The Ten Greatest Cult Films You Must See

Terry Gilliam's 1985 SciFi-fantasy borrows from Fritz Lang's 1927 masterpiece Metropolis, but then so does Blade Runner. An homage to Orwell's 1984, Gilliam's government-preaching signs and speeches lauding conformity and obedience to Big Brother likens storm troopers to cops and depicts ordinary people as helpless, obedient, and complacent. Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) cannot function any longer in the bureaucratic Ministry of Education and dreamily escapes reality. Brazil is without a doubt one of the most imaginative, complex films ever created, and leaves its many images of chaos, oppressed society, and political nightmares forever imprinted on the mind. Be sure to see the director's cut and not the watered-down Hollywood-happy-ending version which was released in 1986 and probably helped Brazil to flop at the box office. Also starring Jim Broadbent, Bob Hoskins and Robert De Niro, Brazil may well be the greatest social satire of our time. Or any time.

Written and directed by Jim Sharman in 1975, The Rocky Horror Picture Show defies even the word cult. This movie still attracts hundreds of fans at midnight every Saturday night in theaters all over the world, fans who know every nuanced line, every unique costume and every bizarre segue. They come to the theater dressed as characters and this may be the first interactive entertainment, long before computers. The audience is now the real star, but the movie's stars are Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick and Meatloaf. This is the story of lovers Frank and Janet (Curry and Sarandon) lost in an isolated area with no choice but to call on maniacal Dr. Frank N. Furter. Even Fellini never had Frankenstein wearing golden panties. Dancing to Time Warp is now a rite of passage for everyone under 25. There are two great posters from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, both with pillow lips that are more sensual than those of Angelina Jolie.

Barton Fink is a 1991 film by Joel and Ethan Coen. It tells the story of Barton Fink (John Turturro), a young, intense, and rather awkward writer of social realist plays in the early 1940s whose raison d'être is to "create a theatre of the common man," but who is suffering from writer's block and has no ability to relate to "the common man."

The film's enigmatic story has been interpreted as an examination of the creative act, a satire on Hollywood, a Joseph Campbell-like heroic quest, or even an allegory for the rise of Nazism.[1] The Coen brothers themselves remain characteristically tight-lipped on the subject.

Hellraiser is a 1987 British horror film exploring the themes of sadomasochism, pain as a source of pleasure, and morality under duress and fear. It is based on the critically acclaimed novella The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker, who also wrote the screenplay and directed the film. In the UK, the film is titled Clive Barker's Hellraiser. It is the first film in the Hellraiser series. Seven subsequent sequels followed with a remake of the first announced in 2007.[1] Hellraiser was number 19 on the cable channel Bravo's list of the 100 Scariest Movie Moments.

William Lee (Burroughs's pseudonym for his first novel, Junky) is an exterminator who finds that his wife is stealing his insecticide for recreational purposes. When Lee is arrested by the police, he believes himself hallucinating because of bug powder exposure. Lee believes himself a secret agent, and Lee's controller (a giant bug) assigns him the mission of killing his wife, Joan Lee, who is, according to the bug, an agent of an organization called Interzone Incorporated. Dismissing the bug and its instructions, Lee returns home to find his wife sleeping with Hank, one of his writer friends. He soon shoots her while performing a William Tell routine.

Having "accomplished" his "mission", Lee flees to Interzone, where the Interzone Incorporated organization is based, and spends his time writing reports on his mission, which become the book Naked Lunch. While in Interzone, the typewriters Lee uses are themselves living creatures, usually giving Lee advice on his mission. Clark Nova, one of Lee's typewriters, tells him to find Doctor Benway, by means of seducing Joan Frost who is a doppelgänger of his dead wife, Joan Lee.

After finding out that Doctor Benway is the head of a drug manufacturing ring, producing "the black meat", Lee completes his report and flees Interzone to Annexia with Joan Frost. Upon meeting the Annexian border patrol, to prove that he is a writer as he claims, he shoots Joan Frost in the head, in the same manner that he shot his late wife, Joan Lee. After seeing this, the border patrol welcomes Lee to Annexia.

Sin City is a 2005 film written, produced and directed by Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez. It is based on Miller's graphic novel series of the same name.

The film is primarily based on three of Miller's works; "The Hard Goodbye" focuses on a hulking man who embarks on a brutal rampage in search of his one-time lover's killer; "The Big Fat Kill" focuses on a street war held between a group of prostitutes and a series of mercenaries; and "That Yellow Bastard" focuses on an aging police officer who protects a young woman from a grotesquely disfigured serial killer. The movie stars Jessica Alba, Devon Aoki, Alexis Bledel, Michael Clarke Duncan, Rosario Dawson, Benicio del Toro, Michael Madsen, Powers Boothe, Josh Hartnett, Jaime King, Brittany Murphy, Clive Owen, Mickey Rourke, Nick Stahl, Bruce Willis, Elijah Wood and Rutger Hauer, among others.

Sin City opened to wide critical and commercial success, gathering particular recognition for the film's unique coloring process, which rendered most of the film in black and white but retained coloring for select objects. The film was screened at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival in-competition and won the Technical Grand Prize for the film's "visual shaping."

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension! (also more simply referred to as Buckaroo Banzai) is an American science fiction film that has reached cult film status. It was released in 1984, directed and produced by W. D. Richter and concerns the efforts of the multi-talented Dr. Buckaroo Banzai (Peter Weller), a physicist, neurosurgeon, Samurai, rock musician, Jet Car driver and comic book hero, to save the world by defeating a band of inter-dimensional aliens called Red Lectroids from Planet 10. The film is a cross between the action/adventure and science-fiction movie genres, and also includes elements of comedy, satire, and romance. It is also made to feel like one in a series of movies, by the use of ongoing allusions to other characters, adventures and events.

A Clockwork Orange is a 1971 crime-drama-thriller film adaptation of a 1962 novel of the same name, by Anthony Burgess. The adaptation was produced, written and directed by Stanley Kubrick. It stars Malcolm McDowell as the charismatic and psychopathic delinquent Alex DeLarge.

A Clockwork Orange features disturbing, violent imagery to facilitate social commentary on psychiatry, youth gangs, and other topics in a futuristic dystopian society. The film features a soundtrack comprising mostly classical music selections and Moog synthesizer compositions by Wendy Carlos.

Dune is a 1984 science fiction film written and directed by David Lynch, based on the 1965 Frank Herbert novel of the same name. The film stars Kyle MacLachlan as Paul Atreides, and includes an ensemble of well-known American and European actors in supporting roles, including Sting, Jose Ferrer, Virginia Madsen, Linda Hunt, Patrick Stewart, Max von Sydow, and Jürgen Prochnow, among others. It was filmed at the Churubusco Studios in Mexico City and included a soundtrack by the band Toto. As in the novel, the central plot concerns a young man foretold in prophecy as the "Kwisatz Haderach" who will protect the titular desert planet from the malevolent House Harkonnen and save the universe from evil.

In the movie, The Happy Carrot health food store owner Miles Monroe (Woody Allen) is hospitalized in Saint Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan for an ulcer operation (having gone into the hospital for a check of a peptic ulcer), but ends up in the liquid nitrogen tanks of an immortality institution. He is revived 200 years later in the year 2173 by a subversive organization, as he is the only member of this society without a known biometric identity. The authorities question a power surge at the institute and although Monroe is arrested, he escapes and lives on the run. Monroe joins the rebels as an action commando with the idle Luna Schlosser (Diane Keaton, in a role similar to the one she played in Manhattan).

The dictatorial leader of the society has been killed by a rebel bomb, but this has not been revealed publicly. The only surviving body part is the leader's nose. It is the intent of the administration to clone the leader from this single remaining part, an endeavor known as the Aries Project). A rebel group led by the charismatic Erno Windt (John Beck) intends to disrupt this attempt by stealing and "assassinating" the nose. The unidentifiable Miles Monroe, the only man with no identity in this future age, is essential to accomplishing this task.

This early Allen movie features some memorable concepts, such as Orgasmatron booths (and the related Intoxication orbs passed around at parties), confessional robots, bioengineered hydroponic vegetables (without any other part of the plant) such as hose-fed bananas as large as a canoe, and the cloning of vital organs and entire persons. Many things thought unhealthy in Monroe's time (including deep-fried fatty foods and smoking) are known by future scientists to be extremely good for you. Sometime between Monroe's time in the late 20th century and 2173 there was nuclear warfare, caused "when a man named Albert Shanker got hold of a nuclear device", and due to which much history is obscure or lost. 2173 historians show Monroe some surviving 20th century artifacts (such as a set of novelty wind-up chattering teeth and a crumpled photograph of Joseph Stalin) and ask for explanations. The historians have developed mistaken theories about Howard Cosell and Richard Nixon, which Miles doesn't have the heart to refute. Holding a photo: "This is Bela Lugosi. He was the mayor of New York". Regarding a photo of Nixon: "I'm not sure who he is, but every time he left the White House they counted the silverware".

Jokes include: Robots programmed to behave like Jewish tailors and gay butlers; PhDs in oral sex; a McDonald's restaurant with the sign "Over 795,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Served" (a total of fifty-one 0's, or 795 sexdecillion - see photo); and an abandoned 200-year old Volkswagen Beetle that starts up instantly.