20 Best Cult Movies Of The 1980s
13. Mad Max
George Miller's debut movie Mad Max is sometimes referred to as "the ultimate cult film". From a humble budget of around A$400,000 it went on to gross $100 million around the globe, attracting one of the largest cult followings of any movie and finding a spot in the Guinness Book of Records for the most profitable film ever made by ratio of budget to earning (a record currently held by Paranormal Activity).
It's easy to see why. Mad Max is a film from the school of "less is more"; a lean beast of an action film with almost no dialogue (star Mel Gibson barely says a word throughout the entire film) and an emphasis on grunting muscle cars, brutal stunts (many of them filmed on desolate roads in the Australian outback without any permits) and hyper-masculine violence.
Three sequels followed, with Miller scaling up the budget for 2015's Mad Max: Fury Road to $150 million without ever losing sight of the principles which made the earlier movies so successful: delivering visceral, real world action featuring stunt performers, with little to no CGI enhancement.