Making a list of movies that seem underrated or underappreciated is one thing; accounting for the ones that generate religious fervor is another,” Adam Nayman writes in this history of the cult movie. “Cult films come in all varieties—and sometimes with vigorous debate about their status attached—but genuine, possessive devotion is the baseline.” I suspect that any movie that has such an iconic scene would reach the status of cult classic, but the rest of the movie is just as worthy. Carpenter’s blend of post-Reagan American anticapitalist anxiety and extreme ’80s camp with a dash of WWE sensibilities—all tied together with his extremely fun direction and score—results in a truly delightful experience, made all the better by Piper’s star performance and iconic one-liners. — Bergmann 24. Bloodsport This week on The Ringer, we celebrate those movies that from humble or overlooked beginnings rose to prominence through the support of their obsessive fan bases. The movies that were too heady for mainstream audiences; the comedies that were before their time; the small indies that changed the direction of Hollywood. Welcome to Cult Movie Week.

Initially released in 1995—one week after Clueless— Kids focuses on 24 hours in the life of a group of New York teens at the height of the AIDS epidemic. Clarke hired a 19-year-old Harmony Korine to write the script—it took him three weeks, he says—and cast a group of relative unknowns to act. (Skaters Justin Pierce and Harold Hunter were the closest Kids had to stars, but the two female leads, Chloë Sevigny and Rosario Dawson, would soon break out.) Kids captures underage sex (and sexual assault), drug use, and violence with a documentary-like feel. For some critics, it was little more than filth. But for kids like me, ones who were about to come of age and were obsessed with skateboarding and rap music, it was vital. — Justin Sayles 45. La Haine The saga of the Dude (Jeff Bridges) wasn’t exactly lost on a young teenager, but repeat viewings—and The Big Lebowski demands repeat viewings—reveal a movie that’s shrewder and more endlessly quotable than its most outrageous moments. (No comment on The Jesus Rolls , its unsanctioned spinoff.) The Dude’s laziness is almost defiantly noble when held up against the malevolent industry of the tycoon who shares his legal name; the fraternal bond between he and haunted veteran Walter (John Goodman) is a scrap of decency in a chaotic world. My colleague Adam Nayman has written extensively on Lebowski’s meaning and lasting impact, yet it remains as instantly appealing as it was more than a decade ago on my parents’ couch. Even when the Coen Brothers are doing chill stoner drag, they can still make a movie that’s tight as a drum. — Alison Herman

It’s almost like someone from 2015 made a list of all the most famous comic actors and then put them in a movie that came out more than a decade earlier. From Paul Rudd to Amy Poehler to Bradley Cooper to Elizabeth Banks, David Wain’s Wet Hot American Summer is loaded. How was this not the biggest movie of 2001? Well, part of the reason why is because it struggled to find a distributor and was released in less than 30 cities. Hollywood didn’t like the talking can of peas, I guess, but sometimes Hollywood makes bad choices. That’s how a cult movie is born, though, and Wet Hot American Summer was too good to not become a word-of-mouth, discover-it-on-cable classic—and also the launchpad from which The State’s zany, highly meta comedy style crashed into the mainstream. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go fondle my sweaters. — Gruttadaro 5. Donnie Darko It took me a decade or so to appreciate Katsuhiro Otomo’s grotesque masterpiece Akira, an existential crisis masquerading as an action movie. It’s postwar Japanese history reimagined as a cyberpunk ecstasy, but it’s more thoughtful and melancholy than its more splashy and violent elements might suggest. In Neo-Tokyo, the gang leader Tetsuo and his best friend, Kaneda, stumble—or, rather, crash—into a paranormal research project undertaken by the Japan Self-Defense Forces, imbuing Tetsuo with psychokinetic powers. Tetsuo’s awakening culminates in his spectacular self-destruction, taking the city down with him. There’s so much shouting and dismemberment in Akira: “Tetsuo!” “Kaneda!” “Tetsuo!” “Kaneda!” But above all, Akira sketches a civilization caught between its previous collapse and imminent decline. — Justin Charity 42. Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas I’m going to end this blurb because the only thing in my mind right now is Brian Cox saying, “Shut up, Farva.” — Baumann 31. Brazil

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me was not met kindly upon its release, highlighted by its premiere being booed at Cannes in 1992. But while the initial consensus was disappointingly misguided, you can understand the impulse. Twin Peaks had just wrapped up its second and final season on ABC with a major cliffhanger, and David Lynch chose to follow up the series with what’s essentially a prequel of Laura Palmer’s final days. But Lynch has never been one for nostalgia, as evinced by the masterful 18-episode odyssey of Twin Peaks: The Return, and Fire Walk With Me excels on its own terms. No longer just the homecoming queen found dead and wrapped in plastic, Fire Walk With Me unsparingly lets the viewer in on Laura’s loneliness and suffering—along with the bone-deep terror of her realization that the demonic presence assaulting her is actually her father. It’s a film of overwhelming pain, sorrow, and sympathy, held together with a committed lead performance by Sheryl Lee that should’ve been showered with accolades. All told, Lynch put together a damn fine prequel that’s just as great as its predecessor. — Surrey 18. Army of Darkness A couple of years ago, I wrote about the enduring wonderfulness of “Weird” Al Yankovic’s Reagan-era media spoof—a film tuned into the same irreverent, quasi-surrealist wavelength as Airplane! and Pee-wee’s Big Adventure that played to mostly empty theaters before being reclaimed as a cult item on VHS. At home, it was possible for viewers to rewind and replay every inane, absurd joke (“What time is it?” [ Hand punches through the drywall displaying a wristwatch.] “7:30? Oh no!”) and to appreciate the level of visual and sonic detail in Yankovic’s movie and music-video parodies. As somebody who saw the video for “Beverly Hillbillies” long before catching “Money for Nothing,” there’s no question which one keeps playing on a loop in my head. — Adam Nayman Orion Pictures 34. Paid in Full Terry Gilliam’s Brazil—which does not take place in Brazil, and is instead named for the song “Aquarela do Brasil”—is like 1984 on acid. And though Orwell’s most famous work inspired the movie, the comparison doesn’t really do the dystopian comedy justice. It has some of the weirdest visuals ever seen on film. Take, for example, the scene in which Jim Broadbent’s plastic surgeon, Dr. Jaffe, promises to make Katherine Helmond’s Ida Lowry look 20 years younger. The doctor spends several minutes yanking on his patient’s face like he’s a salt water taffy pulling machine—while she’s awake and talking to him. Like a proto- High Maintenance, Smith’s debut features the drudgery of commerce and the faded tapestry of the customers who roll through. (Not all will leave the place alive, and the main character, Dante, was almost one of them: Smith’s original cut left the poor guy shot dead, a choice that only adds to the project’s lore.) And it spawned a loose but interwoven universe of characters and actors—including Smith himself as the droll dealer Silent Bob—who appeared in Smith’s subsequent films, from Mallrats to Chasing Amy to Dogma and beyond. — Baker 22. The Evil DeadMy colleague Alan Siegel wrote an excellent oral history on Donnie Darko for its 20th anniversary last week that gets into the many things that make the film great, from the music, to the acting, to Kelly’s script, to the painstaking attempts to make the time-travel stuff all work, to how it overcame its pitiful box-office showing to become a cult classic. But even without that history, Donnie Darko is a special movie for people of a certain age—the kind of film that makes you feel smarter than the adults around you, even if you still have to figure things out for yourself. — Sayles 4. This Is Spinal Tap