STRANGER THAN PARADISE (1985)

Writer-director Jim Jarmusch is the Edmund Hillary of modern independent filmmaking: He ventured into terra incognita and made this archly comic tale of disaffected road-tripping hipsters for pennies (and it shows), and it became an art-house sensation back when foreign films owned that turf. The ultralow production values inspired other filmmakers like Robert Rodriguez and Kevin Smith to shoot first, worry about money later.