Little Fugitive

Little Fugitive, directed by Morris Engel, Ray Ashley, and Ruth Orkin, is an independent American film about a young boy who spends a day at Coney Island after being tricked into believing he accidentally killed his older brother. The film was shot with a compact handheld camera Engel designed with his wartime friend, inventor Charlie Woodruff, which let the crew film unobtrusively among the real Coney Island crowds, making it the first major film shot with a handheld 35mm camera. It won the Silver Lion at the 1953 Venice Film Festival and received an Academy Award nomination. François Truffaut told The New Yorker, "Our New Wave would never have come into being if it hadn't been for the young American Morris Engel, who showed us the way to independent production with his fine movie Little Fugitive," and John Cassavetes raised money out of his own pocket to make his first feature, Shadows, after seeing it. Who it's for: anyone curious about an independent cinema pioneer, shot outside the studio system with a homemade handheld camera, that Truffaut himself credited with directly influencing the French New Wave. Who it's not for: those wanting a polished production with professional actors and synchronized sound, since this was shot with amateur actors and dubbed sound added afterward.