Film

Cry-Baby

Name: Cry-Baby
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Released: 1990
Cast: Johnny Depp, Amy Locane, Susan Tyrrell, Stephen Mailer, Iggy Pop

Comedy
Romance
Light-hearted

John Waters' exuberant 1950s pastiche about a good girl falling for a leather-jacketed bad boy, all neon lighting, camp excess, and genuine sweetness. It's absurdist, anarchic, genuinely funny, and never cynical about its characters' feelings. For anyone who loves style over substance and doesn't mind a little controlled chaos.

TMDb rating

3.3

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love deliberately lurid 1950s pastiche, with songs, sneering teen rebels and a director's gleeful disregard for good taste, and you enjoy camp played with a straight face.

Skip it if you want a tight, plot-driven romance, since the story is loose and episodic and the spoof sometimes runs out of steam between its musical numbers.

What it asks of you: A brisk eighty-five minutes of wilful silliness; it asks you to meet its heightened, cartoonish tone on its own terms and not wince at the deliberately cheap sets and broad performances.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Hairspray1988

Waters' earlier, equally joyful Baltimore fantasy about a plump teenager breaking color barriers at a 1960s dance show. Infectious ensemble energy, real heart, and the same generous spirit toward all its misfits.

But The plot is thin as a mission statement and several numbers go on longer than they need to. Also, the synth-pop score lands differently than you'd hope.

Grease1978

The obvious ancestor: high school rebels, musical numbers, a leather-jacket romance, all glossy Technicolor nostalgia. But Grease commits harder to romance and spectacle—it's what Cry-Baby is winking at.

But Three hours long. Genuinely regressive about sex and class. The Travolta charm only carries you so far if you're not already bought in.

Heathers1989

Dark teen comedy with serious style, a great misfit love story, and the same energy of watching normal social rules detonate. Sharp writing and real stakes underneath the surface-level chaos.

But Significantly meaner. It's about the attractive people being monsters, not about finding beauty in weirdness. The tone is colder.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Cry-Baby

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Streets of Fire1984

Both pit an aestheticized good-versus-bad in a world where the visuals matter more than narrative logic, and both are utterly confident in that choice.

A rock-and-roll fantasy about rescuing a singer from a leather-clad villain, shot in a heightened, comic-book style that prizes mood and design over realism. Same electric artificiality, same belief in style as substance, same weird earnestness.

But Almost indecipherably plotted. The tone ping-pongs between camp and sincerity without warning. Most people find it pretentious and frustrating.

Beetlejuice1988

Completely unhinged production design, a flirtation between the innocent and the dangerous, and Tim Burton's gift for making grotesque things genuinely charming and funny at once.

But Burton's style suffocates the story—it's more fun to look at than to follow. The plot collapses in the second half.

Pee-wee's Big Adventure1985

Another Tim Burton comedy where deadpan weirdness and genuine feeling coexist. Innocent protagonist, surreal world-building, an earnest desire to rescue what matters. It's exactly the same emotional shape, different body.

But Pee-wee is an acquired taste and his voice gets wearing. Structurally it's a series of sketches pretending to be a plot.

Phantom of the Paradise1974

Brian De Palma's rock-opera horror-comedy: camp, violent, operatic, funny, in love with its villain-hero and the theatrical madness he inhabits. Pure style deployed in service of genuine emotion.

But Deeply weird in ways that don't cohere. The tonal whiplash is intentional but exhausting. You have to surrender to it or it doesn't work.

Romy and Michele's High School Reunion1997

Two outsiders inventing a better truth about themselves to win back their cruel classmates. It's lighter and sweeter than Cry-Baby but operates on the same principle: weirdness as power.

But Aggressively 1990s in all the ways that date poorly. The plot is exactly as slight as it sounds. Unashamed feel-good fluff.

Romy and Michele's High School Reunion poster

Prayer of the Rollerboys1991

Dystopian skating gang nonsense with genuine worldbuilding underneath the camp. Bad boy protagonist, elaborate subculture, visuals that pop, and the same 'wrong side of the tracks' romance.

But Genuinely not very good. The seams show everywhere. Budget constraints torpedo some of the bigger ideas. Worth one evening, not rewatchable.

A Clockwork Orange1971

Both use a transgressive protagonist to question what we find attractive or sympathetic, and both are wildly stylized in register—camp in Cry-Baby, dystopian-chic in Clockwork, but both asking 'what if we made badness look good?'

Kubrick's infamous, formally audacious provocation about a violent rebel romanticized despite himself, shot through a nightmare-logic lens of high-fashion brutality. Disturbing, beautiful, formally radical, genuinely funny.

But Deeply violent, graphic, and nihilistic. Some viewers find it repugnant and misogynist. It's a three-hour endurance test that judges nothing it shows.

Phantom Lady1944

Both films use visual style and camp energy to make morally complicated people sympathetic; both believe in the seduction of the wrong choice and make that seduction the point, not the warning.

A 1940s noir where a woman frames a guilty man to save an innocent one: stylish, perverse, erotic, formally inventive. Robert Siodmak's dream-logic direction and the film's tonal mixture of cynicism and genuine passion feel utterly modern.

But Plot twists strain credibility. Pacing is glacial by modern standards. The eroticism is implied, not explicit, so if you want surface heat you'll be disappointed.