If you went to Kim’s Video in New York’s East Village between 2005 and 2007, then you might have encountered a film student called Alex Ross Perry at the video store’s register, advising customers on what to rent from their iconic collection. Fast-forward some twenty years, and Perry—now one of American independent film’s best talents—has been browsing our libraries and selecting some standout cinema to watch alongside his own work. From exploitation sleaze to mind-changing essay films, from descents into the Los Angeles fame spiral to travels with European art cinema, these are Perry’s wonderfully eclectic picks.

Olga’s House of Shame (1964, Joseph P. Mawra)
Shanty Tramp (1967, Joseph G. Prieto)
If Footmen Tire of You, What Will Horses Do? (1971, Ron Ormond)

I was really excited to see these films in the MUBI library. If streaming services can highlight international cinema classics alongside this disreputable filth, then it’s an evolution of videostore logic. I fell in love with exploitation in film school. It was like… I thought I understood the geography of the planet I lived on, but then someone told me there was an entire continent I’d never heard of. I needed to go there! Usually, the history of independent filmmaking is taught through independent drama—but it’s also exploitation, sexploitation, trash, and horror; it’s films shot to make a quick buck with some sex and violence.

Olga’s House of Shame is terrific. It has always been a favorite. It’s about a cruel mistress who runs a club where women in various states of undress whip and spank the male clientele in the titular House of Shame. Obviously these kinds of films were cast for maximum titillation, and this one is full of great-looking women. But you don’t have to like nudie movies to watch it; you can just think about it as low-budget, independent filmmaking.

Shanty Tramp exemplifies highly localized film production. It almost combines documentary and fiction, because it’s filmed in real locations. Of course, this happens across independent cinema: Nobody is building sets. In the 1950s and the 1960s, the American South was not seen as a hotbed of film production like New York and Los Angeles were, but Florida gives this film a fascinating swamp aesthetic.

Room 237 (2012, Rodney Ascher)
Witches (2024, Elizabeth Sankey)

While I was working on Videoheaven (2025), an essay film about the history of video stores, I was inspired by other essay films. Room 237 and Witches are great examples of how you can use existing movies to make your own movie. We don’t get 50 essay films a year, and I want to highlight these because they’re incredibly watchable, and give people an opportunity to look at movies differently. Room 237 deconstructs one well-known text, The Shining (1980). It holds up the Kubrick film and asks, “What if this thing means something else?” It shows that people can interpret the same text in different ways, which I find really thrilling.

Witches also recontextualizes its images, but to tell women’s stories of postpartum depression. I don’t think anyone other than Elizabeth could have interpreted these clips of feminine magic and mania from a century of film in the way she did. Anyone could make a film about witchcraft in cinema, but this is not that film. This is a journey into the emotions of motherhood through movie images. I was so impressed with how Elizabeth invited viewers into autobiography by using these clips.

Frances Ha (2012, Noah Baumbach)

Well, Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig are in Pavements. Stephen Malkmus revealed early on in the process of Pavements that he really likes Noah’s and Greta’s works. He spoke often about that kinship. At one point he used the phrase “Baumbach girls listening to Pavement”—and I pictured a continuum from Parker Posey in Kicking and Screaming (1995) up through to the characters in Frances Ha. I knew exactly what he meant. There’s a throughline to Noah and Greta’s films that goes from what Pavement were for people like Noah in the ’90s to what they are for a younger generation now. This could be a double feature with Pavements.

Spree (2020, Eugene Kotlyarenko)

This could also be a double feature with Pavements! You’d get four hours of Joe Keery, which is no bad thing. Making this movie, coming hot off of Stranger Things, was fearless of him. I saw this film and knew he meant business: He doesn’t want to get off his hit show and just play it safe. Joe is the real deal. So many actors wouldn’t touch a film like Spree—or Pavements—with a ten-foot pole. If the director messes up a film like this, it would be horrible: a bad, boring, unwatchable failed experiment. I love Eugene’s films made on a computer or phone screen. What a bizarre, innovative, modern storytelling device.

Mainstream (2020, Gia Coppola)

I’ll confess: I really like Gia’s other movies, and I’ve not seen this. I picked this as a reminder to myself, also because Jason Schwartzman and Nat Wolff (who are in Pavements) are in it, as is Maya Hawke (who does the voiceover in Videoheaven). When I have this many friends involved in a movie and I haven’t seen it, I feel embarrassed. I like it when young actors like Maya and Nat have a lot of heat and say yes to an independent filmmaker, lending their credibility and celebrity to someone who has made maybe one to three films. I’m sure I’ll like this movie.

The Canyons (2013, Paul Schrader)

Paul Schrader is a huge influence. After decades of making films with big budgets and big stars, he crowdfunded this, making it for something like $200,000 in two weeks. Other heroes of his generation were saying they couldn’t get movies made, but Paul effectively said, I need nothing. We used to make movies in twelve weeks, but I can make one in twelve days. It’s so fearless. I love the film. I know it’s divisive. Many people think it’s unwatchable. I think it’s an incredible testament to the end of cinema; the film opens with this montage of closed movie theaters. Paul challenged himself to forget everything he had learned and make something entirely new. It remains highly inspirational to me: You have to keep evolving. You’re not going to be able to drink from the same well every time.

Pacifiction (2022, Albert Serra)

I love Albert’s movies. I heard him speak about an earlier film, Story of My Death (2013), and he said he had seven or eight cameras rolling at a time, playing out endless scenes. More than performing a script, actors inhabit a world. That’s still how Albert works. Usually when you’re making low-budget narrative films, you have twenty hours of footage for a two-hour movie. He says that he has 100 hours! I thought that was madness, but watching his films… You get the sense that for a dinner party scene of ten or twenty minutes, the cast and crew had a four-hour meal and filmed it. Scenes don’t start with a line of dialogue. You just enter a world with a languorous rhythm.

Bergman Island (2021, Mia Hansen-Løve)

I’ve always liked Mia Hansen-Løve’s films too. This one might be autobiographical for her, I think, and it’s personal for me too. I saw it maybe on a Thursday, and by the following Monday I had applied for the residency that she had when she wrote the film. I received it, I went to Fårö, and I rewatched the film while I was there, staying in the same house that Vicky Krieps and Tim Roth’s characters stay in. I downloaded all the Pavement songs using that house’s wifi, then in Bergman’s house—which has no wifi—I sat in his office listening to Pavement songs, deconstructing the lyrics, and writing the Slanted and Enchanted musical. So in addition to loving Bergman Island, it literally changed the course of my life. It was a beautiful experience.