Jeff Dowd, the basis for the main character in Joel and Ethan Coen's 1998 film The Big Lebowski, bowls in the Annual Lebowski Fest in Louisville, Ky., in 2003. (Brian Bohannon/Associated Press)An annual festival based on Joel and Ethan Coen's 1998 film The Big Lebowski drew hundreds of fans to New York on the weekend.

Calling themselves "achievers" — in a nod to the film's slacker sensibility — the Lebowski Fest visitors ranged from ad executives to U.S. marines, and included a complement of students, stoners and Coen brothers fans.

Guardian film critic Ben Walters says the cult surrounding The Big Lebowski is growing.

"It's like a lot of films that become cult classics in that it did slip beneath the waves in the first release," he said in an interview Monday with CBC cultural affairs show Q.

"On the one hand, it's very funny ,which is always a useful thing in a cult movie. Also very importantly, it really does reward repeated viewing. It's one of those movies where every time you go back to it, you get something else out of it. It's got these extraordinarily quotable lines."

So quotable in fact that the first night of Lebowski Fest always features a screening, during which fans chant the memorable lines.

"But probably one of the most important things is that underneath all the swearing, and bowling and craziness, it's really a very warm and affectionate story about friendship and togetherness, and it's very heartwarming and universal," Walters said.

The appeal of the movie centres on the character of Jeff Lebowski, also called the Dude, played by Jeff Bridges.

He is mistaken for a different Lebowski by a couple of loan sharks, and when he seeks out this other Lebowski, gets caught up in a bizarre kidnapping plot.

Jeff Bridges, shown in Los Angeles in November 2007, stars as Jeff Lebowski, also called the Dude. (Kevork Djansezian/Associated Press)"The film is kind of a pastiche of a Raymond Chandler-style noir detective investigation, except rather than the suave Humphrey Bogart character, the main character is this burnt-out former '60s radical stoner, the Dude, and he loves bowling with his Vietnam veteran bowling partner, Walter," says Walters, who co-wrote a book about the film as a cult phenomenon.

Lebowski Fest, which has taken place in Chicago, San Francisco, Scotland, the U.K. and now New York, always features unlimited bowling as well as white Russians, the Dude's favourite cocktail.

Getting that Kentucky Lebowski feeling

There is an annual Lebowski Fest in Louisville, Ky., the brainchild of film fans Ben Green, Scott Shuffitt, Ben Peskoe and Will Russell.

"Louisville really is the heart of the Lebowski Fest experience … that's where it was born in 2002, so that's where you really see the most hard-core dedication to the Dude," Walters said.

The movie is set in the early 1990s, against the backdrop of the first Gulf War, with references to '60s radicalism and the Vietnam War, yet it has a kind of slacker irony, he said.

"Over the course of the decade since the movie came out, it's become more resonant … these ideas of 'this aggression will not stand' — one of the key lines from the movie — of being unimpressed with the kind of macho, blustering faking. That's something that has taken on a lot of resonance in the U.S. since 2000," he added.

Jeff Dowd, a Santa Monica-based film producer reputed to be the Coen brothers' model for the Dude, says he sees daily references to the film and its memorable lines in the media.

His own character was just a starting point for the humour in the film, which comes from the genius of the Coens themselves, he told Q.

Dowd also believes the cult following is growing.

"People see the Dude as a kind of holy fool. In the tradition of Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart, he's like the king's jester. He's not afraid to tell the truth and that's ultimately what people are taking from the film."