10 Cheesiest 80s Movies of All Time

Cult classic movies are movies that attract a devoted group of followers or obsessive fans, usually despite having failed on their initial releases. Cult classics can also refer to movies that have remained popular over a long period of time.  In many cases, cult classic movies failed to achieve mainstream success when originally released although this is definitely not always the case. While these classics may have only had a short cinema release cult movies often enjoy ongoing popularity due to a myriad of small screen releases (DVD, Blue Ray).

Sometimes these classic cult movies tend to enjoy long runs on video, thus being issued in video "runs" with more copies than other movies. The box office bomb Office Space (1999) finally redeemed itself financially when word-of-mouth made it a popular video rental. This has also happened with The Big Lebowski (1998), among others. Many cult movies were independently made and were not expected by their creators to have much mainstream success. Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Pink Flamingos (1972) have been commonly acknowledged as having become cult classic movies. Sometimes audience response to a cult classic is somewhat different from what was intended by the movies makers.

Many movies that become cult classics contain unusual elements.  The content of certain movies (such as dark subjects, alienation, transgressive content, or other controversial subject matter) can decide whether or not a movie is a "cult classic movie", regardless of the movies’ budget or studio affiliations.

Some cult classic movies earn overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics and perform well at the box office, but nevertheless are still considered 'cult classics'. One example of this is Stanley Kubrick's vision of a grim and disturbing, ultra-violent future in A Clockwork Orange (1971), which won several major movie awards and was nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Picture. Another example maybe Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life (1943), which was popular on home video while being widely regarded as a flop upon its initial release. Sometimes cult movies can be revolutionary for their era, thus becoming far more successful later on and becoming cult classics, namely Walt Disney's Fantasia (1940).

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