Cult Movies is a 1981 book by Danny Peary, consisting of a series of essays regarding what Peary described as the 100 most representative examples of the cult film phenomenon. This is a list of those films. Interesting that what Peary considered “cult” in 1981 are now classic films. How many have you seen?
Movies on Danny Peary's Cult Movies List| 1 | Aguirre, the Wrath of God | Werner Herzog | 1972 |
| 2 | All About Eve | Joseph L. Mankiewicz | 1950 |
| 3 | Bad | Jed Johnson | 1977 |
| 4 | Badlands | Terrence Malick | 1974 |
| 5 | Beauty and the Beast | Jean Cocteau | 1946 |
| 6 | Bedtime for Bonzo | Frederick de Cordova | 1951 |
| 7 | Behind the Green Door | Artie Mitchell, Jim Mitchell | 1972 |
| 8 | Beyond the Valley of the Dolls | Russ Meyer | 1970 |
| 9 | Billy Jack | Tom Laughlin | 1971 |
| 10 | Black Sunday | Mario Bava | 1960 |
| 11 | Brood, The | David Cronenberg | 1979 |
| 12 | Burn! | Gillo Pontecorvo | 1969 |
| 13 | Caged Heat | Jonathan Demme | 1974 |
| 14 | Casablanca | Michael Curtiz | 1943 |
| 15 | Citizen Kane | Orson Welles | 1941 |
| 16 | Witchfinder General | Michael Reeves | 1968 |
| 17 | Dance, Girl, Dance | Dorothy Arzner | 1940 |
| 18 | Deep End | Jerzy Skolimowski | 1971 |
| 19 | Detour | Edgar G. Ulmer | 1945 |
| 20 | Duck Soup | Leo McCarey | 1933 |
| 21 | El Topo | Alejandro Jodorowsky | 1970 |
| 22 | Emmanuelle | Just Jaeckin | 1974 |
| 23 | Enter the Dragon | Robert Clouse | 1973 |
| 24 | Eraserhead | David Lynch | 1977 |
| 25 | Fantasia | David Hand, James Algar, Samuel Armstrong, Ben Sharpsteen, William Roberts, Paul Satterfield, Hamilton Luske, Jim Handley, T. Hee, Wilfred Jackson, Norman Ferguson, Ford Beebe Jr. | 1940 |
| 26 | Forbidden Planet | Fred M. Wilcox | 1956 |
| 27 | Force of Evil | Abraham Polonsky | 1950 |
| 28 | 42nd Street | Lloyd Bacon | 1933 |
| 29 | Freaks | Tod Browning | 1932 |
| 30 | Girl Can't Help It, The | Frank Tashlin | 1956 |
| 31 | Greetings | Brian De Palma | 1968 |
| 32 | Gun Crazy | Joseph H. Lewis | 1950 |
| 33 | Halloween | John Carpenter | 1978 |
| 34 | Hard Day's Night, A | Richard Lester | 1964 |
| 35 | Harder They Come, The | Perry Henzell | 1972 |
| 36 | Harold and Maude | Hal Ashby | 1971 |
| 37 | Honeymoon Killers, The | Leonard Kastle | 1970 |
| 38 | House of Wax | André De Toth | 1953 |
| 39 | I Married a Monster from Outer Space | Gene Fowler Jr. | 1958 |
| 40 | I Walked with a Zombie | Jacques Tourneur | 1943 |
| 41 | Invasion of the Body Snatchers | Don Siegel | 1956 |
| 42 | It's a Gift | Norman Z. McLeod | 1934 |
| 43 | It's a Wonderful Life | Frank Capra | 1946 |
| 44 | Jason and the Argonauts | Don Chaffey | 1963 |
| 45 | Johnny Guitar | Nicholas Ray | 1954 |
| 46 | Killing, The | Stanley Kubrick | 1956 |
| 47 | King Kong | Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack | 1933 |
| 48 | King of Hearts | Philippe de Broca | 1966 |
| 49 | Kiss Me Deadly | Robert Aldrich | 1955 |
| 50 | La Cage aux Folles | Édouard Molinaro | 1978 |
| 51 | Land of the Pharaohs | Howard Hawks | 1955 |
| 52 | Laura | Otto Preminger | 1944 |
| 53 | Little Shop of Horrors, The | Roger Corman | 1960 |
| 54 | Lola Montès | Max Ophüls | 1955 |
| 55 | Long Goodbye, The | Robert Altman | 1973 |
| 56 | Mad Max | George Miller | 1979 |
| 57 | Maltese Falcon, The | John Huston | 1941 |
| 58 | Man of the West | Anthony Mann | 1958 |
| 59 | Night of the Living Dead | George A. Romero | 1968 |
| 60 | Nutty Professor, The | Jerry Lewis | 1963 |
| 61 | Once Upon a Time in the West | Sergio Leone | 1968 |
| 62 | Out of the Past | Jacques Tourneur | 1947 |
| 63 | Outrageous! | Richard Benner | 1977 |
| 64 | Pandora's Box | G.W. Pabst | 1929 |
| 65 | Peeping Tom | Michael Powell | 1960 |
| 66 | Performance | Nicolas Roeg, Donald Cammell | 1970 |
| 67 | Petulia | Richard Lester | 1968 |
| 68 | Pink Flamingos | John Waters | 1972 |
| 69 | Plan 9 from Outer Space | Edward D. Wood Jr. | 1959 |
| 70 | Pretty Poison | Noel Black | 1968 |
| 71 | Producers, The | Mel Brooks | 1968 |
| 72 | Rain People, The | Francis Ford Coppola | 1969 |
| 73 | Rebel Without a Cause | Nicholas Ray | 1955 |
| 74 | Red Shoes, The | Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell | 1948 |
| 75 | Tell Your Children | Louis J. Gasnier | 1938 |
| 76 | Rio Bravo | Howard Hawks | 1959 |
| 77 | Rock 'n' Roll High School | Allan Arkush | 1979 |
| 78 | Rocky Horror Picture Show, The | Jim Sharman | 1975 |
| 79 | Scarlet Empress, The | Josef von Sternberg | 1934 |
| 80 | Searchers, The | John Ford | 1956 |
| 81 | Shock Corridor | Samuel Fuller | 1963 |
| 82 | Shooting, The | Monte Hellman | 1966 |
| 83 | Singin' in the Rain | Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly | 1952 |
| 84 | Sunset Boulevard | Billy Wilder | 1950 |
| 85 | Sylvia Scarlett | George Cukor | 1935 |
| 86 | Tall T, The | Budd Boetticher | 1957 |
| 87 | Targets | Peter Bogdanovich | 1968 |
| 88 | Tarzan and His Mate | Cedric Gibbons, Jack Conway | 1934 |
| 89 | Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The | Tobe Hooper | 1974 |
| 90 | Top Hat | Mark Sandrich | 1935 |
| 91 | Trash | Paul Morrissey | 1970 |
| 92 | Two for the Road | Stanley Donen | 1967 |
| 93 | Two-Lane Blacktop | Monte Hellman | 1971 |
| 94 | 2001: A Space Odyssey | Stanley Kubrick | 1968 |
| 95 | Up in Smoke | Lou Adler | 1978 |
| 96 | Vertigo | Alfred Hitchcock | 1958 |
| 97 | Warriors, The | Walter Hill | 1979 |
| 98 | Where’s Poppa? | Carl Reiner | 1970 |
| 99 | Wild Bunch, The | Sam Peckinpah | 1969 |
| 100 | Wizard of Oz, The | Victor Fleming | 1939 |