John Waters’ five favourite movies
Truly the king of camp, John Waters is an icon of maximalist cult films that centre on the strange and the silly. Shooting to fame in the 1970s when his movies Multiple Maniacs and Pink Flamingos became huge underground sensations, the Baltimore-born writer and director quickly got the Hollywood call.
Going on to write and direct Hairspray in 1988, the movie started out as a sharp-witted comedy before turning it into the 2007 blockbuster movie musical. Other hits include the ’90s hit Cry-Baby, starring a young Johnny Depp in the dark-comedy musical. Best known for his work with Divine, John Waters’ muse and collaborator, the duo built a whole cinematic world around the drag persona that was bright, colourful and downright weird.
Dedicating his career to shocking viewers, John Waters is a master at subversive flicks that merge the grotesque and the glamorous. Recently receiving his own star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame, his art has provided limitless inspiration for a whole generation of maximalist movies, tracing his influence into recent works like Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood.
But which films inspired the man himself? In conversation with the Academy, John Waters revealed his five favourite films and they’re surprisingly tame for the Prince of Puke.
His first pick is The Wizard Of Oz. You can see the impact of the 1939 MGM classic across Waters’ work, with the bright technicolour and overstimulating style being a precursor to the acid-wash world of Divine. But maybe more so than the style, the uncanny substance of The Wizard Of Oz, from its creepy villains and even creepier behind-the-scenes stories, is a natural fit for the Waters’ interest in the uncomfortable. His own reason for loving the film? He simply “thought the witch should have won”.
Moving to more innocent choices, Disney’s original 1950s cartoon of Cinderella is high on his list as Waters continues his campaign for villain justice. Backing the bad guy once again, he said: “I love the stepmother, and I always wanted her to win. I was rooting for the villain.”
For Waters’ final three choices, arthouse reigns supreme as he shares some more left-field options. The most obvious one, with its claws so evident in his own work, comes from Andy Warhol. Warhol’s 1967 The Chelsea Girls is a strange and uncomfortable watch, eavesdropping conversations and zooming in on perversity. For Waters, it opened up a whole new world of cult films as the first time he “saw a real underground movie in this new Bohemia, that had gay people, straight people, Black people, drugs, and where everything mixed together!”
Similarly, the 1966 Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! features the same mix of glamour and grit. Russ Meyer’s cult classic sees some sadistic go-go dancers head off on a murderous rampage, featuring sharp one-liners and a total disregard for gender roles. John Waters describes the flick as a “crazy exploitation movie”, exactly the kind he loves.
The only horror movie Waters picks out is the camp cult classic The Tingler. Like a film equivalent to the Goosebumps books, the movie is about a parasite that feeds on fear. Released in 1959, the high-glamour of the decade is an obvious inspiration for Waters, but it was the original viewing experience that keeps him coming back to this one: “Buzzers went off under your seat, and I remember the kids going crazy in the movie theater”.
John Waters’ favourite movies:
- The Wizard Of Oz (Victor Flemming, 1939)
- Cinderella (Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, Clyde Geronimi,1950)
- The Tingler (William Castle, 1959)
- The Chelsea Girls (Andy Warhol, 1967)
- Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (Russ Meyer, 1966)
