Movielogr

Danny Peary's Cult Movies

A list created by sensoria

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?

Copied from Sleestakk’s original list.

Movies on Danny Peary's Cult Movies List
Rank	Title	Director(s)	Year Released
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, Busby Berkeley	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	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