This is a study of the outsider directors who have come to dominate America's and Hollywood's creative output in the last two decades: the Coen Brothers; Hal Hartley; Todd Haynes; Jim Jarmusch; Spike Lee; Richard Linklater; David Lynch; John Sayles; Steven Soderbergh; Quentin Tarantino; and Wayne Wang. The book places these directors within the story of the growth of American independent film-making, and draws connections to their forerunners from the late-1960s and 1970s, influences such as Robert Altman, John Cassavetes, Roger Corman, and Martin Scorcese. As well as a chapter on each of the above 11 directors, the book provides a general assessment of the explosion of independent cinema in the States: mainstream mavericks (Tim Burton, John Dahl); new queer cinema (Rose Troche, Tom Kalin); black film-makers (Charles Burnett, John Singleton); women directors (Alison Anders, Maggie Greenwald); experimentors, imitators, cult figures, and a peripheral cast of hundreds from Steve Buscemi to Gus Van Sant.