Independent film

In the United States the term "independent film" may also be used interchangeably with the term Art film.

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An independent film, or indie film, is a film that is produced outside of any major film studio. Originally, this term denoted independence from Paramount Pictures, MGM, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Bros., RKO, Universal Pictures, United Artists, and Columbia Pictures, the 8 major studio entities which controlled the production, distribution, and exhibition of films in the US from the late 1920s through 1950s. Though its oligopolistic practices were officially ended by the Paramount Decision in 1948, all eight Golden Age Majors continue to exist in one form or another as major Hollywood studio entities through 2009. (Although some have been combined, absorbed, or partnered with others through the decades.) Independent films today are generally defined as American films financed and distributed by sources outside today's Big Six and its subsidiaries.
Though film production companies in other countries have at times achieved and maintained full integration in a manner similar to Hollywood's Big Five, the Hollywood system and style remain uniquely American in character and origin. As such, films produced outside the United States are generally qualified as foreign rather than independent.