Entertainment Weekly's "The Top 50 Cult Movies"

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Most died at the box office, some of them horribly. Mangled and despised, they were re-animated on video. And now they compose our cultural Esperanto, a subliminal vocabulary of vaguely subversive images, ideas, and phrases that we continue to obsess over and dissect at parties, around watercoolers, in bars, over the blaring banalities of the mainstream media din. They are Cult Movies…So if you take your dead evil and your buckaroos banzai-ed, pour yourself a tall glass of Kool-Aid and peruse this list complete with signature lines and a near Talmudic trove of trivia.

  1. 1.
    This Is Spinal Tap (The Criterion Collection)
    by Rob Reiner

  2. 2.

  3. 3.
    Freaks
    by Tod Browning

  4. 4.
    Harold and Maude
    by Hal Ashby

  5. 5.
    Pink Flamingos
    by John Waters

  6. 6.
    The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (2-Disc Ultimate Edition)
    by Tobe Hooper

  7. 7.
    Repo Man
    by Alex Cox

  8. 8.
    Scarface (Collector's Edition)
    by Brian De Palma

  9. 9.
    Blade Runner (The Director's Cut)
    by Ridley Scott

  10. 10.
    The Shawshank Redemption
    by Frank Darabont

  11. 11.
    Five Deadly Venoms
    by Cheh Chang

  12. 12.
    Plan 9 From Outer Space
    by Edward D. Wood Jr.

  13. 14.
    Eraserhead
    by David Lynch

  14. 15.
    Faster Pussycat Kill Kill [VHS]
    by Russ Meyer

  15. 16.
    The Warriors
    by Walter Hill

  16. 17.
    Dazed and Confused
    by Richard Linklater

  17. 18.
    Hard Boiled
    by John Woo

  18. 19.
    Evil Dead II
    by Sam Raimi

  19. 20.
    The Mack
    by Michael Campus

  20. 21.
    Pee-wee's Big Adventure (Widescreen)
    by Tim Burton

  21. 22.
    Un Chien Andalou
    by Luis Buñuel

  22. 23.
    Akira
    by Katsuhiro Ôtomo

  23. 24.
    The Toxic Avenger (21st Anniversary Edition)
    by Lloyd Kaufman

  24. 25.

  25. 26.
    Stranger Than Paradise (The Criterion Collection)
    by Jim Jarmusch

  26. 27.
    The Wiz
    by Sidney Lumet

  27. 28.
    Clerks (Collector's Series)
    by Kevin Smith

  28. 29.
    The Harder They Come (The Criterion Collection)
    by Perry Henzell

  29. 30.
    Slap Shot (25th Anniversary Special Edition)
    by George Roy Hill

  30. 31.
    Re-Animator (The Millennium Edition)
    by Stuart Gordon

  31. 32.
    Grey Gardens (The Criterion Collection)
    by Albert Maysles

  32. 33.
    The Big Lebowski
    by Joel Coen

  33. 34.
    Withnail and I (The Criterion Collection)
    by Bruce Robinson

  34. 35.
    Showgirls
    by Paul Verhoeven

  35. 36.
    A Bucket of Blood
    by Roger Corman

  36. 37.
    They Live
    by John Carpenter

  37. 38.
    The Best of Everything
    by Jean Negulesco

  38. 39.
    Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy
    by Roger Vadim

  39. 40.
    Heathers (THX Version)
    by Michael Lehmann

  40. 41.

  41. 42.

  42. 43.
    Love Streams
    by John Cassavetes

  43. 44.
    Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story
    by Todd Haynes

  44. 45.
    Aguirre, the Wrath of God
    by Werner Herzog

  45. 46.
    Walking and Talking
    by Nicole Holofcener

  46. 47.

  47. 48.
    Friday (New Line Platinum Series)
    by F. Gary Gray

  48. 49.

  49. 50.
    The Original Faces of Death: 30th Anniversary Edition
    by Conan Lecilaire

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Created by Robot Co-op on Nov 30, 2005.
 

Comments

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Hello dear, — 24 weeks ago

Hello dear,

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Untitled — 49 weeks ago

tape

waking life

hedwig and the angry inch

masters of the universe

bad boy bubby

there’s just so many more that should have been replaced..


Shawshank, a cult film? — 1 year ago

Sorry, but the way I see it, no movie which holds the #1 place of the IMDB top 250, of all things, should also occupy a place on a list of cult films. Everybody’s seen Shawshank!


What does "cult" mean anyway? — 2 years ago

Sternberg’s ANATAHAN

Kramer’s (Robert) ICE

Solanas’ HOUR OF THEFURNACES

to name only three. Dozens come to mind.


? — 2 years ago

I’m not so sure Shawshank could be called a cult film. But it is a great movie, nonetheless!


Untitled — 3 years ago

Sorry, but Donnie Darko sucks on all levels. Bravo for Entertainment Weekly for not including it!


Definition of "cult" — 3 years ago

In addition to the usual issues of personal taste with “best of” lists, there’s the sticky one of how you define a movie as “cult.” I think this list is good as any. Sure, there’s stuff missing, but no list is going to satisfy everyone. Showgirls is on here not because it’s good but because it’s so bad.


DVD Update — 4 years ago

Replaced the old Faces of Death w/o a pic to the new DVD release.


Untitled — 4 years ago

Huh, I have scene 23 of the films on this list. Also I have to agree that it does need a little work done to it.


Boondock Saints — 4 years ago

this definitely needs it



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