20 Best Cult Movies Of The 1980s

While working in collaboration with the Monty Python team, American animator and director Terry Gilliam began branching out into his own projects, working on what would he would describe as his "Trilogy of Imagination", beginning with Time Bandits and following up with Brazil and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.

While Time Bandits proved to be a huge success, the same couldn't be said for Brazil, Gilliam's dystopian vision of a middle-aged man called Sam Lowry (played by Jonathan Pryce) trapped in a bureaucratic nightmare deliberately reminiscent of George Orwell's novel 1984 (Brazil was released in 1985), infused with a glorious steampunk aesthetic. Lowry's yearns to escape this Kafkaesque totalitarian state become a reality when he meets his neighbour, who looks suspiciously like the woman he keeps encountering in his dreams.

Brazil was a huge flop when it was released in cinemas, not least on account of Gilliam's ongoing battle with the studio to ensure that the film he intended to make was the one which the public got to see. This hostile dispute and the animosity surrounding it didn't prevent the true genius of the film eventually coming to light, however: Brazil is now widely regarded as one of the best cult films ever made.