Some movies premiere to massive box office success, becoming global sensations or even massive franchises. Other movies, however, aren’t fully appreciated until years (sometimes decades) later. In some cases, audiences change. In others, a movie became more relevant as time went by. And in far too many cases, the film was great to begin with, but it didn’t align with what critics and the Hollywood machine wanted, forcing the movie into obscurity until it was later rediscovered in the rental and streaming markets.
Regardless of why they were initially overlooked, cult classics luckily found the audiences they deserved and were spared from dissipating into the abyss of Hollywood history. From a midnight movie mainstay about sweet Transylvanian transvestites to an all-too-real satire about white-collar drudgery, these movies started as box office flops but became beloved cult classics.
The Craft (1996)
The Craftwasn’t necessarily the biggest box office bomb ever, but its box office gross of $24.5 million is nothing compared to the other ’90s horror movies of its day. For comparison, that same yearScreamraked in over $173 million and the following yearI Know What You Did Last Summerbrought in over $125 million.
The Craftwas just a so-so hit that luckily earned more than its budget…but only by about $10 million. It wasn’t untilThe Craftbegan airing on TV and hit the rental market that the movie started gaining a following. The story, about four teenage witches in Los Angeles who become immeasurably more powerful when they combine their energy, is technically an R-rated horror film, but instead feels more likeCluelesswith witchcraft. It’s fun, it’s campy, and it’s oh-so-totally ’90s. In the years since its release, it’s gained a massive queer following, and actress Robin Tunney, who plays Sarah in the film, even says that Natalie Portman has admittedthe movie is her favorite guilty pleasure.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
WhenThe Rocky Horror Picture Showpremiered in 1975, it was an absolute failure. Critically panned and a box office bust, the movie was a disaster. Most people didn’t get it and many others found its themes of queerness, cross-dressing, and sexual promiscuity to be unholy and disgusting.
Robert Ebert’s original reviewof the film said “The Rocky Horror Picture Showwould be more fun, I suspect, if it weren’t a picture show. It belongs on a stage, with the performers and audience joining in a collective send-up.” Little did he know that’s exactly what would happen. Word of mouth spread and people (generally outcasts) came to watch the film because, for the first time in Hollywood history,theywere the ones on-screen.Rocky Horrorcelebrated the weird, the wild, the wrong, and the wondrous.
The film has become the longest-running theatrical release in history and, to date, has never ended its original run. It has continuously been played every week in some theater around the world and in many major cities it’s a monthly (or even weekly) affair. It’s since gone on to gross hundreds of millions of dollars and spawned a sequel,a TV remake, and it even got its own special episode onGlee.
Idiocracy (2006)
Mike Judge’sIdiocracywas a polarizing film. The movie was set in the future, where radicalization, nationalism, militarism, capitalism, consumerism, and commercialization have ruined society, turning the population into a blubbering race of morons.
In recent years, as more and more Americans willingly fell victim to fake news, conspiracy theories, and bigotry, the movie has become depressingly prescient and has gained tons of attention because of it. In 2021The Guardianeven said, “This disturbingly hilarious film is as horrifying as1984orBrave New World, but takes a different route – emphasizing the dangers of collective incompetence rather than oppressiveness of the state.”
Making the movie even more unintentionally meta is the fact that its poor initial box office earnings of just $495,000 is directly due to the politics of capitalism thatIdiocracymocked. 20th Century Fox, the film’s distributor, was worried the movie would offend people and upset corporate Hollywood, so it stymiedIdiocracyfrom the start, only releasing it in a few theaters. But in the rental and DVD market,the movie exploded in popularityand has become more and more relevant since its release.
Office Space (1999)
Idiocracywasn’t Mike Judge’s first foray into cult classic territory. A few years beforehand, he made the movieOffice Spaceabout an overworked and underappreciated white-collar programmer in Texas who never stands up for himself. The movie was a commercial failure, earning only $10.8 million at the box office.
But the following year it began airing regularly on Comedy Central and then caught fire in the rental market. Suddenly, every overworked employee in America could relate to the movie. Ron Livingston, the film’s star, toldVarietyin a 2019 retrospective, “People come and tell me that the movie changed their life. It’s like after seeing the movie, it gave them the confidence to get out of whatever it was they were doing that was making them miserable and move on to something else.”
The movie also created real-world changes as well. An ongoing joke in the movie was the uniform of waitress Joanna (Jennifer Aniston). She worked at a restaurant that was blatantly making fun of TGI Fridays. After the movie, Friday’s employees began hearing so many jokes about their “flair” that the company actuallychanged the dress code, removing all the pins and lapels the servers previously had to wear.
Office Spaceeven got Swingline to make ared staplerbecause, after the film, tons of people began asking the company for a red model — thanks to the character Milton, who guarded his treasured red stapler like Gollum holding onto his precious ring.
The Thing (1982)
This will come as a shock to many because 1982’sThe Thingis now considered one ofJohn Carpenter’s best moviesand one of the greatest sci-fi horror films of all time. But, it wasn’t always viewed in such a positive light. In fact, during its initial release, the movie only made $19 million at the box office. Even for 1982, that’s an incredibly unimpressive number, especially considering that Carpenter was able to rake in $47 million from his ’78 masterpiece,Halloween. Critics at the time bashed the movie, withThe New York Timescalling it “foolish, depressing, [and] overproduced.”
Luckily, in the decades since its premiere, audiences have come around and embraced the movie’s body horror and excellent ’80s-era practical effects (which actually make the movie scarier and totally gross). On top of its gory effects, the movie’s remote Antarctic location adds a sense of isolation and paranoia, making it a truly terrifying sci-fi classic. It’s an absolute must-watch for genre fans.
Grindhouse (2007)
Despite receiving mostly positive reviews upon its initial premiere,Grindhousemassively underperformed at the box office. The movie was a throwback to the days of double features and consisted of two movies – Robert Rodriguez’sPlanet Terrorand Quentin Tarantino’sDeath Proof– both broken apart by a few minutes of fake trailers for hilariously awful movies likeWerewolf Women of the S.S.andHobo with a Shotgun.
But with a total runtime of over 3 hours, the movie was way too long for audiences to watch all at once, and many were confused byGrindhouse,Planet Terror, andDeath Proof, not fully understanding if there would be one, two, or three movies and which was which. When speaking toThe Guardianback in 2007, now-disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein said, “The audience didn’t get the idea that it was two movies for the price of one. I don’t understand the math, but I do want to accommodate the audience.”
Luckily, the movies found better success in the rental market after they were sold and rented out as two separate DVDs. Plus, many of the fake trailers from the movie, likeMachete,Hobo with a Shotgun, andThanksgivingall became or will become actual movies, withMachetebecoming so successful it even earned a sequel. For a box office flop,Grindhousehas created an impressive cinematic legacy.
Sordid Lives (2000)
It’s a cult classic that’s so cult many people have probably never heard of it but it’s the ultimate#iykykmovie. Released in 2000 and based on Del Shores’ play of the same name,Sordid Livescentered on a colorful, trashy Texas family who must prepare for the funeral of their elderly matriarch who had quite a few skeletons in her closet.
The movie was an instant queer classic andstarred tons of notable gay iconslike Olivia Newton-John, Leslie Jordan, and Delta Burke, among others. In an interview withIndieWire, creator Del Shores recalled the film’s surprising success within the LGBTQ community, saying, “It played theatrically for about a year in Dallas, Fort Lauderdale, Laguna Beach, and Provincetown, and it still holds the record forthe longest running film in the history of Palm Springs – 96 weeks.”
Despite only having a box office gross of $1.1 million, the movie struck a chord in the communities where it was shown and became a hit. In 2008 the movie got its own series adaptation on Logo calledSordid Lives: The Series. Joining Jordan and Newton-John in the cast were even more gay favorites like Rue McClanahan and Caroline Rhea.
In 2017 the movie then received a sequel,A Very Sordid Weddingand even more celebrities joined the cast like Whoopi Goldberg and Alec Mapa. Despite never achieving widespread acclaim or massive box office success,Sordid Liveshas a legacy that keeps on living thanks to its devout cult following.
Donnie Darko (2001)
Earning only $7.5 million at the box office,Donnie Darkodidn’t find true success until a few years later. Audiences needed time to sit with the movie and absorb its nonsensical plot before they could properly embrace and enjoy it. It didn’t help that the movie involved a plane crash and was released just a few weeks after 9/11. In the film, Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) suddenly finds himself walking in and out of a time disturbance, ultimately learning of his upcoming death.
The movie is weird and certainly has some plot holes, but its undeniably grim and haunting premise keeps you hooked. And thanks to ongoing midnight screenings and the rental market, the movie built momentum and for a period during the mid and late 2000s, it had become a bona fide hit, even getting ranked #2 onEmpire‘s list of the Best Indie Films Ever in 2012.
Event Horizon (1997)
Event Horizon, the movie about a spaceship that accidentally jumps through a wormhole straight to Hell, has one of the most unbelievable histories ever, making it the ultimate underdog film. Upon release, the movie was despised. The film raked in a scrawny $27 million at the box office and received scathing reviews from critics likeCNN, which said, “A lot of first-class actors wasted a few months of their lives working on this, so there must have been something interesting about the original script. Too bad that part didn’t make it into the film.”
But, flash forward a decade, and the tides begin to change. After regularly airing on television and being available in the rental market,Event Horizonhad started developing a growing fanbase who loved its dark, twisted sci-fi story. It even inspired the hitvideo gameDead Space,which got remade this year. Years later, the film would inspire another video game,Destiny 2’s Season of the Haunted.
In 2017, a full 20 years after the movie’s premiere, it was even written about in the high-brow literary journalThe Paris Review. And within the last few years,Event Horizonhas been dissected, critiqued, and praised in virtually every entertainment publication imaginable, from Variety to Entertainment Weekly, Collider, Nerdist, and even atDigital Trends. Think what you want aboutEvent Horizon, but the movie has an enduring legacy and only seems to be getting even more popular with age.
Clerks (1994)
Shot in black-and-white with a budget of just $27,500,Clerksbecame a surprise hit, earning over $3.1 million at the box office despite only screening in 50 cities. The movie was sort of aSeinfeld-style “show about nothing” and followed the rambling lives of a group of people in New Jersey, all anchored by a carry-out. The movie became so successful it received two sequels,Clerks IIin 2006 andClerks IIIin 2022.
But more importantly,Clerksintroduced the world to Jay and Silent Bob. Not only has the duo starred in all threeClerksmovies, but they’re also a staple in many of Kevin Smith’s other movies, likeChasing Amy,Mallrats, andDogma. In 2001 the pair even got their own spin-off movie,Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, which itself received various sequels throughout the years, including 2019’sJay and Silent Bob Reboot. Considering the originalClerksfilm had a budget of under $28,000, it’s wildly impressive that its popularity created its own cinematic universe, dubbed the “View Askewniverse.”
