An art film (also called an “art cinema”, “art movie”, or in the US, an "independent film" or “art house film”) is a typically serious, noncommercial, independently made film that is aimed at a niche audience, rather than a mass audience. Film critics and film studies scholars typically define an “art film” using a “...canon of films and those formal qualities that mark them as different from mainstream Hollywood films.” Art film producers usually present their films at specialty theatres (repertory cinemas, or in the US "arthouse cinemas") and film festivals. The term "art film" is much more widely used in the United States than in Europe, where the term "art film" is more associated with "auteur" films and "national cinema" (e.g., German national cinema).

Art films are aimed at small niche market audiences, which means they can rarely get the financial backing which will permit large production budgets, expensive special effects, costly celebrity actors, and huge advertising campaigns, as are used in widely-released mainstream blockbuster films.

Art film directors make up for these constraints by creating a different type of film, which typically uses lesser-known film actors (or even amateur actors) and modest sets to make films which focus on reflective dialogue sequences. For promotion, art films rely on the publicity generated from film critics' reviews, discussion of their film by arts columnists, commentators, and bloggers, and "word-of-mouth" promotion by audience members. Since art films have small initial investment costs, they only need to appeal to a small portion of the mainstream viewing audiences to become financially viable.