Clark inspired Korine to write a screenplay, and the result was the 1995 movie Kids. Kids is a story about teenagers and the AIDS crisis of the 90s, but it also has a disturbing underlying theme of a generation of lost children, who feel as though they have nothing to lose. Kids was criticized for its high levels of profanity and sexuality, but it was lauded at the independent spirit awards, winning best screenplay. Along with gaining attention from the public, Kids was the beginning of the career of then young actresses, Sevigny and Rosario Dawson.

In 1997 Korine released his first solo movie, Gummo. Primarily a disturbing and shocking film about white trash residents of a hurricane rattled ghost town, Gummo is a lot like watching a freak show. While the town’s people go about their grotesque and mundane day-to-day activities with fervour, one is left to wonder why they even bother. Perhaps Korine’s intention was a commentary on people in general, no matter the locale. Gummo received mixed reviews, winning awards but lacking mass appeal and exposure. Still, the haunting imagery present in Gummo won Korine the respect of his fellow directors, Bernardo Bertolucci and Werner Herzog, who both praised the film.

Korine’s next film Julien Donkey-Boy was a special task, signing a Dogme95 manifesto, a Danish avante garde filmmaking technique developed to test the limits of directors by creating a variety of constraints for example: not being allowed props, special lighting and so forth. His interpretation of Dogme95 for Julien Donkey-Boy was praised. Admired for its honesty in the depiction of a young man suffering with untreated schizophrenia, Julien Donkey-Boy helped establish Korine as a respected, though underground filmmaker.