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.

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

  2. 2.

  3. 3.
    Freaks

  4. 4.
    Harold and Maude
    by Hal Ashby

  5. 5.
    Pink Flamingos
    by John Waters

  6. 6.
    The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Two-Disc Ultimate Edition)
    by Tobe Hooper

  7. 7.
    Repo Man
    by Alex Cox

  8. 8.
    Scarface (Collector's Edition)

  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.

  21. 22.
    Un Chien Andalou
    by Luis Buñuel

  22. 23.
    Akira
    by Katsuhiro Ohtomo

  23. 25.

  24. 26.
    Stranger Than Paradise (The Criterion Collection)
    by Jim Jarmusch

  25. 27.
    The Wiz
    by Sidney Lumet

  26. 28.
    Clerks (Collector's Series)
    by Kevin Smith

  27. 30.
    Slap Shot (25th Anniversary Special Edition)
    by George Roy Hill

  28. 31.
    Re-Animator (The Millennium Edition)
    by Stuart Gordon

  29. 32.
    Grey Gardens (The Criterion Collection)
    by Albert Maysles

  30. 33.
    The Big Lebowski
    by Ethan Coen

  31. 34.
    Withnail and I (The Criterion Collection)
    by Bruce Robinson

  32. 35.
    Showgirls

  33. 36.
    A Bucket of Blood
    by Roger Corman

  34. 37.
    They Live

  35. 38.
    The Best of Everything
    by Jean Negulesco

  36. 39.
    Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy
    by Roger Vadim

  37. 40.
    Heathers (THX Version)
    by Michael Lehmann

  38. 41.

  39. 42.

  40. 43.
    Love Streams
    by John Cassavetes

  41. 44.
    Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story
    by Todd Haynes

  42. 45.
    Aguirre, the Wrath of God
    by Werner Herzog

  43. 46.
    Walking and Talking

  44. 47.

  45. 48.
    Friday (New Line Platinum Series)
    by F. Gary Gray

  46. 49.

  47. 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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Shawshank, a cult film? — 29 weeks 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? — 46 weeks ago

Sternberg’s ANATAHAN

Kramer’s (Robert) ICE

Solanas’ HOUR OF THEFURNACES

to name only three. Dozens come to mind.


? — 1 year ago

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


Untitled — 2 years ago

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


Definition of "cult" — 2 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 — 2 years ago

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


Untitled — 3 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 — 3 years ago

this definitely needs it


Untitled — 3 years ago

This list needs Monty Python for sure. And Scarface? Would anyone really consider that a cult film? Or Buckaroo Bonzai? Might as well throw on Big Trouble in Little China and Goonies. The trouble with lists are they’re so subjective.


Pink Flamingos — 3 years ago

I don’t know if anyone else has seen this but everyone should have to see it at least once. It’s definately different.



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