In our highly dystopian present, every third movie is a superhero punch-‘em-up. But not so in 1978, when Richard Donner directed the original (more or less) and best (more or less). Christopher Reeve remains a steadfast combination of believable sincerity and dorky charm, generating real chemistry with Margot Kidder’s Lois Lane. Peter Lorre is chilling as a murderer of children in Fritz Lang’s thriller. Aside from being a masterful film in its own right, M influenced every crime drama, serial killer film, and police procedural that’s come along since. You can stream M on Max, Kanopy, and The Criterion Channel or rent it from Prime Video.
These films often have a special place in cinematic history and are loved by many for their quirky charm and memorable moments. Here’s a complete guide on how to stream cult classic films so you can enjoy them anytime. Originally founded in 2002, Shout Factory is a long-standing leader in independent film and television distribution. The streaming service is mostly free, but a paid subscription of $3.99/month unlocks even more content and removes those pesky ads. Sometimes, cult classics are not available for streaming but can be rented digitally on platforms like Google Play, Apple TV, or Vudu. Whether you’re looking for Eraserhead or Rocky Horror Picture Show, these digital rental services can help you find what you’re looking for.
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Netflix has classic movies of all genres, for every taste group and age range. In addition to older features like Rear Window (1954) and The Guns of Navarone (1961), there are also slightly more modern favorites like Heat (1995) and Ocean’s Eleven (2001). Another ’80s flick, this Sam Raimi creation launched the director’s career and has since become a cult classic.
There are elements of classic kung fu movies, Looney Tunes cartoons, a dash of buddy comedy, and even a quirky dance number. Kung Fu Hustle has something for everyone, and it presents it all with tongue completely in cheek. While we wait for news about the long-anticipated sequel, check out the first — again or for the first time.
In addition to a great movie library, the streaming service also has a library of TV shows that includes several of the best ever made. Mad Men was an awards player for almost a decade, and it’s just one of the shows on this list. An Orson Welles masterpiece that was nominated for nine Oscars, Citizen Kane has become something of a rite of passage in the world of film. In just under two hours, you’re transported to 1940s America where the death of newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane sends the publishing world in a spin. As a series of reporters scramble to write the story, one reporter is intrigued by the dying Kane’s last word — rosebud — and aims to find a new angle and uncover more about the life of one of America’s most powerful men.
But it is its almost wordless, Kubrickian ending that will stay in your brain the most – even if it is all confusing as hell. Upvote to send them to the top of the chart.Next, find out about the best horror films on Netflix. Ever get the feeling Netflix keeps recommending the same shows and movies? Every now and then it’s a good idea to part with the algorithm and dig out something a bit more unusual. Actor Charles Laughton’s sole directorial effort is movie guide a wildly impressive one, with serial-killing preacher Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) charming and then terrorizing a rural West Virginia family during the Great Depression. Audiences at the time found it impossibly weird and arty, and often weren’t thrilled with Laughton’s take on religious hypocrisy.
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The cult is led by the charismatic Lord Summerisle (played by Christopher Lee!), and Howie fears the cult may be planning on sacrificing the girl he’s searching for. It becomes a race against time as Howie tries to find her before something terrible happens… Taking place over the course of one of those dreaded dog days of summer, Do the Right Thing is a reckoning unlike anything cinema has ever seen. Spike Lee’s seminal masterpiece follows the citizens of a Brooklyn neighborhood that’s rife with gradually escalating tension between the Black and Italian American populations. It all leads up to an explosive finale that (sadly) feels just as relevant now as it did in 1989.
Hell, a lot of them wouldn’t fly in this day and age—but if you’ve avoided the classics by assuming the worst, then you’re missing out. Ruben Fleischer’s cult action-comedy takes the late-’00s obsession with zombies and has an absolute ball with them, simultaneously sending up and paying tribute to the tropes of the horror sub-genre. It helps that Zombieland features a hugely charismatic cast of apocalypse survivors, including Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Woody Harrelson, and Abigail Breslin. It’s all achingly post-modern and self-aware, but Zombieland is so pacy and downright fun you won’t be able to roll your eyes for laughing. The first in a series of charming, and increasingly inventive comedies from the great director (and star) Jacques Tati. M. Hulot feels like a silent film character in a world of sound, and, indeed, the focus here is less on dialogue than in the inadvertent ways in which our hero brings absolute chaos wherever he goes.
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Yorgos Lanthimos is one of the most intriguing filmmakers working in Hollywood right now. While he’s now firmly A-list, thanks to The Favourite, here is in in much weirder territory, with a horror movie that will completely unsettle you. Creep is a no-budget horror movie that was made by one of the kings of mumblecore, Mark Duplass, alongside director Patrick Brice. Duplass is a mysterious client who asks a documentary filmmaker (played by Brice) to film videos of him for his unborn son Buddy.
While spying on the inhabitants of other apartment buildings from his window, he witnesses a man exhibiting dubious behavior, leading Jeff to suspect him of murdering his wife. As Jeff covertly investigates, he puts himself and his model girlfriend (Grace Kelly) in increasingly dangerous situations. EW’s critic names Rear Window Hitchcock’s best film, calling it, “a perfect thriller that interrogates our obsession with observing the lives of others.” The film follows the exploits of two friends, Sing and Bone, who impersonate gang members in the hopes of joining a gang themselves and inadvertently strike up a gang war that nearly destroys the slums of the city. Of course, the real draw here is the absurdist, over-the-top comedy that takes place during some of the film’s biggest action sequences. How can a 2016 film that stars Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe be considered a cult anything?
Taika Waititi and Ewan Bremmer are excellent as loose depictions of pirates who come together and fight each other while providing plenty of laughs. Here’s to hoping the show will get picked up by another streamer or network at some point and revived. The set design and aesthetic of the series are also incredible and helped give it cult appeal. We want to focus on the shows that are a little more niche, the ones that were popular amongst pockets of the TV populace but never reached the wide audiences of the shows mentioned above. We refer to these classics as cult TV shows, and they come in many shapes and sizes. Others are dramas in obscure categories like sci-fi or LGBTQ+ historical epics.
There’s a lot going on here just under the surface, including a strong defiance of the Red Scare and its accompanying Hollywood blacklist. The all-star cast can be a little distracting, but Stanley Kramer’s courtroom drama remains powerful and depressingly relevant in its depiction of normal, everyday people driven to commit atrocities with only minimal encouragement. You can stream Judgment at Nuremberg on MGM+ and Pluto TV or rent it from Apple TV. A postwar drama made right in the thick of things, exploring the high cost of World War II on returning soldiers. Sharp, well-observed performances from veterans like Myrna Loy and and Fredric March, as well as from newcomer Harold Russell, a then-recent veteran who won one of the film’s many Oscars for his performance.