Despite flirting with the mainstream by casting Johnny Depp in his 1995 film Dead Man, director Jim Jarmusch has stayed in the independent film world for his entire 24 year career. Jarmusch has a strong cult following, in large part because his films are just so cool. Stranger Than Paradise, his second feature, is perhaps his coolest. With a minimalist plot and filmed in grainy 16mm black-and-white, Stranger Than Paradise broke all of the traditional Hollywood conventions. It has since been credited as being an early example of the independent wave that would come in the next decade.
