'Repo Man,' Alex Cox’s Reagan-era punk pastiche, turns 40

Punk values crashed into weird sci-fi in Cox’s 1984 cult hit

Image: Universal Pictures

A lot of 1980s films are described, erroneously, as cult movies when they were actually popular all along. But that title undoubtedly applies to Repo Man, the 163rd-highest-grossing film of 1984, which remains one of the most beloved films of that year. 

Director Alex Cox’s Repo Man is part of a subgenre of films from the 1980s that took satirical looks at the urban decay of that era, along with RoboCop, Blow Out, and To Live and Die in L.A. 

That said, Repo Man contains some truly one-of-a-kind elements, whether it’s building its plot around the titular nontraditional profession or its sprinkling in of space aliens and other supernatural elements.