This is a guide to cult films and midnight movies, which are often interchangeable terms. Cult films are usually underground or independent releases which find a devoted following after failure in the mainstream market. In the 1970's these kinds of movies were shown in theaters late at night when most movie goers had gone home or out to do other things. Midnight movie fans would gather on Friday and Saturday nights specifically to share the experience of enjoying movies that most people wouldn't understand.

Many of these movies were very weird and sometimes shocking. Examples are Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space, George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, John Waters' Pink Flamingos, David Lynch's Eraserhead, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and most notably The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which became more than a movie when fans in Greenwich Village in New York City would come to every showing at the same theater for years, dressed up in costume as characters from the movie, standing in front of the screen and mimicking the action, while the audience shouted out in unison, responding to specific prompts from the movie, bringing props to throw at the screen, such as rice for the wedding scene, toast for the scene when a glass is raised for a toast, toilet paper rolls, etc.

Some older films were also big hits with midnight movie goers because of their campiness, sometimes unintentional. Reefer Madness and Tod Browning's Freaks from the 1930's were two such rediscovered classics.

With the popularity of the VCR and the expansion of cable television in the 1980's came the end of the era of midnight movies, but the cult status of these types of films lives on, and independent film making is bigger than ever, despite or perhaps because of ever-emerging technology.