Top XX movie lists crop up like maggots on a dead body (your lovely image of the day) and are, for the most part, pointless adventure in personal tastes. Still, pointless adventures can be sort of fun if you take them with a grain of salt, and chances are that with the end of the year fast approaching, we’re going to be pummelled with them before too long.

I thought the Ultimate Indie Line-Up from EmpireOnline was pretty interesting. Interesting in that they have a very odd notion of what “indie” is. Apparently having an “relatively” unknown director, an “untried” lead, and a low budget qualifies. It’s reasoning like this that sees, of all things, The Terminator land at the #3 Indie Movie of all time. I’m sorry, but just because you have a bunch of industry newbies in the film and a budget that is not on par with King Kong does not make a movie indie. In my books, indie still stands for independent, meaning not associated with any major movie studio. Empire’s criteria were a little different: the circumstances and spirit in which they were made, the quality of the result, and its mark on the movie world.

The rest of the Top 10 contained perpetually named indie flicks (sex, lies, and videotape), movies I’m sick of hearing about (Sideways), and Reservoir Dogs sitting pretty atop them all. It doesn’t strike me as an overly inventive list. I would have really like to see it populated (even at the higher numbers) by movies I wasn’t familiar with. Would’ve made for some nice additions to my “To See” list instead of coming away feeling a little cheated.

What movie inclusions appalled you from this list, and what would you have put in their place? Recommend me some indies!