What are the criteria for a movie or tv series to become a cult classic?
It’s usually something that hasn’t been that widely advertised on it’s original release (often due to a low budget) but becomes popular gradually via word of mouth. Cult movies often bomb at the cinema on their first release but gain their popularity on video. So I would say the first criteria is that it owes its popularity to word of mouth, rather than to conventional advertising techniques. Things with “cult” status often tend to have a slightly obsessive following: this might be like “The Rocky Horror Show” (people dress up as the characters, learn the “Audience response” lines and make the film into something of a hobby, or even a lifestyle) or “WIthnail & I” (Students getting drunk and quoting it at each other) or “Twin Peaks” (people just getting together to wonder what the hell was going on)- it usually has an activity and ideology attached to it that extends beyond the confines of the movie itself- a sort of fan culture. Cult movies/ TV shows often appeal to established subcult
