Ultimate Movie Year finds the best released films from weekends past to build an all-star lineup of cinema.

"Hairspray"
Released Feb. 26, 1988
Directed by John Waters

The most joyful and exhilarating experience we have as film fans is discovering a new movie destined to be a cult classic. These aren't the movies that make hundreds of millions at the theater or generate weeks of social media posts and think pieces afterward, but the ones that aren't on anybody's radar but yours and maybe a few dozen people like yourself.

They're not meant to be loved by mass audiences, and are almost always rejected by them initially. But they're weird, or funny, or scary in a way you haven't experienced before. For some reason, you can get on the film's wavelength, causing you to love it in a way you can't explain. Maybe you find a couple more people who are fans too, and it makes it even more exhilarating because these small groups of people have discovered this golden weirdo treasure that nobody else knows about. We go to screenings to experience it as a group, and we'll make inside jokes about the movie that signifies we're all part of an exclusive club that everybody else is missing out on. It's a special feeling to love the rejected, so it goes without saying that it takes a unique filmmaker to make a cult movie specifically about celebrating the rejected. John Waters is that filmmaker, and "Hairspray" is that film.