Entertainment Weekly's "The Top 50 Cult Movies"

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From Entertainment Weekly’s cover story of May 23, 2003: "...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. 2.

  2. 3.
    Freaks
    by Tod Browning

    Drag me to re-order


  3. 4.
    Harold and Maude

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  4. 5.
    Pink Flamingos

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  5. 6.
    The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
    by Tobe Hooper

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  6. 7.
    Repo Man

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  7. 8.
    Scarface
    by Brian De Palma

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  8. 9.
    Blade Runner (The Director's Cut)
    by Ridley Scott

    Drag me to re-order


  9. 10.
    The Shawshank Redemption
    by Frank Darabont

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  10. 11.
    Five Deadly Venoms
    by Cheh Chang

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  11. 12.
    Plan 9 from Outer Space

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  12. 13.
    Brazil - Criterion Collection

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  13. 14.
    Eraserhead
    by David Lynch

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  14. 15.
    Faster Pussycat Kill Kill
    by Russ Meyer

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  15. 16.
    The Warriors
    by Walter Hill

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  16. 17.
    Dazed and Confused
    by Richard Linklater

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  17. 18.
    Hard Boiled

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  18. 19.
    Evil Dead II (Special Edition)

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  19. 20.
    The Mack (New Line Platinum Series)
    by Michael Campus

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

    Drag me to re-order


  21. 22.
    Un Chien Andalou

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  22. 23.
    Akira (Special Edition)
    by Katsuhiro Ôtomo

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

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  24. 25.
    Stranger Than Paradise - Criterion Collection
    by Jim Jarmusch

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  25. 26.
    Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
    by Mel Stuart

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  26. 28.
    The Wiz
    by Sidney Lumet

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  27. 29.
    Clerks (Collector's Series)

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  28. 30.
    The Harder They Come - Criterion Collection
    by Perry Henzell

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  29. 31.
    Slap Shot (25th Anniversary Special Edition)
    by George Roy Hill

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  30. 32.
    Re-Animator (The Millennium Edition)
    by Stuart Gordon

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  31. 33.
    Grey Gardens - Criterion Collection
    by Albert Maysles

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  32. 34.
    The Big Lebowski
    by Joel Coen

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  33. 35.

  34. 36.
    Showgirls
    by Paul Verhoeven

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  35. 37.
    A Bucket of Blood
    by Roger Corman

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  36. 38.
    They Live
    by John Carpenter

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  37. 39.
    Best of Everything
    by Jean Negulesco

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  38. 40.
    Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy
    by Roger Vadim

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  39. 41.
    Heathers (THX Version)
    by Michael Lehmann

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  40. 42.
    Rushmore - Criterion Collection
    by Wes Anderson

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  41. 44.
    ?
    Love Streams
    by John Cassavetes

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  42. 45.
    Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story
    by Todd Haynes

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  43. 46.
    Aguirre, the Wrath of God
    by Werner Herzog

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  44. 47.
    Walking and Talking
    by Nicole Holofcener

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  45. 48.
    ?
    The Decline of Western Civilization Part II-The Metal Years
    by Penelope Spheeris

    Drag me to re-order


  46. 49.
    Friday (New Line Platinum Series)

    Drag me to re-order


  47. 50.
    ?
    Faces of Death Vol 1

    Drag me to re-order


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

Comments

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Untitled — 13 weeks 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.


Eva830
Eureka

Pink Flamingos — 24 weeks 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.


darryl heron
Frankfurt am Main

Cult Movies — 28 weeks ago

I debated about saying if Plan 9 was worth it or not. It is well known as one of the worst movies of all time, so if that is your barometer, it is so bad it is good.


zimage
Charlottesville

Extra Entry — 29 weeks ago

The list has 51 entries instead of the 50 that are listed on the original source website. It seems somebody added Donnie Darko to this list.


RUSHMORE! — 32 weeks ago

YAY!


ryanfox
Toronto

New List — 1 year ago

For all of you that have been complaining about this list, I have found a much better list.

http://www.listsofbests.com/list/36537/


this list is SUCK — 1 year ago

ok the point is not GOOD MOVIES the point is CULT CLASSICS!! and to be fair RHPS should be above spinal tap…but COME ON!!!SHOWGIRLS? showgirls is fucking on here..and that movie is NOT of cult status and yet breakfast club nowhere to be found!! monte python??cult fans everywhere are rolling in disgust!! where is say anything what the HELL is wrong with EW?? they are OBVIOUSLY not avid watchers of cult classics. This list is suck, nothing can be done for it.. It is completely WRONG. WHERE IS THE GODFATHER


Missing! — 1 year ago

Y’are forgetting Orgasmo, Donnie darko, Moulin rouge, Trainspotting, a Clockwork organge, Pulp fiction and Romeo and Juliet!


Nikola420
Lake Junaluska

Donnie Darko?? — 1 year ago

Where is it?


Belgand
San Francisco

Untitled — 1 year ago

The lack of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, above any other film missing, disqualifies this list as being comprehensive. Honestly, this has been one of the benchmark cult classics and is astoundingly absent.

Especially since Shawshank Redemption is on it. When it’s shown on TNT every few weeks it no longer qualifies as cult.



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