Cult films? Which ones are cult?

[BobAlmighty]

Yeah I guess that would have to be the major difference. I mean Star Wars does have it's quirks, little techinical details that cult fans focus on, and i think the budget has got alot to do with it. I think that cult films have become that way when people look back at them, whereas Star Wars was an instant cult classic, maybe the first.

[BatSteve]

I think alot of people might argure the semantics of the first "instant classic" but I cant argue with the concept. I think in the end the difference is that while some films can become cult simply by being very very bad, the Sci-Fi and Fantasy genre tend to need something special that the masses can really sink their teeth into. I don't think that happens particularly often.

[RastaFresh]

I thing that cult movies are those that have a gret cult of fans.(period) For me, cult are most of the early Coen bros. movies . Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink, Blood Simple, The Hudsucker Proxy, (of course) The Big Lebowski, Fargo and one of my favorits O, Brother Where Art Thou... I was glad when No Country for Old Man won an Oscar, but, and don't get me wrong - it's a cool movie, it's one of their worst movies.

[Officiel]

To worship, the kind of film must be very specific (horror, sf, peplum...), and not a blockbuster.
Thus, it fascinate a passionate community of moviegoers.

[Mandarinchikk]

Cult films are the most famous ones. As for me? I think? that all Tarantino's films are cult. Best of all I like to see his fotos. To kill Bill is the cult film without comments.

[HorrorHound94]

I think it is fair to say that the majority of people just class Cult movies as films that are either Horror or bizarre/strange movies...

[Jonesy]

I think you'll find that most people are a little more discerning than that. A lot of horror films these days are made for the mass market, and in no way can be classed as cult.

[HorrorHound94]

The Horror movies that are classed as Cult are more the 70s and 80s kinda' stuff like Elm Street, Friday 13th, The Fly, Texas Chainsaw Massacre etc...

[Jonesy]

Nightmare, Friday 13th etc, are not cult films. At the time they were released they had a massive audience. They weren't cult in the 80s and they're not cult now.

[MrSilly]

The very idea of cult seems to have changed now, what with some things being marketed as cult, immediately destroying the notion of what cult means. For what it's worth, the best summation of cult I've ever heard was in Bruce Campbell's autobiography If Chins Could Kill (where else). I'm paraphrasing here:

A mainstream film is something 100,000 people have seen 10 times. A cult film is something 10 people have seen 100,000 times.