The Top 50 Cult Movies: Entertainment Weekly Magazine published their list of the Top 50 Cult Movies in their 2003 issue.
Seven of their choices below were pre-1970, and only two pre-1950.
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.
The Top 50 Cult Movies
This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
“It’s such a fine line between stupid…and clever.”
“He died in a tragic gardening accident… Authorities said… it’s best to leave it… unsolved.”
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
“Hi, my name is Brad Majors…” (Asshole!) “…this is my fiancee, Janet Weiss.” (Slut!)
Freaks (1932)
Harold and Maude (1971)
Harold: “You sure have a way with people.”
Maude: “Well, they’re my species!”
Pink Flamingos (1972)
“Filth are my politics! Filth is my life.”
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
“Hey, Grampa, we’re gonna let you have this one!”
Repo Man (1984)
“Let’s go get sushi and not pay!”
Scarface (1983)
“Shay ‘jello to my wittle vrend!”
Blade Runner
“Wake up. Time to die.”
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
“Get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’.”
Five Deadly Venoms (1978)
“Hwayiii!”
Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959)
“All you of Earth are IDIOTS!”
“Greetings, my friends. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember, my friends, future events such as these will affect you in the future.”
Brazil (1985)
“That is your receipt for your husband…and this is my receipt for your receipt.”
Eraserhead (1977)
(A pervasive hiss of unsettling white noise.)
Faster, Pussy-Cat! Kill! Kill! (1966)
“Honey, we don’t like nothing soft. Everything we touch is hard.”
The Warriors (1979)
“Warriors come out to plaaay.” or
“Can…you…dig it?”
Dazed and Confused (1993)
“That’s what I love about these high school girls, man: I get older, they stay the same age.”
Hard-Boiled (1992)
“There’s no room for failure now. The innocent must die!”
“Give a guy a gun, he thinks he’s Superman. Give him two and he thinks he’s God.”
Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn (1987)
“Groovy” or
“I’ll swallow your soul!”
“Let’s head on down into that cellar and carve ourselves a witch.”
The Mack (1973)
“We can settle this like you got some class, or we can get into some gangster s—.”
Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (1985)
“I know you are, but what am I? Infinity!”
“There’s a lot of things about me you don’t know anything about, Dottie, things you wouldn’t understand, things you couldn’t understand.”
Un Chien Andalou (1929, France)
“It’s a silent movie, but shrieks and gasps can often be heard in the audience.”
Akira (1988)
“Tetsuoooooo!”
The Toxic Avenger (1984)
“They’re going to nuke the monster!”
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971)
“What is this, Wonka, some kind of fun house?”
“Why? Having fun?”