20 Best Cult Movies Of The 1980s
1. Big Trouble In Little China
John Carpenter has done more to boost the status of cult cinema than most other directors could hope for, with films like his debut Assault On Precinct 13, defining slasher pic Halloween and dystopian satire They Live regarded today as among the best cult classics of all time.
Big Trouble In Little China, his 1986 action comedy starring Kurt Russell and Kim Cattrall, stands as one of the definitive cult movies of the decade, playfully sending up the Indiana Jones-style adventure movies of the era while integrating Hong Kong movie kung fu action into a Hollywood film over a decade before The Matrix would catapult this approach into the mainstream.
And yet, Big Trouble In Little China was a huge flop at the time of its release. Studio executives didn't know what to do with Carpenter's film, missing the point that Russell's character Jack Burton was supposed to be the sidekick and considering it a hot mess, refusing to allocate a decent marketing budget to its promotion.
Today, it's one of the most loved action-comedy movies from the 1980s, a huge hit with genre geeks who dig Carpenter's many film nods (his love of Howard Hawks's screwball comedy oozes through the dialogue) and embrace it as perhaps Carpenter's greatest movie. Few movies sum up the energetic, joyful spirit of 80s cult films quite like it.