50 Great Cult Films

Is donnie darko on there? I have a new rule that I trash any internet list that has donnie darko on it.

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It’s one of mine and my husband’s favorites in the less common sci-fi/horror genre. Own the disc, the poster is on the wall in the game room. So now you’ve heard of at least two!

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Especially when you consider how influential French New Wave was on Hollywood.

Aside from the missing John Waters and Troma, there’s also no Vanishing Point, Frankenhooker, Re-Animator, Society, TerrorVision, Puppet Master, Sleepaway Camp, Roar!, Alligator, Miami Connection, Blazing Saddles, Meet the Feebles, Battle Royal, the Quatermass movies, Black Christmas, Cafe Flesh (yeah, it’s a porno but the dystopian kabuki theatre nature of it is insane!), Blue Velvet, Body Double, Starship Troopers (people didn’t even realise it was a satire when it was released!), Rad, Capricorn One (easily the reason why there are moon landing denialists!), Pump Up The Volume, Creepshow, Critters, Crystal Fairy and the Magical Cactus, Videodrome, House, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, Deathrow Gameshow, Manborg, Basket Case, Excision, Raw, Eyes Without a Face, Freaked, Nothing But Trouble…

I’m gonna run out of space I think >.<

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I’ve actually seen quite a lot of the movies on your list and I’m either curious, or horrified, of the rest.

Interesting list.

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I’ve not even gotten to the actually obscure ones such as Slugs, A Bucket of Blood, Spring Breakers, Bad Boy Bubby, the Thumb series of parodies, Trilogy of Terror, Of Human Bondage (there really should be a pre-code revival), Holy Mountain (not sure if Jodorowsky can be called obscure these days, tho), Xtro, Zoot Suit, Neil Breen films, The Guyver (somehow it’s a Mark Hammill film people just don’t know about), Wings of Desire…

If you haven’t already, I’d recommend buying a copy of this
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Incredibly-Strange-Film-Book-Alternative/dp/0671710974

And the book I’m sure he was inspired by
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Incredibly-Strange-Films-Re-Search/dp/1889307017/

Shit, forgot about Super… if you wanna watch Elliot Page rape Rainn Wilson!

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I guess I learned something new today. The movie is more popular than I expected. I like sci-fi horror horror too, but I always think of the alien franchise.

To it’s credit the list does look cultivated. I’m not sure how Wet Hot American Summer is on there much less top ten. I’m loving the suggestions here. I’d add Slacker, Mystery Train, The Trouble With Dick, Spirit of '76, Naked Lunch, Man Bites Dog, and these two may not quite be “cult”, but: Angel Heart and Bugsy Malone, and a bunch of non-American cinema… perhaps the least of which, but cult qualifying, Audition.

Direct swap Spirit of '76 in for Wet Hot American Summer:

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Such a narrow list…

Missed things like Pandemonium, Transylvania Twist, Student Bodies, City of Lost Children, el Topo, Rare Exports, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, Brotherhood of the Wolf, and so on.

Maybe Boing Boing needs to make a little list of films that should not be missed.

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Voilà!

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My Left Foot, Near Dark, a total absence of Werner Herzog… [I need to stop it…] Swiss Army Man… [It’s a sickness…]

The Greasy Strangler.

[Please help!]

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I’d say calm down, watch a movie, but which one?

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The 50 Best Cult Movies is not exactly like the Holy Roman Empire. There actually are fifty on the list.

Ed Wood gets a whole list to himself.

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I’ll get in on some notable foreign / non-white entries

Amelie - France
Let the right one in - Sweden
Tetsuo the Iron Man - Japan
Message from Space - Japan
Kozure Okami: Baby cart on the river styx - Japan
Black Dynamite - USA
Y Tu mama tambien - Mexico
Nightwatch - Russia
Krrish - India
Genghis Blues - USA/Mongolia
Run Lola Run - Germany
The Quiet Earth - New Zealand

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That looks amazing! I’ve never heard of it before. Thanks!

Holy Motors, too. Although that might be so obscure as to not even make it into the cult category. It definitely should be a cult classic, though.

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If you like Japanese movies check out Fish Story, about a group of guys who invented punk music and whose songs will save the world from total destruction.

I suspect @Mindysan33 may like it too.

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Seen it 3 times. =D

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If that can’t recommend it to Mindy I don’t know what can!

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I was really surprised by how many of them I saw I the theatre when they came out. They may not have been successful, but they were just there in an era when a 6 screen cinema showed 6 different movies. I probably saw most of them at the second run cinema.

Some good ones they missed:
Crime Wave (John Paizs) - after school special with a “twist” ending
Tampopo - A Martial arts mastery film but noodles instead of swords (and sex and death)
Rock’n’Roll Highschool - Taught me how to be a man
Black Cat/White Cat (Serbia) - A masterpiece
Léolo (Quebec) - um, Tomato’s

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