As much as big blockbuster movies excite and delight us there is a world beyond that which is full of creative free spirited up-and-coming talent, not to mention the great talents that have gone on to make bigger mainstream films. To celebrate the vast body of great independent films and filmmakers we’ve created a list of Indie movie quotes to nourish those free spirited souls that like to stay outside the mainstream. We’ve included as many great old and new indie movies as we could find, but don’t despair if you can’t find your favorites here as we will be regularly updating this list, so keep coming back.
Let’s get straight to it and begin our indie journey…
A – Z Indie Movie Quotes
Calum: There’s this feeling, once you leave where you’re from, like where you grew up, that you don’t totally belong there again. Not really.
Suge Knight: Sometimes people need to step outside of who they are to realize who they could really be
See more All Eyez on Me Quotes
American History X (1998)
Danny Vinyard: It’s hard to look back and see the truth about people you love.
American Psycho (2000)
Patrick Bateman: There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman; some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours, and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable, I simply am not there.
Vincent van Gogh: Maybe God made me a painter for people who aren’t born yet.
Priest: Possibly.
See more At Eternity’s Gate Quotes
Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)
Englishman: We all love hearing about ourselves, so long as the people in the stories are us, but not us.
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The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)
Pádraic Súilleabháin: Some things there’s no moving on from. And I think that’s a good thing.
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Before Midnight (2013)
Celine: [watching the sun set] Still there. Still there. Still there. Still there.
[as the sun finally sets and disappears]
Celine: Gone.
Begin Again (2013)
Dan: You can tell a lot about a person by what’s on their playlist.
Being John Malkovich (1999)
Craig Schwartz: ls Malkovich Malkovich? I had a piece of wood in my hand, Maxine. I don’t have it anymore. Where is it? Did it disappear? How could that be? Is it still in Malkovich’s head? I don’t know! Do you see what a metaphysical can of worms this portal is? I don’t see how I could go on living my life the way I’ve lived it before.
Birdman (2014)
Riggan: How did we end up here? This place is horrible. Smells like balls.
Brad’s Status (2017)
Brad Sloan: The world hated me, and the feeling was mutual.
Blue Velvet (1986)
Jeffrey Beaumont: I’m seeing something that was always hidden. I’m involved in a mystery. I’m in the middle of a mystery. And it’s all secret.
Sandy Williams: You like mysteries that much?
Jeffrey Beaumont: Yeah. You’re a mystery. I like you very much.
Boyhood (2014)
Dad: Bumpers are for kids! What are you, two years old? You don’t want the bumpers. Life doesn’t give you bumpers.
Eilis Lacey: I wish that I could stop feeling that I want to be an Irish girl in Ireland.
Father Flood: Homesickness is like most sicknesses, it will pass.
Bobby: Life is a comedy written by a sadistic comedy writer.
Call Me by Your Name (2017)
Mr. Perlman: When you least expect it, nature has cunning ways of finding our weakest spot.
Rellian: “If you assume that there is no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope.”
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William Tell: The feeling of being forgiven by another and forgiving oneself are so much alike, there’s no point in trying to keep them distinct.
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James: If it get dark now, you just ride it.
Domino: Giving your heart to somebody is the scariest, most dangerous, most perplexing thing.
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Clerks. (1994)
Randal Graves: This job would be great if it wasn’t for the f***ing customers.
Johnny: Over the years, you will try to make sense of that happy, sad, full, empty, always shifting life you’re in. And when the time comes to return to your star, it may be hard to say goodbye to that strangely beautiful world.
Rob Bilott: We protect us. We do. Nobody else. Not the companies, not the scientists, not the government. Us.
Donnie Darko (2001)
Gretchen: You’re weird.
Donnie: Sorry.
Gretchen: No, that was a compliment actually.
The Drop (2014)
Bob Saginowski: There are some sins that you commit that you can’t come back from, you know? No matter how hard you try. You just can’t.
Enough Said (2013)
Eva: I’m tired of being funny.
Albert: Me too.
Eva: But you’re not funny.
Rosalind: That’s what life’s like. You roll with the punches.
See more The Eternal Daughter Quotes
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
Waymond Wang: The only thing I do know is that we have to be kind. Please, be kind. Especially when we don’t know what’s going on.
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Fargo (1996)
Marge Gunderson: So that was Mrs. Lundegaard on the floor in there? And I guess that was your accomplice in the wood chipper. And those three people in Brainerd. And for what? For a little bit of money. There’s more to life than a little money, you know. Don’t you know that? And here you are. And it’s a beautiful day. Well. I just don’t understand it.
Toller: The man who says nothing always seems more intelligent. Why couldn’t I just keep silent?
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Steve: This whole world, if you only knew. It’s about giving. Giving yourself over to somebody. Becoming one with somebody else, forever. And that’s a beautiful thing. That’s surrender. That’s love.
Garden State (2004)
Andrew Largeman: You changed my life, and I’ve known you four days. This is the beginning of something really big. But right now, I’ve got to go.
Ghost World (2001)
Rebecca: [referring to the party] Wow. This is so bad, it’s almost good.
Enid: This is so bad, it’s gone past good and back to bad again.
The Gift (2015)
Gordo: I believe that the bad things in life, they can be a gift.
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (2022)
Nancy Stokes: Pleasure is a wonderful thing. It’s something we should all have.
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The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
M. Gustave: Rudeness is merely the expression of fear. People fear they won’t get what they want. The most dreadful and unattractive person only needs to be loved, and they will open up like a flower. I am reminded of a verse, “The painter’s brush touched the inchoate face by ends of nimble bristles and with their blush of first color, rendered her lifeless cheek living.”
The Guest (2014)
David: You know, I promised Caleb I would do anything I could to help your family. But I’m afraid I haven’t been fully honest with you.
Tanner Howard: This is Mr. Pibb. I asked for a Dr. Pepper.
Toby Howard: So?
Tanner Howard: Only a**holes drink Mr. Pibb.
See more Hell or High Water Quotes
The Imitation Game (2014)
Alan Turing: Sometimes it’s the very people who no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.
I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020)
The Voice: It’s not bad once you stop feeling sorry for yourself because you’re just a pig. Or, even worse, a pig infested with maggots. Someone has to be a pig infested with maggots, right? It might as well be you. It’s the luck of the draw. You play the hand you’re dealt. You make lemonade. You move on. You don’t worry about a thing.
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Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
Llewyn Davis: I’m so f***ing tired. I thought I just needed a night’s sleep, but it’s more than that.
Rosie: You look a tiger in the eye. And trust without fear. That’s what it is to be a woman.
Elsa: How do you do that? How do you know you can trust someone?
Rosie: You trust them.
Kill the Messenger (2014)
Gary Webb: Bad guys are usually more honest than good guys. And more fun.
Benoit Blanc: One thing I assume of age is weariness. Damned if I don’t get more tired every day. Tired of what I do. Following arcs, like lobbed rocks. The inevitability of truth. But the complexity and the gray lie not in the truth, but what you do with the truth once you have it.
Jon Peters: There’s no gas-o in the goddamn car-o, Steve-o!
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Hotel Manager: Have you thought of what animal you’d like to be if you end up alone?
David: Yes, a lobster.
Hotel Manager: A lobster is an excellent choice.
Locke (2013)
Ivan Locke: You make one mistake, Donal, one little f***ing mistake, and the whole world comes crashing down around you.
Joe Bang: I am in-car-ce-ra-ted.
Jimmy Logan: Yeah, we got a plan to get you out.
Joe Bang: You Logan’s must be as simple minded as people say.
Jimmy and Clyde: Do people say that? Why?
Lost in Translation (2003)
Bob: The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you.
Charlotte: Yeah. I just don’t know what I’m supposed to be.
Manchester by the Sea (2016)
Randi: I said a lot of terrible things to you, my heart was broken, but I know yours was broken too.
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2022)
Marcel: You know, my cousin fell asleep in a pocket, and that’s why I don’t like the saying, “Everything comes out in the wash,” because sometimes it doesn’t. Or sometimes it does, and they’re just like a completely different person.
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Ted: You know what people say, “Criminal lawyers see bad people at their best, divorce lawyers see good people at their worst.”
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Mean Streets (1973)
Charlie: You don’t make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets. You do it at home. The rest is bulls**t and you know it.
Megan Leavey (2017)
Megan Leavey: You don’t leave because you have somewhere to go, you leave because nothing is keeping you there.
Leonard Shelby: We all need mirrors to remind ourselves who we are. I’m no different.
Mississippi Grind (2015)
Gerry: A hero is nothing more than a guy who pulls off what the rest of us are too scared to do.
Moonlight (2016)
Juan: At some point, you got to decide for yourself who you’re going to be. Can’t let nobody make that decision for you.
A Most Violent Year (2014)
Abel Morales: You’ll never do anything hard as staring someone straight in the eye and telling the truth.
Mother! (2017)
Him: You know what? Life doesn’t always work out the way you want it to.
Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris (2022)
Ada Harris: We need our dreams. Now more than ever.
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Lou Bloom: My motto is if you want to win the lottery, you have to make the money to buy a ticket.
Fern: It’s like my dad used to say, “What’s remembered lives.” I maybe spent too much of my life just remembering.
Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)
Eve: [to Adam] How can you’ve live for so long and still not get it? This self obsession is a waste of living. It could be spend in surviving things, appreciating nature, nurturing kindness and friendship, and dancing. You have been pretty lucky in love though, if I may say so.
Irene: I’m beginning to believe that no one is ever completely happy, free, or safe.
Paterson: Without love, what reason is there for anything?
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)
Charlie: If my Aunt Helen were still here, I could talk to her. And I know she would understand how I am both happy and sad, and I’m still trying to figure out how that could be.
Poms (2019)
Martha: I want you to really, really look in that mirror, and take in yourselves, right? Look closely. We’re all so self-conscious, and we’re all so worried about what everyone else is thinking. When, of course, the only thing that really matters is what we think of ourselves.
Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2017)
William Moulton Marston: War, violence, hatred, the path to peace is not through finance or politics, it is to solve the problems of man’s heart. That’s why we need Wonder Woman.
Mia: That’s when you know you’ve found somebody really special. When you can just shut the f*** up for a minute and comfortably share silence.
Slim: What if God wanted me to die and I messed up his plan?
Queen: I don’t think that’s what he wanted.
Slim: How do you know?
Queen: I just think you were meant to be here.
Queen of Katwe (2016)
Robert Katende: Sometimes the place you are used to is not the place you belong. You belong where you believe you belong.
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Mr. Pink: Why am I Mr. Pink?
Joe: Because you’re a fa**ot, all right?
Mr. Pink: Why can’t we pick our own colors?
Joe: No way, no way. Tried it once. It doesn’t work. You get four guys all fighting over who’s going to be Mr. Black, but they don’t know each other so nobody wants to back down. No way. I pick! You’re Mr. Pink. Be thankful you’re not Mr. Yellow.
Mr. Brown: Yeah. But Mr. Brown, that’s a little too close to Mr. S**t.
Rushmore (1998)
Herman Blume: What’s the secret, Max?
Max Fischer: The secret?
Herman Blume: Yeah. Well, you seem to have it pretty figured out.
Max Fischer: The secret. I don’t know. I think you just got to find something you love to do and then do it for the rest of your life. For me, it’s going to Rushmore.
Martin Luther King Jr.: And what about in our minds? Equality in the black psyche. And I look at these men, beaten and broken down for generations. Deciding to demand more? What happens when a man stands up and says enough is enough?
John Doe: It seems that envy is my sin.
Slow West (2015)
Silas Selleck: The most dangerous are the last to fall.
Still Alice (2014)
Dr. Alice Howland: I am not suffering, I am struggling. Struggling to be a part of things, to stay connected to who I once was. So live in the moment, I tell myself. It’s really all I can do. Live in the moment.
Straight Outta Compton (2015)
Ice Cube: Speak a little truth and people lose their minds.
Manny: If my best friend hides his farts from me then what else is he hiding from me, and why does that make me feel so alone?
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Mom: Falling in love is a blessing. Try to enjoy it. If you get your heart broken, you’ll live.
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The Theory of Everything (2014)
Stephen Hawking: Ever since the dawn of civilization people have craved for an understanding of the underlying order of the world. There ought to be something very special about the boundary conditions of the universe. And what can be more special than that there is no boundary? And there should be no boundary to human endeavor. We are all different. However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. While there is life, there is hope.
Daniel Plainview: There are times when I look at people and I see nothing worth liking. I want to earn enough money I can get away from everyone.
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Marlo: Your twenties are great, but then your thirties come around the corner like a garbage truck at 5:00 AM.
Spud: First, there is an opportunity, right? And then, then there is a betrayal.
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The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
Nick Cage: I mean, what do we know about this guy anyway? Is he a Spanish Dr. No?
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Charlie: Do you ever get the feeling people are incapable of not caring?
What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
Deacon: When you are a vampire you become very sexy!
Where the Crawdads Sing (2022)
Kya Clark: The marsh knows all about death, and doesn’t necessarily define it as tragedy. Certainly not a sin. It understands that every creature does what it must to survive. And that sometimes, for prey to live, its predator must die.
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Whiplash (2014)
Terence Fletcher: There are no two words in the English language more harmful than “good job”.
Wild (2014)
Cheryl Strayed: “If your nerve deny you, go above your nerve.” Emily Dickinson, and Cheryl Strayed.
Cory Lambert: You can’t steer from the pain. If you do, you’ll rob yourself, you’ll rob yourself of every memory of her. Every last one, from her first step to her last smile. Kill them all. Just take the pain, Martin. You hear me? You take it. It’s the only way you’ll keep her with you.
Jack: But out of some persistent sense of large-scale ruin, we keep inventing hope.