John Waters made me a fan on Cult Movies with his film Pink Flamingos, which is my favorite Cult Movie. Back in the days when Video players were Sony Beta players, I purchased Danny Peary's Original Cult Movie Book. I began going through the book, and renting videos of the films that sounded interesting, and that I could get a hold of. Then came his second followed by his third book, and I had those books to work my way through. People often think that cult movies are B-movie horror flix, but that is only a part of genre. There are movies from Danny's book that also appear on many top 100 movies lists.

Cult Movies were shown in small movie houses around the country in the 1970s. There were two such movie houses in Alburquerque, New México, where I live. Don Panchos, which sadly closed a couple of decades ago, and The Guild, which is carrying on the tradition in the 2000s. I've seen some great cult flix at these two theaters back in the 70s-80s. Today in the age of home theaters, Cult Movies aren't really the same as they were "back when" when groups of folks went to midnight movies, but home theater may have given a whole new life to cult classics.

I've added a "few post-1980" films because there are certain directors who have cult followings these days. I think David Lynch, Terry Gilliam, Michael Moore, the Cohen Brothers, John Sayles, Charlie Kaufman and Quentin Tarantino seem to gather a cult following, even if they have main stream hits. More recent movies that I might add to any cult movie list are Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, Kaufman's Being John Malkovich, Christopher Nolan's Memento, the Cohen Brother's The Big Lebowski & Miller's Crossing , West Anderson's Rushmore & hopefully The Royal Tenenbaums, Sid Vicious's story in Sid & Nancy, Napoleon Dynamite, Kevin Smith's Clerks & possibly Dogma, and Gilliam's Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas.

Films before the 1990s which I felt should have been included on Danny Peary's cult movie are John Sayles's Return of the Secaucus 7, Martin Scorsese's After Hours, Paul Bartel's Eating Raoul & Lust in the Dust, John Landis's Blues Brothers, John Water's Desperate Living, Polyester (I still have the scratch and sniff card) and Female Trouble, Richard Linklater's Slackers, Mel Brook's Spaceballs, the Cohen Brother's Raising Arizona, Rob Reiner's The Princess Bride, Lynch's Mulholland Drive, The Ruling Class and Gilliam's Fisher King.