MOVIE: Cannibal Holocaust.
YEAR: 1985.
DIRECTOR: Ruggero Deodato.
PLOT: Documentarians follow a tribe of cannibals in the Amazon who eventually eat them.
CONTROVERSY: Deodato faced life in prison when rumours circulated the actors were killed during filming. He was off the hook after they all appeared alive and well on TV.


MOVIE: The Birth of a Nation.
YEAR: 1915.
DIRECTOR: D.W. Griffith.
PLOT: Follows the lives of two families during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Period.
CONTROVERSY: The film depicts the KKK as heroic, while black people are depicted as childlike, promiscuous and conniving. It was protested by the NAACP and was even used as a recruiting tool for the KKK.


MOVIE: Last House on the Left.
YEAR: 1972.
DIRECTOR: Wes Craven.
PLOT: Follows the misadventures of a gang of convicted murderers and rapists. CONTROVERSY: The graphic violence irked censors in many countries, especially in the United Kingdom. The uncut movie and subsequent uncut DVDs are still banned there to this day



MOVIE: Pink Flamingos.
YEAR: 1972.
DIRECTOR: John Waters.
PLOT: Notorious criminal Divine fights off her rivals to retain her title as the ‘Filthiest Person Alive.’
CONTROVERSY: The movie had plenty to squirm at, including an infamous scene where Divine eats dog crap. It was banned in Canada, Australia, and Norway.


MOVIE: Hei tai yang 731 (Men Behind the Sun).
YEAR: 1988.
DIRECTOR: Tun Fei Mou.
PLOT: Japanese troops use Chinese and Russian prisoners of war as guinea pigs in horrible experiments to test new biological warfare. Based on a true story. CONTROVERSY: Censored in most countries, banned in Australia. Mou received death threats after the film’s release.



MOVIE: Day of the Woman (aka: I Spit on Your Grave)
YEAR: 1978.
DIRECTOR: Meir Zarchi.
PLOT: A woman seeks revenge on the men who gang raped her.
CONTROVERSY: The movie was banned in Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Canada and the former West Germany due to the graphic violence and disturbing subject matter. Censored versions were released in the U.S.

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MOVIE: Kids.
YEAR: 1995.
DIRECTOR: Larry Clark.
PLOT: Teens run around New York City in search of drugs, alcohol, and sex.
CONTROVERSY: The promiscuous teenaged sex and near sociopathic behaviour of the characters upset critics. Miramax even had to create a new entity, Excalibur Films, in order to release it.


MOVIE: Irréversible.
YEAR: 2002.
DIRECTOR: Gasper Noe.
PLOT: The events following a brutal rape in Paris are shown in reverse chronological order.
CONTROVERSY: The rape scene is very graphic and lasts a full nine minutes. Critics cited this as an example of cheap and exploitative film making. Newsweek named it the ‘Most Walked-out of Movie of the Year.'


MOVIE: Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.
YEAR: 1986.
DIRECTOR: John McNaughton.
PLOT: Follows the life of Henry, the nomadic serial killer, and his friend/apprentice.
CONTROVERSY: The violent movie was held back three years due to rating disagreements. It was eventually released unrated, but was still blocked in the United Kingdom until 1993.



MOVIE: Lolita.
YEAR: 1962.
DIRECTOR: Adrian Lyne.
PLOT: A divorced professor marries his widowed landlady so he can seduce her 14-year-old daughter.
CONTROVERSY: The plot says it all. The movie had to be re-cut several times so the censorship boards wouldn’t interfere and damage any chances of commercial success.

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MOVIE: The Pope Must Die(t).
YEAR: 1991.
DIRECTOR: Edward Zwick.
PLOT: A less-than perfect priest is made the new pope and must maneuver his way through the mafia-controlled Vatican.
CONTROVERSY: Catholic groups weren’t too impressed with the movie’s premise, and were equally unimpressed with the title. Originally called ‘The Pope Must Die’ the ‘t’ was added to calm people down.


MOVIE: Brokeback Mountain.
YEAR: 2005.
DIRECTOR: Ang Lee.
PLOT: Two gay, mid-western cowboys must hide their forbidden love.
CONTROVERSY: Conservative pundits bashed the film for what they saw as ‘moral pollution’ and feared the movie was just another attempt to ‘mainstream homosexuality.’


MOVIE: A Clockwork Orange.
YEAR: 1971.
DIRECTOR: Stanley Kubrick.
PLOT: A teen rapist is brainwashed by a futuristic British government so that he becomes sick every time he encounters violence.
CONTROVERSY: It received an X-rating and was viewed as pornographic across the United States. In England, there were reports of copycat crimes which led Kubrick to pull the movie from distribution.


MOVIE: Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma.
YEAR: 1975.
DIRECTOR: Pier Paolo Pasolini.
PLOT: Teenagers are rounded up and physically, mentally, and sexually tortured for 120 days.
CONTROVERSY: Regarded as one of the most disturbing films ever made. It was banned in most countries on its release and was recently re-banned in Austrailia. To add even more controversy, Pasolini was murdered shortly after completing the film.


MOVIE: Natural Born Killers.
YEAR: 1994.
DIRECTOR: Oliver Stone.
PLOT: A psychopathic couple tour America, killing people along the way.
CONTROVERSY: There were at least 12 copycat killings linked to the movie, and the family of one of the victims tried to sue Stone and the studio.


MOVIE: The Last Temptation of Christ.
YEAR: 1988.
DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese.
PLOT: Jesus dreams about leading a normal life, which includes sex with Mary Magdalene.
CONTROVERSY: Christian fundamentalists typically don’t like to picture Jesus having sex, so the movie was dogged with boycotts, picketers

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MOVIE: The Passion of the Christ.
YEAR: 2004.
DIRECTOR: Mel Gibson.
PLOT: Follows the story of Jesus’ crucifixion, complete with all the gory details.
CONTROVERSY: Some critics panned the movie for its brutal violence, while others thought the film had an anti-Semitic slant.


MOVIE: United 93.
YEAR: 2006.
DIRECTOR: Paul Greengrass.
PLOT: Pieces together the final moments of passengers on one of the hijacked planes on September 11, 2001.
CONTROVERSY: Too much too soon? The movie was released only 5 years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.


MOVIE: Basic Instinct.
YEAR: 1992.
DIRECTOR: Paul Verhoeven.
PLOT: A cop falls for a woman suspected of murdering her former lover with an ice pick.
CONTROVERSY: Sharon Stone’s infamous leg-crossing scene alone prompted the NC-17 rating in the United States.


MOVIE: Fahrenheit 9/11.
YEAR: 2004.
DIRECTOR: Michael Moore.
PLOT: Chronicles the events leading up to the terrorism attacks on the United States.
CONTROVERSY: Moore was one of the first people to openly criticize Bush for his actions (and inaction) leading up to the attacks. Right-wing conservatives tried to ban it, but this only fueled more interest in the film.


MOVIE: JFK.
YEAR: 1991.
DIRCETOR: Oliver Stone.
PLOT: A New Orleans DA reopens JFK’s assassination file and unearths a deadly conspiracy theory.
CONTROVERSY: Many in the media criticized Stone's attempt to blend fact with fiction on such a sensitive subject. A Washingtonian writer even resigned after her editor refused to run her positive review on the film.

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Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma is defo the most disturbing.
Last House on the Left is just wrong... i've seen it (though its the cut version that the BBFC allowed to be released) and i just thought it was mank!

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i spit on your grave was kind of hilarious.

i need to see Salo so bad!!!

I have Salo on (copied) DVD but I've still never really been in the right mood for it....

and by the way, the 1962 version of Lolita (the far superior) was directed by Stanley Kubrick, not Adrian Lyne (who did the later version with Jeremy Irons).

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and what's the plot on Salo??


btw I prefer Lolita by Lyne.

I've only seen:
Fahrenheit 9/11
Lolita
Natural Born Killers
A Clockwork Orange

and Brokeback Mountain

I really want to see Salo, Last House on the Left and I Spit on your grave.

I thought Babydoll was originally on this list?

If this is the film I'm thinking of, it was about as offensive as Nuns On The Run.


Sorry, that's "too soon" now, is it? Bollocks.

I've seen nin of those movies.

I will never ever in my life watch Irreversible again. Talk about fucked. up.

People keep telling me to watch Irreversible because OMG it has a rape scene. I dunno, it's like, I have porn, why do I need a film with a bit of porn in it? And then I hear that the director wanted to make sure it wasn't eroticised, and I'm like, okay, seriously, why do I want to see this?


Dead Man's Shoes is better as a sort-of-shocking movie. It's a lot better than F9/11.

i've seen over half the list. i feel like there might be something wrong with that.

i enjoyed irréversible but i have no intentions of seeing it again - not because it was disturbing, but because the first thirty minutes of it or so are intentionally shot in a way that gives me a severe headache.

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There's something wrong with the list, tbh. Just a weird mix of really obviously deliberately shocking stuff and stuff that's really not in any way shocking but which for some reason morons in the media kicked up a stink over. I mean, "JFK" for fuck's sake. What, was that "too soon" too, a mere 28 years after the event?

Me too. And Life of Brian? Maybe I'm thinking of a different list.

I loved both Lolitas but the casting of Lolita (the most important role!) was pretty bad in both movies. They should re-make it starring Dakota Fanning.

ugh why is Brokeback Mountain on there

I have seen nearly all of those movies. I used to collect films that were banned in Australia because I HATE censorship.

Men Behind the Sun is quite... brutal. My boyfriend informed me last night he has I Spit On Your Grave with directors commentary so I will watch that one (again) this weekend

I haven't seen Brokeback Mountain but I want to kinda.

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Juices like wine, like the blood in the sands.