Cult Classics

Ultimately a collection of the unclassifiable, these original and ground-breaking cult classics exude pure style however obscure, offbeat or controversial.

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  • Fitzcarraldo

    One of Werner Herzog's most acclaimed and audacious films, Fitzcarraldo tells the incredible story of Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald (played by Herzog regular Klaus Kinski), an opera-loving fortune hunter who dreams of bringing opera (specifically Caruso) to a remote trading post on the heart of the Pe...

  • Aguirre, Wrath of God

    This early masterpiece from legendary German director Werner Herzog stars Klaus Kinski as a power-crazed explorer in sixteenth-century South America who leads a band of conquistadors through the Amazon in search of El Dorado.

  • The Man Who Fell to Earth

    David Bowie cemented his unearthly persona in Nicolas Roeg’s startling cult film; playing an alien stranded on Earth while on a mission to find water for his own world, he initiates a plan to amass a fortune to help save his home planet.

  • Peeping Tom

    Much criticised at the time of its release, Michael Powell’s psychological study of a shy camera technician who films for his home movies the death throes of the women he kills is now widely regarded as a dark classic. Less a straightforward serial-killer thriller than a Freudian meditation on ho...

  • Crimes of Passion

    The second Hollywood film by Britain's enfant terrible, Ken Russell, is a deliriously demented erotic thriller with Kathleeen Turner as the ballsy hooker playing dangerous games with two unstable clients. One is a guilt-tormented private detective (John Laughlin) while the other is a deeply distu...

  • A Snake of June

    Rinko (Asuka Kurosawa) and Shigehiko (Yuji Kotari) are a strange couple, whose physical mismatch (she a lithe beauty, he an overweight, balding, obsessive-compulsive neurotic) is reflected in the complete lack of intimacy between them. They connect as human beings, but they live more like friends...

  • The Wicker Man

    After receiving an anonymous tip, a policeman ( Edward Woodward ) travels to the Scottish island of Summerisle to search for a missing girl. When he arrives, the Islanders, most of whom seem to be practising pagans, claim to have never seen or heard of the young girl. The mystery leads to our pro...

  • Delicatessen

    Jeunet and Caro's endlessly inventive and wildly enjoyable post-apocalyptic black comedy, about a sinister butcher and the circus clown who becomes his nemesis.

  • Orgies of Edo

    Legendary Toei director Ishii’s politically incorrect moral lessons paint a trio of tales of tragic heroines caught up in violence, sadomasochism, incest and torture. Told in anthology style by an impassive physician (Teruo Yoshida), the first story follows Oito (Masumi Tachibana), an innocent yo...

  • Blind Beast

    Blind Beast is a grotesque portrait of the bizarre relationship between a blind sculptor and his captive muse, adapted from a short story from Japan's foremost master of the macabre, Edogawa Rampo (Horrors of Malformed Men). An artist's model, Aki (Mako Midori), is abducted by Michio (Eiji Funako...

  • A Hole In My Heart

    Close your eyes and tell me what you see.' begins the new feature from Lukas Moodysson, who opened our eyes to the disturbing face of the new Europe in Lilya 4-ever. Pushing the boundaries still further, A Hole in My Heart is transgressive, sometimes opaque and deliberately fragmented, sometimes ...

  • Toto the Hero

    Thomas is obsessed with the idea he was swapped at birth with his neighbour Alfred during a hospital fire. Believing the wealthy and privileged Alfred has lived the life he should have had Thomas is heart broken by the loss of his sister and plots his revenge, imagining himself to be the secret a...

  • Blood from the Mummy's Tomb

    When they stumble across the tomb of the evil sorceress, Queen Tera (Valerie Leon), a team of British archaeologists bring her sarcophagus back to London, in an attempt to uncover whatever secrets she holds. However, when Tera's spirit possesses the daughter of one of the archaeologists (also Val...

  • Vampyres

    Attempting to satisfy their insatiable lust for blood, two beautiful bisexual vampires roam the English countryside, luring motorists back to their stately pile, to enjoy fine wine, and engage in unspeakably bloody sex acts. Meanwhile, unwitting holidaymakers nearby twitch their caravan curtains....

  • Hoffman

    Peter Sellers gives a rare - and remarkable - dramatic performance as Benjamin Hoffman, a lonely middle-aged businessman who blackmails a beautiful young secretary (Sinead Cusack) into spending a week with him. But what begins as a seemingly sinister ordeal will slowly reveal itself to be an unco...

  • The Ballad of Narayama

    Throughout the 1980s, Shohei Imamura (The Pornographers, Profound Desires of the Gods), a leading figure of the Japanese New Wave era of the 1960s, cemented his international reputation as one of the most important directors of his generation with a series of films that all competed at Cannes to ...

  • The Nightcomers

    Set in Victorian England, The Nightcomers follows two orphans - Flora and Miles - as they are left by their tutor in a mansion, under the care of the elderly housekeeper Mrs Grose, the governess Miss Jessel, and the groundskeeper Peter Quint. When Grose attempts to have the master of the house fi...

  • Scars of Dracula

    When he is banished from the village, Paul Carson (Christopher Matthews) winds up at Castle Dracula, where unbeknownst to him, the Lord of the Undead (Christopher Lee) has been reanimated. Searching for Paul, his brother Simon (Dennis Waterman) storms Castle Dracula with his fiancée, unaware of t...

  • Salome's Last Dance

    It is 1892, and Oscar Wilde (Nickolas Grace) is enjoying the company of his lover, Bosey, and other young men in a brothel. While he does so, workers put on an elaborate production of Wilde's banned play, Salome. In the play, King Herod begs his stepdaughter to dance for him, however, her mother ...

  • The Man Who Haunted Himself

    Conservative executive Harold Pelham (a harrowing and atypical performance by Roger Moore) is involved in a car accident and declared momentarily dead. When he's eventually released from the hospital, Pelham discovers that an exact double of him has recently been seen in places that he's never be...

  • Pink String and Sealing Wax

    Two worlds collide in this melodrama set in Victorian Brighton: a repressive household, run by a tyrannical chemist, and a sleazy tavern, presided over by a passionate landlady. The chemist's son (Gordon Jackson) finds himself, understandably enough, in thrall to the landlady (Googie Withers). Hi...

  • Gothic

    Lord Byron (Gabriel Byrne) promises his guests a night of horror only a mad poet can deliver and after partaking in hallucinogens, the guests tell ghost stories while exploring the dark corridors of his home - and of their minds. If any director is suited to retelling the wild night that conjured...

  • And Soon the Darkness

    Two young English nurses, Jane (Pamela Franklin) and Cathy (Michele Dotrice) embark on a cycling holiday in the French countryside. They happen upon a mysterious man, Paul (Sandor Eles), who seems interested in them. Cathy is intrigued by the man, but suspicious Jane wants to continue on the jour...

  • Central Bazaar

    For this remarkable experimental film, the provocative avant-garde legend Stephen Dwoskin gathered together a group of strangers and filmed them as they explored their fantasies over a period of five days: a project that now sounds a little like TV's Big Brother. The ceremonial gowns and make-up ...