What are your fav “Off Hollywood” films

I love film, and I hate most of the stuff that comes out of Hollywood, so I could go on and on, but these are all at the top of my list:

Wings of Desire
Secrets and Lies
Everything is Illuminated
I Like Killing Flies
Stroszek
Berlin Alexanderplatz
City of Lost Children
The Remains of the Day
Lovely and Amazing
The Professional
Amores Perros
Sex and Lucia
Things Change
Blue Velvet

Thanks... I have the one about the hit man and the little girl. "The Professional" I'll look into the rest

If you like Gary Oldman's over the top performance as the bad cop in that film, also check out Nicholas Roeg's film, "Track 29" which is another strange and brilliant performance by Oldman (one of my favorite actors) - largely wasted in his Hollywood performances). Track 29 is a very odd film - not for everyone for sure.

In both versions they resist injecting any sexual tone to Leon's attitude, but the precocious young Portman does suggest it ever so subtly in her character. Shes remarkable.

Agreed! If you like Portman here, DEFINITELY check out the film from around the same period titled, "Beautiful Girls". Absolutely outstanding performance on her part. Damn good film too. My favorite recent roll of hers is in "Closer". I'm surprised Albert hasn't joined in here...Don't get him started on Natalie!

The Dude abides.

Walter - Some brilliant pics in there that I hadn't thought of and unusual to boot. I'm going to have to check out the very few that I have not seen (I think there are only two: Election and Away from Her) - Man, I didn't think anyone else bothered with "Music of Chance" which I thought was just brilliant and thought provoking in an Egoyan (read slow and quiet) kind of way. I loved that film...how could I have forgotten!

If you liked Whale and Squid, check out "The Savages" recently released on DVD - another all-time favorite actor in that one; Phillip Seymore Hoffman!!! For more great diverse rolls with him check out "Punch Drunk Love" (small roll - but so brilliantly played - worth it for that one single scene in the matress store), "Flawless" with Deniro, and "Boogie Nights". "Capote" of course, but there's Hollywood written all over that. And back to Whale and Squid - the same director did "Margot at the Wedding" with Jack Black, not as good as W&S, but worth watching if you liked the first.

Great suggestions here from Blkadr and Audiofeil, and others.

Blkadr - enjoyed Wild at Heart and didn't take to Inland Empire at all. I liked Lost Highway as well, and even was a big fan of Eraserhead back in the 80's. There's a good documentary about Lynch called Pretty as a Picture: The Art of David Lynch that's well worth seeing. In the realm of the child-actor theme and bouncing off of "To Kill a Mockingbird" (yes, the kids were great in that) - Also check out Robert Mitchum in "The Night of the Hunter" - kind of hokey dialogue, but outstanding sets, lighting and cinemaphotography...just beautiful visual style. I believe it was Charles Laughton's only directorial effort.

Audiofeil - Nice group of suggestions; I loved many of those films. I'd add "Best in Show" for another hilarious Christopher Guest effort. I also love Atom Egoyan's other films way back to "Speaking Parts" and "Family Viewing".

There are films that come out of Hollywood that defy the typical dreck you may come to expect from that meat grinder. Here are a few that come to mind:
In the Bedroom
Magnolia
3:10 to Yuma (that reminds me - check out Bale in "The Machinist")
...oh, and another really brilliant actor: Ryan Gosling - check him out in, "The Believer" for shades of over-the-top Oldman and early Ed Norton ala "American History X". I also enjoyed Gosling in "United States of Leland"
Love the earlier stuff by Jarmusch - check out Benigni and Tom Waits in "Down by Law"

OK, gotta get some work done. Albert, I can't argue with you there, she belongs in "Perfect Systems" for sure!

Hitchcock, Mitcum, Bogart...all classics, but mostly not what I'd consider "off Hollywood" though certainly they are immortals. Love Hitchcock though - you mentioned Rope, which I think is one of his more innovative films - "Rear Window" and "North by Northwest" would be two other favorites, but that's big-time Hollywood IMO.

There's a whole other category that fits in that mold that few have mentioned: Documentaries! There are some truly wonderful documentaries that have been made entirely outside of the Hollywood machine. Top of my list would be:

Crumb
I Like Killing Flies (I mentioned that one already)
Grey Gardens
Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. (anything by Errol Morris for that matter)
Deliver us From Evil
Lake of Fire
Why We Fight
Who Killed the Electric Car

A couple of other films that popped to mind, albeit some of these are Hollywood efforts -

Being John Malkovich
Adaptation
American Beauty
10 Items or Less
Broken Flowers
Basquiat (brilliant performance by Jeffrey Wright)

What about films so bizarre that they are rendered tolerable only by the hard-core, and even then test the limits. I can think of one in particular, which I wonder if anyone else here as seen. Named by Time Magazine as one of the most important films of the 20th century:

Begotten - this film makes "Eraserhead" and "Tetsuo: The Iron Man" seem like Saturday morning children's cartoons.

A very strange and beautiful film that I CAN recomend, however: Jan Svankmejer's gorgeous animated film called "Alice" (based upon Alice in Wonderland)