20 Best Cult Movies Of The 1980s

By the late 1990s, Japanese animation hit the mainstream in the West with the release of Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke, closely followed by Spirited Away, and making Miyazaki a household name. Over a decade before and Katsuhiro Otomo was making waves of his own with the release of Akira, a film which brought anime to Western fans of obscure and cult cinema.

Akira is an epic movie. Taking in wayward biker gangs, political skullduggery and secretive military experiments, it's one of the most ambitious animated films of all time. Set beneath the sprawling neon-lit skyscrapers of neo-Tokyo, it's also one of the best looking - at the time of its release it set the bar for adult-themed anime and few films released since have come close to matching its awe-inspiring scale.

Rumours of a Hollywood live action remake have been circulating for years, although given the scale of budget required to do this any kind of justice it's perhaps fortunate that the project has floundered in development hell for so long. Most recently in 2017, New Zealand director Taika Waititi was said to be in talks for the remake, but whether the project comes to fruition remains to be seen.