10 Movies Made With Shockingly Low Budgets

Not every Hollywood blockbuster requires $100 million or more to get made, and while the lower-budget films don't always compete with the likes of The Avengers and other high cost films, there are a few that stand apart. What makes a low-budget movie successful isn't simply a lack of funds, the movies have to be entertaining as well.

When you look back through various releases and dive into some of the ones that top the list as being some of the best movies ever made, those movie's budgets might be shocking. This doesn't include movies like Clerks, which clearly didn't cost a lot to make ($27,575), but rather, movies that look like they cost a lot to make, but didn't. Clerks was a phenomenon, but it didn't look like it was expensive to produce.

You might be surprised to learn that some of your favorite movies didn't cost nearly as much as you originally thought. It doesn't happen often, but occasionally, a filmmaker will pinch their pennies and work within their budgets to produce something truly amazing.

Given the thousands of films to choose from, there aren't too many that fit that criteria. That being said, these ten films were made with budgets that will likely shock and amaze you considering how incredibly entertaining and well made they all are.

Neill Blomkamp's 2009 sci-fi mockumentary about an alien refugee camp in Johannesburg, South Africa took the world by storm when it was released. The project was created with the help of Peter Jackson, a man known for using massive budgets to create extensive and intricate film franchises.

Unlike Jackson's other work, this movie required a far lower budget than most, but the actual amount will likely surprise you. Instead of costing around $75 to $100 million, which would make sense given the need for a ton of special effects, District 9 cost only $30 million to produce!

You wouldn't think that to look at the movie given the large reliance on special effects, but when everything was over and done with, the movie only required a paltry $30 million to get made. There were a number of reasons the budget was so shockingly low despite its heavy use of post-production effects.

Shooting only took 60 days, which helped alleviate a lot of costs associated with filmmaking. Additionally, the use of acting talent that didn't demand $10 million paychecks didn't hurt. This was Blomkamp's first film, which meant his salary demands weren't incredibly high. In the end, the movie managed to generate more than $210 million, which makes its relatively low budget all the more incredible.