Cult Films : What is a 'Cult Film'?

What defines it? I have a guesstimate based on I think I know one when I see one, but after watching the three part Time Warp series that includes Point Break, Napoleon Dynamite, Clerks, Valley Girl and Fast Times At Ridgemont High I'm not sure I have a clue anymore!

Even just confined to American movies I expected more like Spider Baby, Carnival Of Souls, or Night Tide… but maybe those are just obscure, low budget and genre?

Another possibility is Metropolitan or The Ballad Of Cable Hogue… somewhat overlooked but informed character films with a (to me anyway) alien place and time? But films such as those don't seem to included as 'cult', and while The Last Picture Show or To Kill A Mockingbird would also fit those criteria I can't see how they could be 'cult' as they seem so widely known and viewed. So maybe I've been confused by thinking 'cult' has to include overlooked? Maybe as foolish as thinking in terms of B&W only (which Metropolitan and Cable Hogue weren't)?

I don't believe I know anymore. I probably thought I had a better grasp of what was cult tv, but a many newer shows like past failed ones now seem to be mainstream successes. This doesn't make them any less good, but they can't really be cult if almost everyone seems to at least know of them…

I'm lost. What is and what isn't? Can something have been mainstream once but is now cult, like say appreciating Al Jolson or Rudy Vallee music today would be an extreme minority interest? Is something 'silent' with Louise Brooks or Lon Chaney Sr. cult? Are all 'silents' cult films now?

Start here:


And here:

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"The Dig"
http://cinemarchaeologist.blogspot.com/

:)

:)

I think it's mostly about the numbers

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Smile and pass it on :)

You're not lost; you've more-or-less gotten it. There are no hard rules on what defines a cult film but a good way to look at it is that they're movies that have fallen through the cracks, because they're too out-of-the-mainstream, were overlooked, are from such a different milieu that they often seem as if they're from a different planet, are considered "bad," even if, as is sometimes the case, they aren't or are so "bad," they're incredible entertaining–movies set apart from other movies–and develop a cult following of people who love and appreciate them.

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"The Dig"
http://cinemarchaeologist.blogspot.com/

I don't think there is any set criteria that makes a movie a cult film. It happens on its own. Some movies just tap into something that appeals to a certain segment of society and it becomes culturally meaningful to them.

Most or these topics are from IMDb v2 forum.

Strange because it gives me feelings of creepy fake deja vu.