One of the original found footage horror films is also one of the most effective, a gruesome testament to the power of suggestion so visceral, it tricked the authorities into thinking the filmmakers had done a real murder. The setup is very The Blair Witch Project: After a crew goes missing while filming a documentary about indigenous cannibal tribes in the Amazon rainforest, the anthropologist sent to find them uncovers only their footage, which is gruesome. Some have seen it as a smart commentary on the horrors of the modern world; others think it’s mostly just gross (if effectively so).

Produced in Italy, the movie was seized in that country shortly after production; that prints were smuggled out didn’t help, the subterfuge convincing French authorities that it was all real. Director Ruggero Deodato suddenly found murder added to the obscenity charge of which he was eventually convicted. The cast showed up to prove they were alive and help clear his name, but the film was still banned in France and elsewhere for violating animal cruelty laws. The entirely real onscreen animal deaths are the primary reason it remains controversial to this day, long after concerns about the fictional violence have faded.

Banned in: At one point, Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Italy, and others (the original advertising claimed that the movie was banned in 50 countries, which is likely an exaggeration); it’s still banned in Iceland, New Zealand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Norway, and Finland.

Where to stream: Peacock, Kanopy

Another film that inspires discussions about art versus filth, this one from an acclaimed director who was murdered, violently but mysteriously, before it was released. Based on the work of the Marquis de Sade, Salò depicts its mostly anonymous teenage characters being subjected to torture and sexual violence (boy does it!) to a degree that’s earned it a reputation as one of the hardest-to-watch films in cinema history—certainly coming from a prestigious director like Pier Paolo Pasolini, who has a lot to say here about consumerism, capitalism, and totalitarianism. Just, he says it via depicting the plight of characters forced to, quite literally, eat shit. Not a bad metaphor, come to think of it.

Though never formerly banned in the United States, it became part of a small tempest in 1994 when a video store owner was arrested for renting out a copy. Numerous artists, including Martin Scorsese, came to his defense and the case was dropped.

Banned in: Australia, Finland, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Australia, the UK, Italy, Canada; still banned in Iran and Singapore.

Where to stream: Nowhere currently, but the movie is now part of the prestigious Criterion Collection, so you can be disgusted by it in high definition.

Stanley Kubrick’s controversial adaptation of Anthony Burgess only-slightly-less controversial novel follows antisocial teenager Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell), an ultra-violent criminal whose rehabilitation raises questions about authoritarianism and the extent of freedoms we should give up in the name of safety. The movie makes a point, but not without depicting quite a great deal of stylish violence, including a rape scene that’s all the harder to watch precisely because it plays as a bit goofy—as if its all the big joke Alex and his fellow droogs think it is.

The sexual violence (and related nudity) has been the biggest source of controversy, along with some questionable copycat crimes in its native U.K. In the United States, the film was edited on release to receive an R rating, and still condemned by the then-powerful National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures, who forbade Catholics from seeing the film.

Banned in: Canada, the U.K. (where it was pulled from release at the request of Kubrick, whose family was receiving death threats, a “ban” that lasted for nearly three decades), Ireland, Brazil, South Africa, Malaysia, Singapore, Malta, and South Korea.

Where to stream: Max

Bernardo Bertolucci’s erotic drama finds middle-aged widower Marlon Brando involved in a highly sus relationship with a young Parisian woman played by Maria Schneider. The movie’s most memorable scene, involving forced sex and a stick of butter, was immediately the source of greatest controversy, and has continued to stain its reputation, as Schneider has spoken out about the abusive treatment she experienced from Bertolucci and Brando, particularly during the filming of that scene. Even that ongoing controversy aside, the movie was rather shockingly sexually frank for its era, and it’s likely the first time that an actor of Brando’s stature had discussed the joys of a finger up the butt onscreen.

Pretty much every effort to ban the movie has been based around the idea of the film as indecent or generally obscene; the usual suspects took offense, but the National Organization for Women in the U.S. wasn’t crazy about the movie either, seeing the film’s sexuality as one-sided.

Banned in: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Italy, Portugal, Philippines, South Korea, Singapore, and Venezuela.

Where to stream: Digital rental

Blasphemy! That was the cry heard round the world when Martin Scorsese’s heartfelt religious drama dared to suggest that Jesus (Willem Dafoe) might have once briefly considered getting a girlfriend. A theater in Paris was bombed during a screening, injuring over a dozen people, and protests across the United States lead to a shadow ban on the film; while never outright barred from shown, theater owners were threatened with violence, which made some reluctant to screen it.

Banned in: Greece, South Africa, Turkey, Mexico, Israel, Chile, Argentina. Still banned in Philippines and Singapore.

Where to stream: Peacock

A spin on The Last House on the Left that ditches whatever social commentary that highly controversial Wes Craven film offered in favor of wallowing in rape sequences and amping up the subsequent revenge violence, I Spit on Your Grave has become a cult favorite precisely because it’s so shockingly tasteless. The violence has long been a flashpoint, mostly the rather extreme sexual torture (American censors were willing to give the film an R rating if scenes suggesting anal rape were excised). This one was followed by an unauthorized sequel and a remake that itself spawned four sequels. None of them made a penny, but there seems to be enough of a brand here that exploitative filmmakers keep hoping next time will be different.

Banned in: Ireland, Norway, Iceland, West Germany, Canada, and the UK; only a censored version was initially available the U.S. and Australia.

Where to stream: Tubi, The Roku Channel, Redbox, Pluto

Though not met with quite the same level of outrage as Last Temptation of Christ, Ron Howard’s adaptation of the hugely popular novel The Da Vinci Code was deemed blasphemous for its suggestion that Jesus and Mary Magdalene got married and had children and begat a still-living descendent (or something...it’s all rather convoluted). It’s all very clearly fictional, and pretty silly at that, yet there were protests throughout the U.S. and the movie was outright banned in a bunch of countries and regions. It’s probably the most boring banned movie ever made.

Banned in: Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Syria, Belarus, Pakistan, Vatican City, and China.

Where to stream: TNT, TBS, Tru TV

“So funny, it was banned in Norway!” read the ad copy on posters for Life of Brian, the story of a man born next door to, and on the same day as, Jesus, and who finds himself mistaken for the Messiah. Though the Monty Python-produced comedy was a box office success, it was either banned or X-rated in several dozen British localities, even after it underwent a round of cuts, and British television refused to air the movie for years for its allegedly blasphemous content. In the United States, likewise, several towns and smaller cities refused to allow the film to be screened, and even in New York, screenings were met with picket signs.

Banned in: the U.K. and U.S. (if only in specific locations, not nationwide), Ireland, South Africa, and Norway.

Where to stream: Netflix

Very occasionally, a queer-themed movie breaks through at the box office to the point that everyone gets upset. Such was the case with Brokeback Mountain, which promised a new era of queer movies that never really materialized, but that had a significant cultural moment and also inspired a generation’s laziest gay jokes. The movie was quickly banned in parts of Asia and, in particular, the middle east for its depiction of homosexuality, and because a flashpoint in the culture wars in the US, where a handful of theaters (in Salt Lake City, for example) refused outright to show the movie. It was also, apparently, banned in the homes of many older Academy Award voters, who somehow decided that Crash was a better movie when they were both nominated for Best Picture. Italian state television, in 2008, aired a version with all of the gay stuff cut out...which, unsurprisingly, left audiences with pretty much no idea what was going on.

Banned in: China, the UAE, Malaysia, the Bahamas, heavily censored in Lebanon

Where to stream: Peacock

The aforementioned Cannibal Holocaust kicked off a mercifully brief wave of cannibal-themes exploitation pics, of which writer/director Umberto Lenzi’s is the most notorious. Unlike Holocaust—which, it’s been argued (though not always convincingly), offers at least a shred of cinematic value and social commentary—there’s not much to Ferox other than shock value. The quality of the gore effects is mixed (except for a...memorable scene involving a woman hanging by her breasts), and the movie definitely leans into quantity over quality on that score. And like Holocaust, it also includes scenes of real animal mutilations, particularly involving turtles.

The movie was banned in the U.K. as one of the infamous “video nasties” of the 1980s, and ad copy claimed that it had been banned in 31 countries. Guinness even gives it a most-banned page on that basis. I’m not convinced, as it only seems to have generated controversy in the U.K. (though it wasn’t released particularly broadly, and likely would have been banned in the same countries that banned Holocaust). In deference to the movie’s reputation, I’ll give it a spot here, while recognizing that, by the time it came out, people were probably over being freaked out by cannibal movies.

 Banned in: The U.K.

Where to stream: Tubi, Kanopy, Fandor

Despite being directed by Andrzej Żuławski, a celebrated Polish auteur, and winning Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival, Possession was reviled upon release—declared a “video nasty” and removed from circulation in the U.K., and edited into incoherent oblivion (and assured box office failure) in the U.S. Never mind that it’s a brilliant use of horror as metaphor: Żuławski produced the film while in the midst of a traumatic divorce, and it lends a literally monstrous edge to the story of the dissolving marriage between an international espionage agent (?) played by Sam Neill and his frustrated housewife, played by a truly fearless Isabelle Adjani. (Frankly, the most shocking thing about the movie in 2023 is how unbelievably hot they both are.)

Come for the slimy creature effects, stay for the truly unsettling, single shot sequence of Adjani absolutely losing her shit in a subway tunnel. Luckily, streaming service Shudder has recently rescued the original cut from cinematic obscurity.

Banned in: the U.K.; more than 40 minutes were cut for the original U.S. release.

Where to stream: Shudder

Lightyear is a characteristically charming, poignant Pixar film with a strong science fiction hook. It was also a pretty big box-office bomb, in part because its deeply confusing premise was tough to market (it’s presented as the movie about Buzz Lightyear (Chris Evans) that inspired the toy from the Toy Story series—or something). It also came courted controversy among the social media usual suspects: Buzz’s commanding officer and best friend Alisha (Uzo Aduba) marries Kiko during the course of the movie, the two women ultimately becoming the grandparents of Izzy (Keke Palmer), who teams up with Buzz many decades later (lots of time dilation stuff going on, ya see). A very chaste kiss between much older Alisha and Kiko was first cut, then reinstated by Disney (the kind of wobbling guaranteed to piss off pretty much everybody), and the movie was banned in a number of countries while being censored in others. 

Banned in: United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Jordan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian territories, Syria, and Iraq

Where to stream: Disney+

Though arguably one of the more subdued slasher films of its time, at least in terms of explicit content, Tobe Hooper’s movie nonetheless has a well-earned reputation as a harrowing and generally gnarly thrill ride that leaves viewers imaging that they’ve seen more than they actually have (this is far less true of later sequels). According to the British Board of Film Classification, this was a strike against the film when it came to getting a UK release: the board found the movie unsuitable on a first pass and, as so much of the film’s gore is implied, there was really nothing to cut out to secure a classification. With no broad national release possible, local councils made decisions about allowing screenings—London, for example, gave it a pass with an X rating. It wasn’t until 1999 that the movie got the nationwide go-ahead for theaters and home video.

Banned in: Parts of the UK, with additional bans in Germany, Norway, the Republic of Ireland, Singapore, Sweden, and Iceland

Where to stream: Shudder, Peacock, Tubi, Freevee

This isn’t a case of broad international censorship, but a very specific regional one. The first feature-length South Park adventure includes a subplot involving Saddam Hussein, then a recurring character on the TV show, and Satan—together involved in a tempestuous, highly sexual gay romance. One wonders if Hussein actually saw any of the movie before it was forbidden in Iraq.

Banned in: Iraq

Where to stream: Paramount+

Nagisa Ōshima’s gorgeous, sensuous, sexually explicit masterpiece deals frankly with sexual freedom and obsession in a time of rising imperialism for Japan. Set in 1936, it’s based on the real-life Sada Abe (here played by Eiko Matsuda), a geisha and sex worker who murdered her lover in a story that became a national sensation; Abe came to represent either a figure of terror, a sexual adventurer, or an avenging angel of wronged women—and probably some combination of the three. Details, such as the fact that Abe carried her lover’s penis and testicles in her kimono following the murder, helped to keep the story alive. The un-simulated sex and *gasp* male frontal nudity didn’t just get the movie banned in Japan—it couldn’t even be made there. The filmmakers said they were making a French movie, and smuggled the film to France for editing. A version with the sexual content obscured premiered in Tokyo, but the government nonetheless brought obscenity charges—Ōshima was found not guilty, and his testimony included the useful wisdom that: "Nothing that is expressed is obscene. What is obscene is what is hidden.” 

Banned in: Japan, United States, West Germany, Belgium

Where to stream: The Criterion Channel

As is so often the case with controversial films, particularly ones that involve sex and/or violence, some of the debate revolves around questions of whether frank depictions are essential tools of storytelling, or just gratutitous (Salò, similarly, comes up in this kind of debate). A Serbian Film quickly earned a reputation as a stomach-churningly violent, extremely nasty movie with a narrative following a man forced to commit increasingly deranged and sadistic acts against strangers and family members. The movie may or may not be an allegorical depiction of the suffering of the Serbian people under a corrupt government. I’ve never been able to get through it, so I’ll leave the final judgment up to those with stronger stomachs and/or a better understanding of Serbian cultural context. 

Serbia itself didn’t have much of a problem with the movie, but the Westminster City Council in London refused to allow the film to be screened at a horror festival without extensive cuts, at which point the filmmakers backed out. A later London film festival got around the prohibition by billing the screening as a private event.

Banned in: The UK (but mostly London), Australia, Brazil

Where to stream: Vudu, Arrow Video

What’s wrong with a little necrophilia between lovers? West German director Jörg Buttgereit’s film isn't one of those that lays claim to to any higher moral or political purpose: it's almost pure shock value, involving endlessly gross (though inventive) scenes of splatter—and sex with corpses (if that's a spoiler, you skipped the title entirely). As with any overtly shocking piece of art, there's certainly a case to be made that its very existence is political, and the fact that it's been banned in various countries at various points makes its own sort of case.

Banned in: Iceland, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, Finland, and the provinces of Nova Scotia and Ontario in Canada

Where to stream: Shudder

Modern revisionists would have you believe that Disney's Song of the South was entirely free of contention on its release; quite the contrary. The film, which literally and thematically sees free Black people during Reconstruction pining for the good ol’ days of slavery against a backdrop of the Uncle Remus stories about cute animated animals (“written” by a white man who collected and re-wrote African American folklore without bothering to credit anyone but himself). Despite Disney’s defense of the film (primarily centered on the notion that the characters weren’t still slaves, so their nostalgia for the antebellum era was fine), it was controversial during production, was met by national protests led by the NAACP, and was described by Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. as an "insult to American minorities [and] everything that America as a whole stands for." Its star, James Baskett, couldn’t even attend the segregated Atlanta premiere. Naturally, a movie that more or less flopped in 1946 did very well when re-released in the Reagan '80s, from whence much of the nostalgia surrounding it derides.

Banned in: Not technically banned, but buried so deep in the Disney vault that poor Uncle Remus'll probably never find his way out.

Where to stream: Good luck.

John Alan Schwartz and co., the filmmakers behind Faces of Death, wore its controversial nature as a badge of honor, promising a movie "banned in 46 countries!" —which...maybe? It became a hot topic in the U.K. during the 1980s, with watchdog group "The National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association" classifying it as one of the “video nasties," movies freely available on VHS that had been more thoroughly regulated in theaters. A blend of archival death footage and new scenes made to look real, this “death-umentary” became a rite of passage for teenagers at sleepovers (I balked at such an invitation myself, and I’m not really sad about it), and just generally made for an effective poster child for the censorship crusade.

Banned in: 46 countries, apparently? Certainly it was either outright banned or heavily edited in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Germany.

Where to stream: The Roku Channel

This middling James Franco/Seth Rogan comedy involves a couple of journalists set to interview North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (Randall Park), who are recruited by the CIA to assassinate him. In advance of its release, the North Korean government got wind of the movie and threatened nebulous action against the United States should the film be released. Sony edited the film, but North Korea nonetheless followed through when linked cybercrime group the "Guardians of Peace" hacked Sony before threatening terror attacks. After a Los Angeles premiere, other screenings were canceled and a wide release was scrapped—in large part because theater chains were reluctant to show it. The film was eventually released digitally, a relatively early example of a "theatrical" film getting that type of release.

Banned in: Well...not technically banned, but denied a wide release in the United States

Where to stream: Netflix

New Queer Cinema pioneer Gregg Araki's self-described "Heterosexual Movie" (only kinda true) was still loaded with sex and violence, and very much a love it/hate it situation with critics upon its initial film festival run. Variety loved it, Roger Ebert hated it—and nobody else really got to see it. After picking up some buzz on that festival circuit, Samuel Goldwyn Films swiped up the rights—and then founder Samuel Goldwyn Jr. watched it, and was so offended that he refused to distribute it. Then teeny distributor Trimark Pictures picked up the movie for a very brief theatrical run, before which it made edits for content. The Blockbuster-based home video market demanded even further cuts to the film, with the result being that only a highly truncated version was seen, if at all, between then and 2023, when it was restored. The modern United States (well, most of them) doesn't ban movies, which is good! We do, however, let rich people with often deeply questionable taste decide what we're going to get to see.

Banned in: Nowhere, strictly speaking, but only a highly truncated version was available between 1995 and 2023

Where to stream: The Criterion Channel