The 7 Best John Waters Movies of All Time, Ranked
The Pope of Trash, the Duke of Dirt, the Archbishop of Camp, the Lord of Lowbrow – whatever you choose to refer to him as, John Waters remains a director safely defined by his irreverent taste and penchant for deliberately ridiculous cinematic ventures.
Whereas most directors aspire to elevate film to artistic new heights, Waters is more than comfortable wallowing in the culturally taboo, affording him repeated chances to pursue strange, lewd, and hilariously off-beat projects most filmmakers would never dare to approach.
Best known for making transgressive movies that defy clear-cut classifications, almost all of Waters’ movies have elicited some kind of response from audience members brave enough to sit through them. While few of his movies have been “successful” by Hollywood’s traditional standards, each of them have acquired a dedicated cult following of fans in the years since their release, allowing Waters to achieve as critical a place in independent film as David Lynch, Sam Raimi, or Roger Corman. From his earliest movies to his mainstream musical hits, here are some of John Waters’ absolute greatest films, ranked in order from worst to best.
7. Pink Flamingos (1972)
More so than even John Waters’ most extreme films, Pink Flamingos is a film that upsets expectations or conventional narrative tropes. Released with the tagline, “An exercise in poor taste,” any given moment of Pink Flamingos is capable of leaving viewers confused, revolted, and/or downright sick to their stomach. Yet it’s this perverse subject matter that makes Pink Flamingos so hypnotic to watch in the first place: for better or for worse, there’s simply no other American indie film quite like it. Like any of Waters’ movies, it may not be pretty or overly glamorous, but it succeeds as a prime example of trash cinema in its purest form.
6. Multiple Maniacs (1970)
Having gotten his start making low-budget silent shorts, Waters set out to direct his first feature-length film with 1970’s Multiple Maniacs. Tapping into the counterculture current sweeping across America at the time, Waters brilliantly satirizes the dirty underbelly of the swinging ‘70s, focusing on an assortment of seedy characters from murderers and drug dealers to thieves and circus performers. Propelled forward by Divine’s stunning lead performance, it’s a directorial debut one couldn’t forget even if you tried, lingering on in the memory like a searing burn mark that refuses to fully heal.
5. Polyester (1981)
Graduating from independent film to the studio system, Waters freely used his larger budget to create the ultimate lowbrow film with 1981’s Polyester. Released with a retro scratch-and-sniff card that incorporated actual scents from the film, Polyester also doubled down on Waters’ foremost creative interests as a director: namely, parodying the idyllic middle-class and showing the perverse secrets hidden beneath contemporary suburbia’s surface. Bold, brash, and frequently disgusting, it’s yet another fantastic entry in Waters’ increasingly influential filmography.
4. Cry-Baby (1990)
If Hairspray helped Waters climb to the top of the entertainment industry, Cry-Baby instantly shot him back down to the lower dregs of pop culture. In spite of its middling financial performance in 1990, Cry-Baby has gone on to acquire a lauded cult reputation, with many citing it as a brilliant spoof of ‘50s mass culture and kitschier Elvis musicals of the same era. Led by Johnny Depp in one of his earliest breakthrough performances, Cry-Baby serves a wondrous and imaginative musical epic as funny as it is genuinely engaging. Seeing the finished film, our only complaint is that Waters never tackled campier musicals more often.
3. Serial Mom (1994)
While it can certainly be argued that Waters’ earliest films remain his most bizarre and creative, the director never lost his love for the absurd and unconventional, as seen through the riotously funny dark comedy, Serial Mom. As with most of his films, this 1994 satire offers a biting portrayal of middle-class America, focusing extensively on Kathleen Turner’s ordinary housewife/closeted serial killer, Beverly Sutphin. With its twisted sense of humor, unsympathetic characters, and macabre story, Serial Mom might not appeal to a universal audience, but like every tried-and-true film from Waters, it does a fine job appealing to longtime fans of the director’s work, bearing plenty of stylistic similarities to Waters’ Polyester, Cry-Baby, and Female Trouble.
2. Female Trouble (1974)
When asked which of his movies featured his best work with his creative muse Divine, Waters specifically pointed to Female Trouble as his personal favorite of the duo’s many collaborations together. When evaluating the final product, it’s easy to see why. With Divine holding audiences’ attention like a hellish Madonna taking to the stage, Female Trouble’s irreverent humor and subversive subject matter leaves an immediate impression on first-time viewers. Whether you laugh, frown, or shake your head in stunned disbelief, Waters and Divine target an undeniable emotional response from most audiences, making it a classic entry in both artists’ long and varied career.
1. Hairspray (1988)
Despite his constant attempts to avoid mainstream cinema, Waters found himself thrust into the public limelight with the success of his 1988 comedy, Hairspray. As with most of Waters’ films, Hairspray offers a candid deconstruction of its historical settings, specifically focusing on a teenager’s attempts to battle racial segregation in the heart of 1960s Baltimore. Though Hairspray may not bear an overarching resemblance to his earlier work, the finished film bears the unmistakable influence of Waters’ creative direction, from its kinetic comedy and satirical subject matter to its progressive characters and tongue-in-cheek tone. Without a doubt the most approachable of Waters’ many films, it’s also the director’s most impressive achievement, earning as positive a response today as it did in the winter of ‘88.
