10 Most Universally Beloved ’90s Cult Classic Movies, Ranked

If something is universally beloved, does it cease to be a cult movie? It depends on how you want to define a cult film, or if you think a cult film can graduate to mainstream status. Maybe the really well-loved cult movies that built up huge fanbases are more accurately ex-cult movies, even if the fact will always remain that they took a little time to achieve full-on popularity.

So, that’s kind of what’s done below. These movies were cult classics, or still have qualities recognizable today that feel “cult,” but they’re all very famous and largely beloved. They’re not here because anyone thinks of them as underrated or obscure or niche, at least not anymore. They’re cult movies from the 1990s that made it big, in effect, and are pretty much universally beloved.

10

‘Dazed and Confused’ (1993)

Image via Gramercy Pictures

Before Before Sunrise, Richard Linklater directed Dazed and Confused, which is one of the all-time great hangout movies. It takes place over a very short period of time, and has a large cast of characters, all of them young people (some younger than others) who spend their first night of the summer break in various ways, some excited about what’s ahead and others apprehensive.

Most of Dazed and Confused is concerned with being a comedy, and so it’s fairly breezy, albeit there are some dramatic scenes, even if there’s not a lot of conflict in the traditional sense… it’s more introspective in nature, during those less outwardly funny moments. But that’s like hanging out with anyone in real life over a long enough stretch of time. You can’t party and be without worry 100% of the time, but Dazed and Confused presents a pretty good argument for why you should do those things as much as you can.

9

‘Office Space’ (1999)

Image via 20th Century Fox

There might well have been too many movies in 1999 dealing with the sort of thing Office Space did: corporate/white-collar malaise, if that’s like a sub-genre (or defined here as “dystopian office movies”). The Matrix and American Beauty did it (the former being perhaps the biggest blockbuster of 1999, and the latter being the year’s most successful film at the Academy Awards), and another movie that’ll be mentioned later (even though you’re not supposed to talk about it) also did.

Office Space is the funniest of these, for what that might be worth. It’s a movie about a guy who really hates his job, and the less effort he puts in, the more by way of success and promotions he attains. And there’s some other stuff, and a bunch of side characters, and it’s all quite lightweight and not very subtle, but it’s fun, frequently funny, and also very quotable, so it’s understandable why Office Space did eventually find a fanbase.

8

‘The Iron Giant’ (1999)

Image via Warner Bros.

Brad Bird directed plenty of genuine financial hits in the 21st century (see The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and the fourth Mission: Impossible), but The Iron Giant regrettably didn’t set the box office on fire when it was first released. It’s an excellent animated movie, just initially overlooked, soon developing a cult following and now being well-known enough that, like most of the movies here, it’s graduated to proper classic status.

It’s a sci-fi movie set in the past, focusing on a young boy who befriends a giant robot, with the whole unlikely friendship thing and pursuing government forces making it feel a good deal like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, but that’s okay. Both movies tackle the same sort of premise exceptionally well, and a good story’s a good story, even if it’s being retold.

7

‘Army of Darkness’ (1992)

Image via Universal Pictures

The trilogy of Evil Dead movies directed by Sam Raimi is a definitive piece of cult classic cinema, with all three feeling like cult movies in their own ways. All three are very different, too, with Army of Darkness being the most removed from the horror genre, as it’s mostly a slapstick comedy kind of thing that takes place during the Dark Ages, after the sudden time travel that happens right at the end of Evil Dead II.

If you’re after genuine scares, look elsewhere. If you want sheer, silly entertainment, though, Army of Darkness is wonderful and also very easy to enjoy, even if it’s technically quite offbeat and more willing to do its own weird thing than most movies out there. The sense of chaos here is infectious, and few fictional characters have dropped as many iconic one-liners within a single movie as Ash Campbell does throughout this one.

6

‘Chungking Express’ (1994)

As far as the romance genre goes, Titanic was kind of the king of it, for the 1990s, and maybe even for all time (jury’s still out on whether James Cameron really was the king of the world, though), but you’re missing out if that’s all you watch romance-wise from the decade in question. Take Chungking Express, for example, which is a very different sort of romantic film, all the while also being two movies in one, more or less.

Both halves of Chungking Express focus on different sets of characters, but they’re all kind of going through the same thing, dealing with the highs and lows – actually, mostly lows – of love and longing. It’s also funny and strangely exciting at times, alongside being romantic, and all the while, Chungking Express does this without much of a focus on narrative, or at least it’s not really structured the way most narrative films are.

5

‘Trainspotting’ (1996)

Image via PolyGram Filmed Entertainment

There’s a great sense of momentum from the very start of Trainspotting, enough so that you’d be forgiven, upon a first watch, for fearing that such a pace couldn’t be maintained for a feature-length runtime. Such fears would be gradually whittled down, scene by scene, until you suddenly realize the film’s over, but some of the more horrific imagery in here will be in your brain forever. Yay?

It’s a movie that needs to get ugly at times, though. Trainspotting is about addiction and is probably the most honest and well-balanced film on the topic, since there’s time spent on both the highs (literal and figurative) and lows, without anything feeling preachy or after-school special-esque. For what it’s worth, Trainspotting also has one of the best soundtracks of all time, and one of the greatest uses of narration in cinema history, too.

4

‘Fight Club’ (1999)

Image via 20th Century Studios

Fight Club is that previously alluded to movie that feels quite in line with Office Space and a fair few other movies released during the final year of the 1990s. It’s got a plot that’s pretty twist-heavy, to say the least, so, in the interest of not saying too much, it’s about a fairly boring guy who meets a not-so-boring guy, and together, they start a fight club which then builds in popularity and eventually spirals out of control.

What Fight Club was going for tonally felt very punk for its time, and it’s got a rebellious spirit while also being – at least partly – about rebellion. It was cinematic catnip for people who like cult classics, and so it’s far too big to be a cult film currently. But hey, what happened to Fight Club (1999) popularity-wise is a bit like what happened to the fight club in Fight Club, so that’s kind of amusing.

3

‘The Big Lebowski’ (1998)

Image via Gramercy Pictures

Just about every movie directed by the Coen Brothers feels as though it gets better with repeat viewings, and that’s especially so for The Big Lebowski. It’s the kind of comedy that clicks after a while, or maybe just on a second viewing. It’s not particularly complex or anything, so it’s not like a psychological thriller or mystery film where everything comes into focus after one viewing.

With The Big Lebowski, it’s more just that it has its own strange rhythm and style that might feel like a shock to the senses at first, and then so much funnier and more engaging later on. All that could be a factor as to why it was received in a more muted manner, broadly speaking, in 1998, and then became considered one of the best comedies ever in the years that followed.

2

‘Pulp Fiction’ (1994)

Image via Miramax Films

Like with Fight Club and The Big Lebowski, Pulp Fiction is too iconic to be considered a cult classic nowadays, but in 1994, Quentin Tarantino was still pretty new on the scene, and his whole way of approaching filmmaking felt particularly novel. Reservoir Dogs sort of gave an indication of what people could expect, but Pulp Fiction was on a whole other level, and also successful enough to elevate Tarantino beyond cult status.

It signifies how popular he got post-Pulp Fiction that when Jackie Brown came out in 1997, there was a sense of disappointment, at least for some viewers, that it was a bit mellower and didn’t scratch the same itch Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction did. Maybe that one’s underrated enough to almost feel more like a cult movie nowadays, but people have come around to it… just took longer than it might’ve with Tarantino’s first two movies.

1

‘The Shawshank Redemption’ (1994)

Image via Columbia Pictures

It feels strangest of all to call The Shawshank Redemption a cult classic, so that’s why it’s #1 here. It’s the highest-rated film on IMDb, after all, with that top 250 coming into existence 30 years ago. The Shawshank Redemption has been at #1 for at least half that time, and it’s no guarantee it’ll stay there forever, but it speaks to how crowd-pleasing and enduring the movie is that it’s topped such a list for so many years.

Is a synopsis or any kind of summary even necessary? Like, of all the movies that initially underperformed or took some time to find the audience they deserved, it’s hard to imagine any being as universally beloved as The Shawshank Redemption. You don’t have to think of it as your personal #1, by any means, but it’s at that #1 spot because of its likability, and how effortlessly moving it continues to feel.