lunatique''). Some other magazines he ...

Pierre Clémenti Pierre André Clémenti (28 September 1942 – 27 December 1999) was a French actor. Life and career Born in Paris to an unknown father and Rose Clémenti, a Corsican concierge whose surname he took, Clémenti had a difficult childhood and took ...

Tony Conrad Anthony Schmalz Conrad (March 7, 1940 – April 9, 2016) was an American video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician, composer, sound artist, teacher, and writer. Active in a variety of media since the early 1960s, he was a pioneer of both ...

Tonino De Bernardi Tonino De Bernardi (born 24 August 1937) is an Italian film director and screenwriter. Life and career Born in Chivasso near Turin, after graduating in literature with Massimo Mila, with a thesis on neoclassical Stravinsky, Tonino De Bernard ...

* Storm de Hirsch *

Maya Deren Maya Deren (; born Eleonora Derenkovskaya; ; Marian Dora Marian Dora (born 1970 in Southern Germany) is the pseudonym most commonly used by an anonymous German film director, cinematographer, actor, screenwriter, editor, producer, composer, assistant director, makeup artist, special effects/sound/came ...

* Robert Downey, Sr. * Rinse Dream *

Stephen Dwoskin Stephen Dwoskin (15 January 1939 – 28 June 2012) was a major avant-garde filmmaker whose work was closely connected to the ' gaze theory' associated with Laura Mulvey; a significant disabled filmmaker – though he rejected being framed as suc ...

Matt Farley Matt Farley (born June 3, 1978) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, filmmaker, author and podcaster who has released more than 26,000 songs . Farley's creative output is released under his label Motern Media, and he usually presents his ...

James Fotopoulos James Fotopoulos (born 1976, Norridge, Illinois) is an independent filmmaker whose work is low-budget and rigorous, and consists of experimental narrative features, non-narrative shorts, and video installations. He began creating his film project ...

Hollis Frampton Hollis William Frampton Jr. (March 11, 1936 – March 30, 1984) was an American avant-garde filmmaker, photographer, writer, theoretician, and pioneer of digital art. He was best known for his innovative and non-linear structural films that def ...

Dmitrii Frolov Dmitrii Alexeyevich Frolov (; born February 27, 1966) is a Russian film director in Independent film, independent Experimental film, experimental cinema and a director of photography. Biography Frolov was born in Leningrad on February 27, 1966. ...

Curtis Harrington Gene Curtis Harrington (September 17, 1926 – May 6, 2007) was an American film and television director whose work included experimental films and horror films. He is considered one of the forerunners of New Queer Cinema. Life and career ...

Herk Harvey Harold Arnold "Herk" Harvey (June 3, 1924 – April 3, 1996) was an American film director, screenwriter, actor and film producer, perhaps best known for his 1962 horror film '' Carnival of Souls''. Early life Harvey was born in Windsor, Colo ...

Ian Hugo Hugh Parker Guiler (February 15, 1898 – January 7, 1985), also known as Ian Hugo, was Anaïs Nin's husband from 1923 until her death in 1977, and a skilled engraver and filmmaker in his own right. Biography Guiler was born in Boston, Massachuse ...

* Straub-Huillet *

Richard Kern Richard Kern (born 1954) is an American underground filmmaker, writer and photographer. He first came to prominence as part of the cultural explosion in the East Village of New York City in the 1980s, with erotic and experimental films like ' ...

Peter Kubelka Peter Kubelka (born 23 March 1934) is an Austrian filmmaker, architect, musician, curator and lecturer. His films, few in number, are known to be carefully edited and extremely brief. He is known for his 1966 '' Unsere Afrikareise'' (Our Trip to ...

George Kuchar George Kuchar (August 31, 1942 – September 6, 2011) was an American underground film film director, director and video artist, known for his "low-fi" aesthetic. Early life and career Kuchar trained as a commercial artist at the School of Indust ...

Gregory Markopoulos Gregory J. Markopoulos (March 12, 1928 – November 12, 1992) was a Greek-American experimental filmmaker. Biography Born in Toledo, Ohio in 1928 to Greek immigrant parents, Markopoulos began making 8 mm films at an early age. He attended USC F ...

Marie Menken Marie Menken (born Marie Menkevicius; May 25, 1909 – December 29, 1970) was an American experimental filmmaker, painter, and socialite. She was noted for her unique filming style that incorporated collage. She was one of the first New York fil ...

Annette Michelson Annette Michelson (née Michelsohn; November 7, 1922 – September 17, 2018) was an American art and film critic and academic. A longtime contributor and editor to ''Artforum'' who later co-founded the journal ''October'', she also taught for man ...

Otto Muehl Otto Muehl (16 June 1925 – 26 May 2013) was an Austrian artist and convicted sex criminal, who was known as one of the co-founders as well as a main participant of Viennese Actionism and for founding the Friedrichshof Commune. In 1943, Muehl h ...

Paul Morrissey Paul Joseph Morrissey (February 23, 1938 – October 28, 2024) was an American film director, known for his early association with Andy Warhol. His most famous films include ''Flesh (1968 film), Flesh'' (1968), ''Trash (1970 film), Trash'' (197 ...

* Gunvor Nelson *

Damon Packard Damon Packard (born May 4, 1967) is an American underground film director and actor. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Biography Early life Born in Akron, Ohio, Packard's mother, actress Frances Pollock, was the d ...

Luther Price Luther Price (pseudonym) (January 26, 1962 – June 13, 2020) was an experimental filmmaker and visual artist. Biography Price was born in Marlborough, Massachusetts Marlborough is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The ...

* Joel Potrykus *

Yvonne Rainer Yvonne Rainer (born November 24, 1934) is an American dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker, whose work in these disciplines is regarded as challenging and experimental.

Jesse Richards Jesse Beau Richards (born July 17, 1975) is a painter, filmmaker and photographer from New Haven, Connecticut and was affiliated with the international movement Stuckism. He has been described as "one of the most provocative names in American un ...

Peter Rinaldi Peter Rinaldi is a filmmaker and writer from New York, NY and is affiliated with the Remodernist film movement. In February 2010, the Australian film magazine Filmink announced Rinaldi's participation in a compilation feature film by the Remodern ...

Jacques Rivette Jacques Rivette (; 1 March 1928 – 29 January 2016) was a French film director and film critic most commonly associated with the French New Wave and the film magazine '' Cahiers du Cinéma''. He made twenty-nine films, including '' L'Amour fo ...

Carolee Schneeman Carolee Schneemann (October 12, 1939 – March 6, 2019) was an American visual experimental artist, known for her multi-media works on the body, narrative, sexuality and gender. She received a B.A. in poetry and philosophy from Bard College and ...

Paul Sharits Paul Jeffrey Sharits (February 7, 1943, Denver, Colorado—July 8, 1993, Buffalo, New York) was a visual artist, best known for his work in experimental, or avant-garde filmmaking, particularly what became known as the structural film movement, al ...

P. Adams Sitney P. Adams Sitney (August 9, 1944 – June 8, 2025) was a historian of American avant-garde cinema. He was known as the author of ''Visionary Film'', one of the first books on the history of experimental film in the United States. Life Sitney gr ...

Michael Snow Michael James Aleck Snow (December 10, 1928 – January 5, 2023) was a Canadian artist who worked in a range of media including film, installation, sculpture, photography, and music. His best-known films are ''Wavelength'' (1967) and '' La Rég ...

Ray Dennis Steckler Raymond Dennis Steckler (January 25, 1938 – January 7, 2009), also known by the pseudonym Cash Flagg, was an American film director, Film producer, producer, screenwriter and actor best known as the low-budget auteur of such cult films as ''Th ...

Chick Strand Mildred "Chick" Strand (December 3, 1931 – July 11, 2009) was an American experimental filmmaker, "a pioneer in blending avant-garde techniques with documentary".Diana Burgess Fuller, Daniela Salvioni, ''Art/Women/California 1950-2000: Paralle ...

Chester Novell Turner Chester Novell Turner (born September 30, 1946) is an American filmmaker known for his blaxploitation horror films '' Black Devil Doll From Hell'' and '' Tales from the QuadeaD Zone''. Since their releases in the 1980s, Turner's movies have devel ...

* Stan Vanderbeek *

Agustí Villaronga Agustí Villaronga Riutort (; 4 March 1953 – 22 January 2023) was a Spanish film director, screenwriter and actor. He directed several feature films, a documentary, three projects for television and three shorts. His film ''Moon Child (1989 f ...

Nicholas Watson Nicholas Watson (born July 9, 1977) is a social entrepreneur based in Pennsylvania, United States. He was previously a producer and writer in film and television. He co-founded the New Haven Stuckist art group. Social enterprise career Nichol ...

Thierry Zéno Thierry Zéno (born Thierry Jonard; 22 April 1950 – 7 June 2017)
, retrieved 10 May 2009. was a

References

External links

Underground Film Journal
{{Film genres Film genres Underground culture Experimental film Avant-garde art 1950s in film 1960s in film 1970s in film 1980s in film 1990s in film 2000s in film 2010s in film it:New American Cinema

Definition and history

Latter-day cinema

Underground versus cult

Criticism

Notable underground cinema figures

Further reading

See also

References

External links