Will someone please not think of the children?!
Banning movies is nothing new: if you can release something, you can ban something. We're in a current slump in movie releases, not because they're all dirty porn movies, but because Covid has put us on lockdown. We're banned from going out, so if you can spot it, why don't we list some banned movies for you to look up? Fight the force from the comfort of your couch.
The Clockwork Orange
Stanley Kubrick, 1971
Excluded from: 1973 - 1999
This is a bit more complicated than a simple ban. It wasn't so much banned as pulled from the UK two years after its original release at the request of director Stanley Kubrick. Although initially thought to be due to copycat violence, it was actually due to death threats received by Kubrick's family.
After that, at his insistence, the film was not shown in the UK until his death in 1999 after the release of Eyes Wide Shut. But that's okay, A Clockwork Orange is widely regarded as a masterpiece, beloved by Kubrick fans and detractors alike, made Malcolm McDowell's career, and brought renewed interest in Anthony Burgess's book.
Django
Sergio Corbucci, 1966
Banned from: 1969 - 1993
The film that launched Franco Nero's career and a blatant cash grab of the Spaghetti Western craze after Leone's genius. This loose take on Akira KurosawaJojimbobanned due to excessive violence and moral tone. Because the distributor refused to make the cuts requested by the BBFC, the film remained unreleased until 1993, when it was released on VHS as 18 and on DVD in 2004 as 15. The film itself is quite good. run of the mill shoot 'em up western with a cool main character and clearly impressedQuentin Tarantino, but it is no more than a curiosity.
straw dogs
Sam Peckinpah, 1971
Banned from: 1971 – 2002
Famous for Dustin Hoffman's scruffy poster nerd with his broken glasses, this rape-revenge thriller from the novelThe Siege of Trencher's Farmby Gordon M. Williams, Peckinpah co-wrote the film that became notorious as one of his most violent and nihilistic films. Although originally released with an X after some cuts, the Video Recordings Act made it impossible to release due to the rape scenes being depicted "positively".
The film was not widely released for many years. After budget cuts and renewed efforts to appease the Board of Film Classification, the film was finally released uncut in 2002, but remains controversial due to the brutal violence, the implication that the villagers wanted to be wanted, and the suggestive rape. However, it proved to be influential enough to be mentioned on several occasionsThe hills have eyesInFrom the Simpsons. A remake was made in early 2010 after negative reviews.
Panic in Needle Park
Jerry Schatzberg 1971
Banned from: 1971 – 1974
The first starring role forAl Pacinoit was only in his second film that it was controversial. It was banned in the UK for three years until it was finally slapped with an X rating. The film had to be cut several times due to its frank depiction of drug abuse, including mushrooms,hempand the injection of illegal substances, which are not allowed if they have a positive message or are educational. Given its true nature, this is why the film was banned and subsequently cut. The film now remains an underrated Pacino project that many have held the torch for, but it's also now uncut.
Salo, or the 120 days of Sodom
Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1975
Banned from: 1975 - 2000
Inspired by the Marquis de Sade's book, this is certainly a controversial film. It is referred to as onehorrorart film, this World War II film was Pasolini's last outing before his assassination and is notorious for its intense depictions of violence, sadism, sexual deviance and murder.
Excessive nudity and violence along with scathing remarks on the political and socio-historical also made it difficult to categorize. It's no longer banned and available on DVD or Blu Ray and is considered a masterpiece, but for the most part it's just an outrageous and boring movie.
Possess
Andrzej Zulawski, 1981
Banned from: 1981 – 1991
Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani star in this film that follows a spy and his wife who begin to behave in distribution after filing for divorce. The film's violence was banned for ten years, the film's subject matter proved elusive to many people, and some note that a scene where Adjani laughs and falls against a subway wall has proved too much for many people, but it has found cult success after being supported by many people, including Mark Kermode.
The evil death
Sam Raimi, 1983
Excluded from: 1983 - 1990
Banned thanks to the likes of Mary Whitehouse and awarded the first "Video Nasty," Raimi's horror debut remained banned for years, thanks in large part to its graphic violence, intense horror, and the famous sequence of a woman being attacked next to on a tree. Finally, when people calmed down and stopped believing that movies would own us, the movie came out and people loved it, and not a single tree attacked anyone.
I spat on your grave
Meir Zarchi, 1978
Banned from: 1984 - 1991
Perhaps best known now for its poster image of a woman showing her buttocks from behind - Demi Moore according to her memoir - the rape revenge thriller was banned due to its violence, gruesome depictions of a woman being gang-raped and how it looks like perverted fun . A cut version was released in 2001 where it could be shown in cinemas. The movie started when Roger Ebert famously called it "a dirty bag of garbage", a remake came out in 2010 and was just as awful.
Cannibal holocaust
Ruggero Deodato, 1980
Excluded from: 1984 - 2001
Director Ruggero Deodato on the set of Cannibal Holocaust.
You know a little bit in thereKong: Skull Islandwhere is the spider monster on that guy, and his bamboo leg goes right through his mouth and lifts him up? this is oneCannibal holocaustreport. The original film found was thought to be snuff film. Director Deodato was arrested for obscenity and had to prove that it was a film and no one had died during production.
The film was released in cuts of 5 minutes and 44 seconds. Much of it came from real-life reports of animal abuse, which the BBFC strongly opposes. But the film has remained an inspiration for found footage and cannibal films, and is a favorite of Eli Roth who referenced it in his The Green Inferno, so make of that information what you will.
A cat on the brain
Lucio Fulci, 1990
Banned from: 1999 - 2003
Fulci makes gritty films anyway, but in this metafilm he plays himself as a tormented filmmaker who loses control of the world and violence ensues. The film was banned due to unacceptable levels of violence, and even watching it for twenty minutes proves them right. Fulci isn't exactly a mainstream director anyway, so it doesn't really matter, but if you like cheesy movies, this might be a must-see.
Nondescript
Koji Shiraishi 2009
Banned from: 2009 - present
Thanks to depictions of sexual torture that the censors don't like, this Japanese horror film remains banned and likely will be for some time to come. Censors found that unlike others of the same genre, such asinnofSawthe film did not have enough contextual reasoning for its sadistic imagery. Since this is basically the entire movie, we may never see it.
The human centipede 2
Tom Zess, 2011
Banned since: 2011
A gross sequel to a gross film and the middle part of a gross trilogy, it was banned due to sexual violence, scenes of forced defecation and a scene where someone masturbates with a piece of sandpaper. The movie is quote unquote meta in that anyone who watches the original movie gets obsessed and wants to make their own movie.
After some back-and-forth, the film was released with 32 parts in two minutes and thirty-seven seconds, and of course with an 18 age rating. It received terrible reviews because, like the other two films in the series, it is sexist, crude, full of bad acting and poorly written.
FAQs
Why was Evil Dead banned in UK? ›
The "video nasties" furore
Though clearly made with its tongue firmly in its cheek, The Evil Dead arguably became the most famous "video nasty", and its status as a possibly obscene film led to various bans, attempted prosecutions and all manner of controversy, not just in the UK but around the globe.
The Walt Disney documentary was banned in New York on August 10, 1954 due to a clip where it demonstrated a buffalo giving birth. The ban was lifted after a complaint by the American Civil Liberties Union. The Korean War film was banned in Memphis due to its "inimical" content.
Why was Evil Dead banned? ›The film has since been re-rated NC-17 for “substantial graphic horror violence and gore”, though many recent home media releases have been released without a rating. The film was and is still banned either theatrically or on video in some countries.
What is the banned British horror movie? ›The film first released in the UK in 1982, where it was titled Death Trap, Eaten Alive. However, it caused quite a stir, and it wasn't long before it was pulled from shelves under the Obscene Publications Act 1959.
Are any films still banned in the UK? ›There's a whole film subgenre called Nazisploitation which focuses on Nazi sex crimes. Another film from this grim genre which is also still banned in the UK is American B movie Love Camp 7. Japanese exploitation horror film Grotesque was banned on its release over its depictions of sexual torture.
Why was a clockwork orange banned in UK? ›The film was met with polarised reviews from critics and was controversial due to its depictions of graphic violence. After it was cited as having inspired copycat acts of violence, the film was withdrawn from British cinemas at Kubrick's behest, and it was also banned in several other countries.
What is the longest U.S. movie ever? ›1. Gods and Generals (2003) – 4hours, 40 minutes. Serving as a prequel to Gettysburg, Gods and Generals reunites Maxwell with most of the original's cast. The film focuses primarily on Stonewall Jackson, chronicling his life from the early days of the Civil War to his death.
What movie has no laws? ›“Greetings” (1968) was the first R-rated U.S. film. “Red Dawn” (1984) was the first PG-13 movie.
Why was The Exorcist banned? ›The film had already courted controversy in the US where it had supposedly provoked fainting, vomiting and heart attacks in cinemas.
Is The Human Centipede Real? ›
As the film germinated in Six's mind, he took inspiration from real life and abhorrent episodes in recent history. Six's chief historical inspiration was the Nazi experiments conducted on Concentration Camp prisoners in World War Two, including the diabolical experiments of Dr. Josef Mengele.
Why is the human centipede banned? ›"The Human Centipede," "Hostel," "A Clockwork Orange" and more have been banned in several countries for depicting frightening scenes of violence, sex or blasphemy.
What is that one cursed horror movie? ›Perhaps the most famous “cursed” movie of all time, the original 1982 Poltergeist, about a suburban family terrorized by a supernatural presence, climaxed with a scene in which the mom (JoBeth Williams) is dragged into a partially dug-out pool and is surrounded by skeletons – the reveal being that the housing ...
What horror movie has no words? ›A Quiet Place is a 2018 American post-apocalyptic science fiction horror film directed by John Krasinski and written by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods and Krasinski, from a story conceived by Woods and Beck.
What is the scary movie where everything is legal? ›A wealthy family is held hostage for harboring the target of a murderous syndicate during the Purge, a 12-hour period in which any and all crime is legal.
What films are broken britain? ›They include Kidulthood and its sequels, Adulthood and Brotherhood, Ill Manors, Harry Brown, F (film), Eden Lake, Cherry Tree Lane, The Disappeared, Summer Scars, Outlaw, Attack the Block, The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael and Heartless.
What is R rated movie in UK? ›Restricted: R - Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian. Contains some adult material. Parents are urged to learn more about the film before taking their young children with them.
Was The Exorcist banned in the UK? ›Even as it gained fans around the world, home sales of the film remained illegal in the U.K. until 1999. Sometimes called the scariest movie of all time, The Exorcist provoked controversy from its 1973 release.
What does milk symbolize in A Clockwork Orange? ›Milk. As a substance that primarily nourishes young animals, milk symbolizes the immaturity and passivity of the people who habitually drink it at the Korova Milkbar. Their drinking of milk suggests the infantilization and subsequent helplessness of the State's citizens.
How disturbing is A Clockwork Orange? ›Parents need to know that this is an extremely violent film. Within the first 13 minutes there is a violent beating of a homeless man, an attempted rape, a gang fight, another beating, and a rape. Sex and violence are paired. Hope for a "cure" for violence is scuttled.
What does the title A Clockwork Orange mean? ›
In a prefatory note to A Clockwork Orange: A Play with Music, he wrote that the title was a metaphor for "an organic entity, full of juice and sweetness and agreeable odour, being turned into a mechanism".
What movie was #1 the longest? ›| Rank | Film | Weekends at number one |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial | 16 |
| 2 | Titanic | 15 |
| 3 | Beverly Hills Cop | 14 |
| 4 | Tootsie |
| Fresh Guacamole | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | PES |
| Written by | PES |
| Produced by | PES |
| Distributed by | Showtime ShortsHD |
Cleopatra remains the longest Hollywood movie ever made, with a runtime of four hours and eight minutes (248 minutes). This is closely followed by Gone with the Wind, which comes in just 10 minutes behind.
What movie is crime legal for one day? ›Plot. In 2014, a political party called the "New Founding Fathers of America" are voted into office following an economic collapse and pass a law sanctioning the "Purge," an annual event wherein all crime is legal, and emergency services are temporarily suspended for 12 hours.
What movies have no words? ›- 10 Eraserhead.
- 9 All is Lost.
- 8 Drive.
- 7 Fantasia.
- 6 Hush.
- 5 The Artist.
- 4 Cast Away.
- 3 The Revenant.
The final count of 1,759 sins makes The Godfather the most decorated film in CinemaSins' history, narrowly beating out the previous record shared by Citizen Kane and Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.
What is the highest R-rated movie of all time? ›| Rank | Film | Worldwide gross |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train | $506,523,013 |
| 2 | Sausage Party | $140,705,322 |
| 3 | Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time | $93,763,012 |
| 4 | Fritz the Cat | $90,000,000 |
9. Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986) Down and Out in Beverly Hills made history as Disney's first R-rated film! Of course this was produced under the Touchstone umbrella (to this day Disney has not released an R-rated movie from its own Studio).
What is Disney's first rated R movie? ›One of the earliest films from this outfit was a historical movie for Disney, it's very first R-rated release: Down and Out in Beverly Hills.
What is the only horror film to win an Oscar? ›
The Silence of the Lambs was nominated at the 1991 Academy Awards for Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Adapted Screenplay, Film Editing, and Sound, winning all but the last two, meaning it's also the first horror movie to win the Oscar for Best Picture.
What happened to the girl that did The Exorcist? ›Though she continued to act in a number of smaller films and television shows, she eventually shifted her focus to animal rights activism and founded the Linda Blair WorldHeart Foundation to further the cause.
Why is The Exorcist 1973 so scary? ›The director's use of realism, underpinned by the premise that what happens to the 12-year-old Regan could happen to anyone, is what makes the movie truly unsettling. For example, the question about whether the Ouija board Regan uses was the cause of her possession is never answered.
Did anyone survive the first human centipede? ›Lindsay is the only major character who appears in First Sequence that is still alive by its immediate end.
What did the Japanese guy say in Human Centipede? ›Kitamura BITES A CHUNK out of Dr Laser's foot. KITAMURA [to his fellow 'pedes, in Japanese]: Come on, let's run for it! The HUMAN CENTIPEDE rises and makes for the exit as fast as it can. However, their fast is everyone else's EXCRUCIATINGLY SLOW.
Is human centipede banned in the US? ›The Human Centipede (2009)
This movie was banned outright in the UK and Australia, whereas the American censor board refused to give it any ratings.
It was released on video in the early 1980s as The Thorn. It was written, directed and produced by Peter Alexander. Its release was legally challenged on grounds that its title and advertising deceptively exploited the fame of its co-star, Bette Midler.
Is there a movie worse than the human centipede? ›Now though, horror fans are raving about a film that's reportedly worse than Human Centipede, Tusk.
Why is Cannibal Ferox banned? ›The film has the requisite eating of entrails, beheadings, castrations, and a particularly grimy bit with some giant hooks which led to the film's advertisers calling it the most violent film ever made and that it was banned in approximately 31 countries.
What's the cursed movie on Netflix? ›A truth-chasing journalist goes up against the demonic CEO of an IT conglomerate with the help of a teenager with the ability to cast deadly curses.
What is the name of the cursed movie? ›
The Cursed is a 2021 gothic horror film written, directed and co-produced by Sean Ellis. The film stars Boyd Holbrook, Kelly Reilly, Alistair Petrie, and Roxane Duran. Its plot follows a 19th-century village in rural France that is menaced by a werewolf.
What movies have curses? ›- 7 The Conqueror.
- 6 Twilight Zone: The Movie.
- 5 Atuk.
- 4 The Crow.
- 3 The Misfits.
- 2 Poltergeist.
- 1 The Omen.
It seems that Netflix has a horror hit on its hands that is apparently scaring viewers so much, some can't even finish it. The movie in question is the religiously themed and very befittingly named Eerie.
What horror movie has no music? ›1 The Birds (1963)
His 1963 horror film The Birds was no exception, opting not to include a musical score which was a standard practice for filmmaking at the time. In California, The Birds follows Melanie Daniels as she befriends a man named Mitch Brenner and eventually follows him back to his hometown.
I give you – Alone In The Desert, the shortest horror movie in the world.
What movie kicked off the horror genre? ›The Golden Age of Horror
Caligari (1920) and Nosferatu (1922), the first movies to really make an attempt to unsettle their audience.
Gaining entry to the movie theater without paying and lying to the ticket-taker means that you are in effect stealing the theater's services, which is technically larceny. Larceny generally refers to the stealing of property.
What is the movie where superpowers are illegal? ›In Code 8, people with superpowers aren't uncommon. In fact, 4% of the world is born with them. But those superpowers are outlawed, and the people who have them face discrimination and live on the outskirts of society.
How long was Evil Dead banned in the UK? ›| Date banned | Title |
|---|---|
| 1983–1990 | The Evil Dead |
| 1983–1992 | Shogun Assassin |
| 1984–2003 | Faces of Death |
| 1984–2002 | Zombie Creeping Flesh |
In fact, the movie's gory sequences proved to be so horrific that Evil Dead (2013) was eventually banned in 3 nations — and that would be Finland, Ukraine, and Singapore.
Why was the human centipede banned in the UK? ›
It follows a deranged Englishman who makes a centipede out of 12 living humans. The movie was initially banned due to highly explicit sexual violence, as well as an abundance of potential obscenity - forcing directors to make 32 cuts before it was released with an age certificate of 18.
What movie was banned in the UK for 10 years? ›Eaten Alive: Horror film banned from the UK for a decade is now streaming on Amazon Prime. Yes, it's called Eaten Alive and it is – as the name suggests – a pretty gruesome film.
Is The Human Centipede 3 banned in the UK? ›The follow-up is deemed too "sexually violent and potentially obscene" by the British Board of Film Classification.
Which horror movie is banned in the world? ›The Exorcist – 1973
Though many of us would have known or watched this movie, it is worthy to be on the banned Horror movies list. That said, the movie is still banned, and an HD version of it isn't be easily found online either.
The inspiration for the film's plot came from a joke that writer/director Tom Six once made to his friends about punishing a child molester they saw on TV by stitching his mouth to the anus of an overweight truck driver. Six saw this as the concept for a great horror film, and he began to develop the idea.
Is it illegal to watch the Human Centipede in the UK? ›This low budget film saw a sex worker accept a ride from a truck driver, who tortured and killed her. The BBFC banned it because it glamourised violence. If you thought the first Human Centipede was bad, you should see the sequel. It was so graphic and so disturbing that the BBFC banned it from being released.
What is the oldest movie still available? ›Roundhay Garden Scene is a short silent motion picture filmed by French inventor Louis Le Prince at Oakwood Grange in Roundhay, Leeds, in northern England on 14 October 1888. It is believed to be the oldest surviving film. The camera used was patented in the United Kingdom on 16 November 1888.
What is the longest old movie? ›Guinness World Records says the longest film ever made is "The Cure for Insomnia" released in 1987. The 85-hour experimental film was directed by John Henry Timmis IV.
What movie is time travel illegal? ›Looper (2012)
Set in 2044 and 2074 America, the film shows that time travel is illegal and only those willing to pay on the black market can avail it. Men are sent into the past to be shot by a hitman named Looper the moment they arrive. Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is one such hitman and is known to be good at his job.