20 Low-Budget Films That Became Cult Classics
Long before I dove headfirst into the world of professional writing and academia, I lived the life of a true cinephile. My early undergraduate studies revolved around film theory and history with a fair touch of low-budget indie production on the side. Eventually, I even ran the media department for a small non-profit, plying my skills professionally. My trajectory in the professional realm may have shifted somewhat since those days, but my love of films remains as bright as ever.
With plenty of time indoors during the 2020 shelter in place orders, I found myself exploring some of my favorite cult classic films and marveling at what these production teams did with budgets that — by Hollywood standards — were barely worth the shells, never mind the peanuts. I wanted to dive a little deeper into what went into creating these films and how those low budgets may have contributed to making them some of the most classic and beloved items in any cinephile's collection.
What is a cult film?
The criteria for a “cult film” are not clearly defined across all boards, but a few basic elements remain consistent. The term “cult film” became commonplace through the 1970s and referred primarily to a specific type of low-budget, art-house, or otherwise “underground” (outside the mainstream in some way). The term has become vaguer, however, and while it might still often refer to films that are somehow transgressive to the norms of the mainstream, it can also refer to films that have simply gained dedicated fan followings, or films that were suppressed or lost and have since been recovered and gained a renewed appreciation that way.
For this article, I concentrate on a mix of films. Some have a strong tie to some aspect of the term “cult film,” even though some have reached such a degree of cultural saturation that the term might feel stretched. Others in this list are closer to true art-house pieces, films which, because of content and budget, never hit it big with the larger culture, but still managed to capture the unique zeitgeist of a specific point in time.
What counts as “low-budget”?
This is a question that confuses people time and time again, largely because the language of everyday life and the language of cinema production are not always synonymous. In real-life terms, a million bucks is still a fairly sweet number for most people. For Hollywood, producing a film on a budget of a million dollars is like producing a run of Hamilton with nothing for the set but cardboard boxes and crayons.
Necessity, however, really is the mother of invention. The limitations posed by low budgets can force the production team to make smarter decisions, opting for clever choices instead of extravagant ones — and, in so doing, they often end up generating the sort of vibrant visual landscape that offers something unique to the world.
Another consideration when looking at the meaning of “low budget” is the nature of different film genres. A family comedy or a crime drama can much more easily survive on a budget of just a few million, whereas a science fiction action film (famously the most expensive genre) is going to be hard-pressed to get by on less than 15-30 million.
Therefore, the topic is scaled somewhat depending on circumstance, but all of the films here will fall beneath a 30-million dollar budget, and most will come in far below it.