The Cult Classic, the ultimate cinematic insiders club. Very few folks in Hollywood set out to make a Cult Classic but sometimes due to poor early reviews, limited release or a studio mishaps if a movie waits patiently a devoted audience may one day be found.

There are many Cult Classics that frankly are bad films see The Room or Howard the Duck but many, if not the majority are good nay great films that just took a beat to find its footing.

Below are my 3 Cult Classics that somehow got lost but now are found!

After Hours was directed by Martin Scorcese from a script by Joseph Minion which stars Griffin Dunne, Rosanee Arquette, and Teri Garr and was released in 1985 and a rare incidence of Mr. Scorcese working from an original and not adapted screenplay.

No one, I mean no one does New York like Mr. Scorcese and this is a New York movie to the bone, and if you’ve spent any time in the Big Apple before the days of uber, cell phones, etc., this shit could have actually happened.

Griffin Dunne plays Paul Hackett, a worker bee aka drone in a midtown Manhattan office. Leading a seemingly innocuous life, he takes the offer of an attractive woman named Marcy played seductively by Roseanne Arquette to meet her in Soho. For some context the Soho in 1985 is not the Soho of today, it was a much grittier and became an early haven for artists looking for cheap digs.

What should’ve been a simple late-night meet-up (think Tinder young folks) for Paul spirals into a urban nightmare with laughs. Paul loses his money on the the cab ride downtown, discovers unsettling truths about Marcy, and finds himself repeatedly accused, chased, and misunderstood by a string of increasingly strange characters including a sculptor (Linda Fiorentino), an obsessive waitress (Teri Garr), a bartender (John Heard), and a vigilante mob guided by a Mister Softee Ice Cream Truck manned by the always magnificent Catherine O’Hara out to hunt him down.

On top of all this there’s a few scenes of Cheech & Chong who are burgling the area and ultimately deliver Paul back to mid-town in one of the great finishes in movies.

Streamed by multiple providers for less than $4, After Hours makes the perfect choice for anyone looking to laugh and be transposed to a not so long ago time, for some of us anyway.

Repo Man was a movie written and directed by Alex Cox, stars Emilio Estevez and the late great Harry Dean Stanton and was released in 1984. As of this blog post, this movie enjoys a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Emilio Estevez plays Otto Maddox and is the embodiment of lost youth set against the backdrop of a crumbling Los Angeles. And while there are elements that this movie is set in some future dystopia the story is firmly set in the mid-80’s.

After losing his McJob (any Generation X fans out there?) he gets recruited into the rough and tumble world of car repossession by veteran repo man Bud played perfectly by Mr. Stanton. As he learns the ropes, Otto discovers that a mysterious Chevy Malibu with a glowing trunk is at the center of a bizarre, government conspiracy. This had to be on Quinten Tarantino’s mind when he drafted the script for Pulp Fiction.

It is rumored that when the finished movie was submitted to the brain trust (ha ha) at Universal Studios they had no idea how to market it and in turn barely promoted it on its release. It was only through the grace of video rentals (old people please explain to young people) where it found its audience and has become by any standard a Cult Classic.

For only $4 it can be streamed on multiple platforms so save your money, pop your own popcorn and sit back and enjoy.

Do you like Bill Murray? Of course you do and for not this reason alone you should watch Where the Buffalo Roam.

Where the Buffalo Roam was directed by Art Linson from a script by John Kaye which is loosely based on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas from journalist Hunter S. Thompson and stars the aforementioned Bill Murray and Peter Boyle (Frank from Everybody Loves Raymond), it was released in 1980.

The movie weaves through a series of surreal, exaggerated vignettes — covering Thompson’s reporting on the 1972 Super Bowl and presidential campaign, and other wild escapades filled with drugs, guns, and chaos. Each segment is a blend of absurdity and countercultural satire, capturing the protagonists disdain for authority, love of excess, and commitment to truth (however twisted it might be). Murray is at the top of his game as he acts as the ring master of a three ring circus he himself created.

Rumor is when he returned to Saturday Night Live for the season he was still in character.

Unlike my two earlier choices this film has not garnered much respect from critics but if you’re looking for something really different and love Billy Murray you definitely won’t be wasting your money and an hour and thirty nine minutes. Will call this one a, “deep cut.”

Multiple streaming choices and less than $4 you really can’t go wrong.