10 Amazing Movies Made On Shockingly Small Budgets

10. Primer - $7,000

In Shane Carruth's mindbending sci-fi film Primer, four friends accidentally create a time machine in their garage and must deal with the consequences of their invention. Carruth made the now extremely popular film while he was working as an engineer, gradually saving money and financing the $7,000 budget himself. 

It was an insanely small shoot, with a crew of just five people and with Carruth writing, directing, producing, editing, and acting in the film. He also composed the score and was the cinematographer, and a lot of the cast consisted of Carruth’s friends and family. He shot and edited the film over the course of three years, and it was such a difficult process that he nearly abandoned the project on several occasions. It didn’t help that he didn’t go to film school and had very little prior experience. 

Yet for how limited the film was, Carruth was able to land a distribution deal after the movie made a big splash at Sundance. It’s since become a cult hit, and Carruth has gone on to make much bigger films like Upstream Color. That all came out of a production that had all the elements of a YouTube video a high school kid shoots in his garage. Except in this case, the movie grossed $424,000 and can now be streamed on Netflix. Not bad.