10 "Guilty Pleasure" Movies You Shouldn't Be Ashamed To Love

8. Big Trouble In Little China (1986)

When Steven Spielberg made Raiders of the Lost Ark, he set out to play homage to the B-grade movie serials that he grew up with as a kid: pictures built around stoic, fedora-clad heroes, convoluted plots, fantastical elements, endlessly inventive set-pieces, and insane cliffhangers. Truth is, though he undoubtably conjured up a worthwhile tribute, he transcended the material to the point where he made a truly great film that only half-resembled the "lesser" aspects that the old serials embraced to no end: simply put, Raiders is too good to be written off as mere homage.

John Carpenter set out to do exactly the same thing when he made Big Trouble in Little China, and though the final movie is perhaps not quite the technical or narrative accomplishment that Raiders is, Carpenter arguably captures the manic, freewheeling spirit of the B-movie serials to a far greater extent than Spielberg ever did. Although many are quick to brandish this movie - which stars Kurt Russell as a trucker caught in an age old battle in Chinatown - as a "so bad it's good guilty pleasure," it's important to keep in mind that that was exactly the director's intention.