3. Indie Game The Movie (2012)
Understandably, this seems like one of the more peculiar selections on the list. Video games appear to do everything but motivate you to succeed. Nevertheless, Indie Game the Movie shows a very different kind of discipline and perseverance than weve seen in other films. Following three different teams of video game programmers all of varying stages of success and game development the audience gets to experience the psychological rigors that come from producing some kind of creative product. Each of the video games is one that has gained some considerable recognition, so the viewers feel an immediate connection to what they are witnessing. Indie Game gives us a look at the despairing, tired faces behind the video games that we enjoy on a daily basis. The film becomes truly intriguing as we gradually come to understand the amount of mental torment that these people experience every day that they spend programming thousands of lines of code. While each game is different, all of the programmers are united by a desire to produce something that their fans will deem exceptional; the games that these programmers are making are their own brainchildren, and for them to be rejected would be to compromise the intellectual or artistic integrity of its creator. Indie Game manages to create palpable tension in a few of its sequences, and its success comes from how accurately it captures the agonizing fear of failure. We see people who have invested thousands and thousands of hours (some even a few years) into these projects, but who are still skeptical about how much they will be appreciated. The film builds to a (kind of) climax, after which the audience is treated to a few of the characters touching philosophies on creativity and success.