What are your favorite cult movies?

Man, I don't know which way to go here. When I think "cult movie", I assume it has to be obscure, but beloved by a small group of rabid weirdos, possibly with questionable grooming habits. The films Mr S. Wallens listed off are pretty mainstream. Which makes sense, given the stipulations and the mandate to turn a profit. It's hard to make money catering to disenfranchised weirdos.

Still, it does beg the question of what constitutes cult. If we take away the concerns over "adult content" and "making money", there are a whole lot of lovably terrible films out there ripe for a midnight showing. And also some really good films of limited commercial success. 

The Room (ahaha)

Birdemic: Shock and Terror

Troll 2

Best Worst Movie (play this one the day or week after Troll 2)

Fateful Findings, or almost anything else by Neil Breen

Reanimator

Crumb

Winnebago Man

Moon

Goodbye Lenin

Down by Law

Ghost World

Kentucky Fried Movie

Dolemite

American Movie

I am not exactly sure what a cult movie is, but maybe

Raising Arizona  ("...or maybe it was New Mexico")

1941 (this movie NEVER seems to play, non pay-per-view anywhere anymore)

Dark Star (deep cut, Carpenters student movie, same writer as Alien...similar story... sort of) - Looks like it's available on Prime Video if you want to check it out.  Remember, its a student movie, so expect low budget, to say the least

In reply to mainlandboy :

Hunt For The Wilderpeople is truly excellent.

In reply to aircooled :

Dark Star was first on my list, but I (oddly) forgot about Raising Arizona despite having watched it dozens of times.

We could probably add Fargo.

Google sez:  A cult classic movie is a film that has acquired a dedicated, passionate fanbase, often referred to as a cult following. These fans engage in repeated viewings, dialogue-quoting, and other forms of participatory engagement with the film, forming an elaborate subculture. Cult classics often have a unique combination of qualities, including being transgressive, marginal, or initially unsuccessful, yet they gain a dedicated following that keeps them alive over time. 

So, with that criteria:

Mad Max

Office Space

Duel

The Hitcher

Swingers

Pulp Fiction

Tremors

Uncle Buck

Smokey and the Bandit (this was a box office smash, but really, it's a film no one expected to succeed)

In keeping with the "Cult" theme:

Dogma

Clerks

The Gods Must be Crazy

Flight of the Phoenix ( 1965 version)

Erasorhead

Rotten Tomatoes ( C'mon, how did y'all miss this one)

Clockwork Orange

Elephant Man

Rocky Horror

Vanishing Point.

The Man who fell to earth.

Andromeda Strain

Barbarella

Back then, to be honest, I don’t think we even used the term cult movies. We simply called them midnight movies. A description I recall hearing for them: Movies you’d want to watch at midnight–possibly when drunk. 

Tucker and Dale vs Evil should mos def be on this list!

The Big Lebowski

I have my certificate, I just need to register with the State of Oklahoma and I will be an ordained Dudeist Priest. 

Gentleman Broncos

Hamlet II

The Fall

We recently watched this one: “Chopping Mall.” I could see us having shown this. Today, can you call it a social commentary on AI? 

The Loved One.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Loved_One_(film)  Obscure movie, weird premise, amazing cast (Jonathan Winters, Rod Steiger, Milton Berle, John Gielgud, James Coburn and Liberace all in the same movie?)

Not cult films, I guess, but we have gotten into cheesy horror movies the last few years. 

Velocipastor
Llamageddon
Rubber
Bingo Hall 
Hobo with a Shotgun
Killer Sofa
Attack of the Killer Clowns (fiance had never seen it)
Attack of the Killer Donuts (definitely so terrible/cheesy it's fantastic)

and many others I can't think of off the top of my head. 

Not a cheesy movie, we watched "Day Shift" with Jamie Foxx a while back and really enjoyed it. He plays a down-on-his-luck Vampire Hunter.
 

I feel like any discussion of "modern" cult movies needs to begin with Event Horizon. Few movies have flopped harder in initial release but stuck around longer and had more of an impact in the secondary markets.

And I was also a huge fan of comedy anthology films. Amazon Women on the Moon and Elephant Parts were in regular rotation in my VHS player.

z31maniac said:

The Big Lebowski

I have my certificate, I just need to register with the State of Oklahoma and I will be an ordained Dudeist Priest. 

 

This is the answer. Lebwoskifest was born (and died) here in Louisville. It was an excellent time. We're gearing up for Achieverfest next weekend--- the smaller (but awesome) event that replaced it.

Lots of favorites already mentioned. I would add:

Motel Hell (personal fave)

Shakes the Clown

Interstellar

David S. Wallens said:

Back then, to be honest, I don’t think we even used the term cult movies. We simply called them midnight movies. A description I recall hearing for them: Movies you’d want to watch at midnight–possibly when drunk. 

I was in college in the early 1990s and spent a bunch of time hanging out with the anime club before it was much of a thing here in the US.  We used to have weekly showings (albeit not at midnight) and we were limited to video tapes (often fan subtitled and bootleg) rather than film, but they were definitely "cult" here in the US.  Some of my favorites were

Macross: Do You Remember Love

Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack

Wings of Honneamise

Totoro, Kiki's, pretty much anything by Miyazaki

and then of course the big one was Akira.

This is also a fun use of ChatGPT. Ask it for suggestions of X type of movie and in the prompt use other movies of that type of genre as references to get more suggestions. 

Sadly, as far as I know, there’s no list of the movies that we actually scheduled. We made our quarterly lists, ordered the movies, and printed calendars–the few scans of those old calendars (and our fading memories) remain the only records. 

I’m trying to recall if we showed “Mad Max.” I’m sure we did, right? 

Adding a few of my favorites / guilty pleasures:

Harold and Maude 

Ballad of Cable Hogue 

Gumball Rally

Moonrunners

Argueably culty:

The Holy Grail.

The Meaning of Life.

The Life of Brian.

Less culty:

Memento

Long Kiss Goodnight.

In reply to Marjorie Suddard :

I’m wondering if we showed “Shakes the Clown” at some point. We had to have. 

In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :

Did Akira get a limited theatrical release?

Very few adult or at least young-adult anime got picked up. I think Ghost in the Shell did, then a long break until the 2000s with ones like Cowboy Bebop and Tokyo Godfathers.

In reply to j_tso :

Yes, I saw Akira (when it was new) in the theater. Now, we had to drive from Athens to Atlanta to see it, but we did see it. 

We showed it at school, too, once it was available soon after.

To help promote it, we made these buttons. (My friend and I might have only made two of these buttons as they were hand-made.)

Nobody's mentioned Mars Attacks?
 

Or the truly annoying Attack of the Killer Tomatoes?

HundredDollarCar said:

Nobody's mentioned Mars Attacks?
 

Or the truly annoying Attack of the Killer Tomatoes?

“Mars Attacks!” didn’t come out until after I graduated but, yeah, a good one from the list. I think we showed Tomatoes. I think.