14 Low-Budget Movies That Absolutely Ate At The Box Office

Production Budget: $7,000,000 

Box Office: $231,450,102

Rather than following a particular 'formula' for success, Juno benefited from capturing a wide audience, appealing to both young and older cinema-goers. It also, as producer Russell Smith alluded to back in 2008, provided something 'different', which he believed enabled the film to excel at the box office: 

"Look at the political world — if you say the word 'change,' everybody gets up and applauds. That's where we are: We're dying for something different."

Production Budget: $200,000

Box Office: $99,750,000

Mad Max is undoubtedly one of Hollywood's greatest achievements. Having such a small budget and such an action-filled plot, the filmmakers had to endeavour in what filmmaker George Miller called "guerilla filmmaking." 

On how they did it, George said: "It meant that we had to sweep up the roads after there was a car crash. Byron and I would stay back at night and sweep up the roads. It meant that the film was cut in a flat that we borrowed from a friend and he would cut sound in the lounge room and I’d cut picture in the kitchen."

Of course, the movie did astoundingly well considering its small budget, and the franchise has gone on to be one of the biggest in Hollywood. 

Production Budget: $450,000

Box Office: $194,183,034

How do you make a movie so cheap? The answer is simple, make it look like a home movie. That's exactly what Oren Peli did for Paranormal Activity, which turned into a seven-movie franchise and did incredibly well. 

The idea for the movie was natural Oren said, talking about how the idea came from when he and his then-girlfriend were living in the San Diego home – "Actually there were strange noises at night that made us both jumpy. You know, stuff falling off shelves ..."

Thinking of setting up a video camera to see what was going on, he had the idea to take this premise and make a movie. – "After seeing Blair Witch and Open Water, I realised that anyone can buy a video camera and start shooting a movie." 

Of course, this phenomenon of strange noises in the dark is so relatable, that it naturally drew audiences in, and the jumpy, terrifying movie turned out to be a huge success. 

Production Budget: $8,000,000

Box Office: $101,059,124

Little Miss Sunshine's success began at its debut at Sundance, where it garnered rapturous applause, resulting in a bidding war for the distribution rights which saw Fox Searchlight Pictures pay an (at the time) Sundance record $10.5 million. 

Such glowing reviews propelled the film to its dizzying financial heights upon its release. Of the response at Sundance, Alan Arkin said, ”In 40 years of doing film and theatre, I’d never experienced anything like the reaction we got. Just wild enthusiasm.”

Production Budget: $7,000

Box Office: $2,041,928

Robert Rodriguez's remarkable rise to Hollywood fame is one of the greatest and most unique success stories in film. When he was a student, he shot his first film, El Mariachi, with the intention to sell it to the Hispanic home video market. But when a Hollywood agent saw the film and recognised his talent, Columbia Pictures agreed to release it internationally. 

With every shot made to count in the movie, it became a huge success and spawned a sequel/remake, Desperado, and a third movie, Once Upon a Time in Mexico – along with the career of Robert himself.

Production Budget: $600,000

Box Office: $248,300,000

The Blair Witch Project was a masterpiece in movie making and marketing. In terms of filming, co-director Daniel Myrick explained the bizarre process and shooting schedule: 

"It wasn’t like a normal film: the actors would work the cameras, filming each other all the time. Using GPS, we directed them to locations marked with flags or milk crates, where they’d leave their footage and pick up food and our directing notes." – These directions included things such as “Heather, you’re absolutely sure that to get out of this mess you go south. Don’t take no for an answer.”

In terms of marketing, the buzz that was surrounding the movie as it headed to Sundance was partly due to the website they'd created that suggested the student filmmakers in the movie had actually gone missing. Daniel spoke about this, saying: "I got a call from a New York police officer who had worked in Maryland for years and wanted to help. I had to tell him it was all fake." 

The film's realistic aura contributed to its great success – even actor Heather Donahue''s parents were concerned for her when she got initially cast, as actor Joshua Leonard explained: "Heather’s parents were worried Ed and Dan might be taking her out into the woods to make a snuff movie."

Production Budget: $6,500,000

Box Office: $257,047,661

This story of a possessed doll managed to capture the interest of the cinema-going community across the globe. A fantastic international release supplemented a strong domestic showing to ensure the movie would be a financial win, one so large that they went on to make two more films. 

At the time, Warner Bros. exec Jeff Goldstein said, “There’s just something about that doll. Talk about an incredible return on investment.” He went on to say that Annabelle had crossed over to consumer markets that usually went untapped by R-rated movies, "Even in small towns where they tend to be troubled by R-rated movies, it’s done really well. It’s crossed over.”

Production Budget: $65,000

Box Office: $22,233,808

When Morgan Spurlock began making his documentary where he ate McDonald's every day for a month, no one, including McDonald's, thought it would become such a sensation. But Morgan believed the intrigue was there from the start, saying: "You already have an investment in the movie just because you want to know what happens to this guy." 

The fascination people have with seeing individuals push their bodies to the limits is certainly something that Morgan capitalised on, and one that helped him win Best Director at Sundance. Watchers got what they came for, as Morgan's doctors – who first saw the project as a bit of a gimmick – began getting serious about the impact the diet was having. 

The movie did incredibly well considering its small budget and very simple premise, and also garnered a very strong and series response from McDonald's themselves. 

Production Budget: $1,000,000

Box Office: $225,000,000

Sylvester Stalone's Academy Award-winning film has an incredible origin story. After writing the film, he was searching for funding, but rejected a $360,000 offer for the script when he was broke because they wanted someone else to play the lead. It turned out to be a fantastic decision though because he was eventually offered a $1m budget to create the movie that would clear up at both the box office and the Academy Awards!

Production Budget: $5,000,000

Box Office: $374,890,034

The success of My Big Fat Greek Wedding was largely due to the incredible staying power it had in cinemas. Unlike most releases, that begin to drop in per-cinema revenue over time, MBFGW maintained, and even grew its per-cinema takings over a wildly long period of time. 

The film seemingly benefitted from word-of-mouth reviews, along with a fairly uncontested market for family-friendly non-action movies, and the financial boon was almost unprecedented in the rom-com arena. 

Production Budget: $1,000,000

Box Office: $101,759,490

The Devil Inside followed the successful blueprint of Paranormal Activity both in style and in marketing. Stylistically, the fake documentary angle drew in fans of Paranormal Activity and The Blair Witch Project. Marketing-wise, Don Harris, president of domestic distribution for Paramount even said that it followed a similar strategy to Paranormal Activity.  

The horror fanbase, which Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian said was "very difficult to track" came in its droves, and made The Devil Inside a financial success despite a pretty bad critical reception. 

Production Budget: $325,000

Box Office: $70,274,000

John Carpenter, with a small cast and just a 20-day shoot, was able to make one of the most influential slasher movies ever with a tiny budget, even for 1978. Carpenter's style and a few money-saving tricks (including the throwing and gathering of multiple bags of leaves every day) managed to create this incredibly successful film for so little. 

Jamie Lee Curtis' performance, along with the classic suspense & bloodshed style put Halloween into horror history and made a hefty profit in the process. 

Production Budget: $4,000,000

Box Office: $65,172,611

Considering director Barry Jenkins said, "We didn't make the movie with any expectations," he must have been blown away with both the critical and financial success of Moonlight. The film not only thrived at the box office, but also achieved eight Academy Award nominations. 

The success was a result of excellent reviews, along with the 'something new' aspect that audiences were seemingly craving. As Jenkins said, "I remember being at Telluride and Toronto and getting this first inkling that people were seeing something that they didn't expect to see and, because of that, it was moving them in a way that they — and us — couldn't anticipate." 

Production Budget: $400,000

Box Office: $46,122,713

Napoleon Dynamite's success came from its purity and originality, which helped it garner a cult following its 2004 release. The movie was made by a group of recently graduated Brigham Young University film students and was shot in only three weeks. In fact, producer Jeremy Coon actually borrowed money from his brother in order to make the movie. 

With a good reception at Sundance, Napoleon Dynamite capitalised on word of mouth and a canny marketing campaign to become a financial success and a cult classic.