Tons of movie fans are getting hooked on low-budget films these days as it offers them a fresher story and faces to follow. Well, it can’t be helped as most promising directors and filmmakers start on low budget films to prove their talent before doing bigger productions with famous stars. Some famous celebrities even choose roles from low budget movies as it allows them to improve their craft and be more versatile.

What’s surprising about these low-budget films, once the film is released for public viewing, it often ends with good reviews and awards. But the best thing that can happen to a low budget film is at the end of the week, it’s raking the box office hits that some of them had a follow-up sequel, books, DVD home releases and television adaptations. And the following low budget films show it all.

The Blair Witch Project

The Blair Witch Project by filmmakers Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez in 1999 is considered as the greatest low budget movie with a budget of $60, 000 but to gross to around 249 million dollars worldwide. And it didn’t stop there as it produces more merchandise that fan readily avails. The movie spawned books, video game installments, and more movies that adapt the same formula that the Blair Witch Project offered.

Rocky

The Rocky movie seems to be the golden ticket to stardom by Sylvester Stallone who also wrote and starred in this movie. This film directed by John G. Avildsen is considered as one of the best sports films ever made to hit the box office with a budget of $1 million but gross to $225 million worldwide. It is second to the Raging Bull by the American Film Institute as the best sports film.

Enter the Dragon

Enter the Dragon is a low budget martial arts Chinese film which stars Bruce Lee. Its total budget was $850,000 and won the box office hit with $90 million worldwide in 1973. Among the many martial arts film ever released in theaters, this film is considered as the greatest martial arts film of all time that it was selected for preservation by the US National Film Registry for being a culturally, historically and aesthetically relevant film. With its success, a lot of movies in the same genre follow through as such films reflect the changes taking place within colonized Asian countries at the of World War II.

Sholay

Sholay is an Indian action-packed adventure film that was written by Salim-Javed and directed by Ramesh Sippy. It is also considered as one of the successful low-budget films in 1975 as its initial budget was only $400,000 but gross to $67 million, making it the highest-grossing film of all time in the history of Indian cinema. What makes this film unique is that it is a good example of a masala film, a mixture of several genres in one movie, and has demonstrated several themes including the glorification of violence and conformation to feudal ethos. Because of its popularity that it became part of India’s daily vernacular, the film was re-released in a 3D format.

Paranormal Activity

The 2007 horror film Paranormal Activity written and directed by Oren Peli is considered as the most profitable film ever made based on the return of investment. On a budget of $15,000, where Oren Peli co-produced, written, directed, photographed and edited the film by his self, the gross of the movie after its release was 193 million. When its rights were acquired by the Paramount Pictures for $350,000, its ending was scrapped to two endings. The first ending was shown in public theaters while the other ending was shown in home releases.

Monsters

This 2010 British science fiction film broke the stigma that movies require special effects, expensive blockbuster will demand a big budget. That’s because this film has a total budget of around $500,000 but managed to gross to approximately $4 million collection. This film was written and directed by Gareth Edwards who took the inspiration of creating the film after seeing a group of fishermen struggling to put a creature in a net and was imagining that there’s a creature inside.

Halloween

The Halloween movie released in 1978 is a low budget film that had received numerous accolades as a classic horror film. With a budget of $325,000, the film’s worldwide gross was $70 million. With its box office success, it became a widely influential film for many slasher films that were produced later. According to many cinema historians, the movie Halloween is responsible for the new wave of horror that was released in the 1980s. A matter of fact, it became the blueprint to most successful horror slasher films that were produced such as A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th.