The Most Controversial Films of All Time: Films always have the ability to anger us, divide us, shock us, disgust us, and more. Usually, films that inspire controversy, outright boycotting, picketing, banning, censorship, or protest have graphic sex, violence, homosexuality, religious, political or race-related themes and content. They usually push the envelope regarding what can be filmed and displayed on the screen, and are considered taboo, "immoral" or "obscene" due to language, drug use, violence and sensuality/nudity or other incendiary elements. Inevitably, controversy helps to publicize these films and fuel the box-office receipts.

Controversy-invoking films may be from almost any genre - documentaries, westerns, erotic-thrillers, dramas, horror, comedy, or animated, and more. Standards for what may be considered shocking, offensive or controversial have changed drastically over many decades.The voluntary ratings system of the Motion Picture Association of America can influence a film's public showing in a theatre -- an NC-17 rating or an unrated film may often close down a film's screening and lead to commercial failure.

The following illustrated list in the next few web pages, in unranked alphabetical order, presents a solid collection of the most controversial films in cinematic history. Entertainment Weekly's June 16, 2006 issue contained a listing of their top 25 "Most Controversial Movies of All-Time" - included here and indicated with the # numbers after the film title, in this more comprehensive list.

Note: The films that are marked with a yellow star are the films that "The Greatest Films" site has selected as the "100 Greatest Films". For the many other milestone films with sexual scenes that were especially notorious, infamous, controversial, or scandalous, see this site's special writeups on Sex in Cinema and the genre of Sexual/Erotic Films.

The Most Controversial Films of All-Time
(alphabetically by film title) - Part 10
Intro | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10

Titicut Follies (1967)
D. Fredrick Wiseman

First-time filmmaker Frederick Wiseman's despairing cinema-verite (observational or objective) masterpiece, one of the greatest documentaries of all time, was about the horrid and abusive conditions ("painful aspects of mental disease") at the state-run Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Bridgewater, a prison-hospital asylum for seriously ill, heavily-tranquilized men (defined by authorities as "criminally insane" or "sexually dangerous"). The film's title referred to a mock-softshoe song/dance routine ("Strike Up the Band"), performed and acted out at the beginning and end of the film by the inmates and prison officers during an annual vaudeville/variety show (the 'Titicut Follies') performance at the institution.

The silent and passive camera witnessed the stripping, dehumanizing and humiliation of mental patients (who were treated like wild animals) by bullying guards, wardens and psychiatrists. One inmate, who was starving himself to death as protest, was force-fed through a rubber tube roughly inserted into his nostril - followed shortly by the image of his face as he laid in a coffin while being prepared for his funeral.

This highly controversial film (filmed in 1966 on black and white 16 mm. film over a period of 29 days) was barred from distribution and withdrawn from circulation from 1967-1992, by legal action launched by state authorities, because it was considered a violation of the rights of privacy of the prison inmates it filmed, and because it was considered obscene (the film showed male frontal nudity). It was only shown at the New York Film Festival in 1967, and had two limited runs in New York -- aside from a few screenings before film societies. [Note: Director Samuel Fuller's Shock Corridor (1963) similarly exposed the conditions in US mental hospitals.]

Triumph Of The Will (1935, Ger.) # 15
D. Leni Riefenstahl

Nazi Fuhrer leader Adolf Hitler commissioned dancer/actress-turned filmmaker Leni Rienfenstahl to make this notorious documentary to record and celebrate the sixth Nazi Reich Party Congress held in September 1934 in Nuremberg. This spectacular propagandistic film glorified and praised the might of the unjust and evil Nazi regime and state with masterful images, rapid cuts, a Wagnerian score, and ingenious camera angles and compositions.

This infamous, extravagant two-hour film is still considered the most powerful propaganda film ever made, with grandiose opening shots of Messianic Hitler's arrival by plane, his heroic entrance and adulation by saluting ("Sieg Heil") multitudes and uniformed party members and soldiers (and Hitler Youth), and his charismatic exalted character during rousing speeches. Director Riefenstahl was imprisoned by the Allies for four years after the war, although she continued to protest by insisting that her work was purely historical and an example of cinema verite, rather than the repellent work which it was criticized and accused of being.

Protests greeted Riefenstahl at a 1974 Telluride Film Festival tribute, and the Anti-Defamation League decried a 1975 screening in Atlanta as ''morally insensitive.'' Riefenstahl herself never shook her Nazi-tainted past, and repeatedly claimed the film was more imagery than ideological.

United 93 (2006) # 16
D. Paul Greengrass

This R-rated chillingly-realistic, unflinching, emotionally-moving ultra-verite docu-drama by British writer/director Paul Greengrass told the courageous and tragic story of heroic crew members and passengers on United's Flight 93 (flying from Newark NJ to San Francisco), the fourth hijacked plane on September 11, 2001, who were able to thwart the terrorists and prevent the plane from reaching its intended target - but instead crashing into a field in western Pennsylvania. The film was made all the more real by including some of the actual FAA ground crew and military officers involved in the actual event as cast members, and by retelling the tale in real-time.

Necessarily containing intense and frightening sequences of terror and violence, the film (although precisely told and respectfully treating its subject matter without editorializing, theories, stereotypical human interest stories or personal dramas, or flag-waving politics) was criticized for its trailer, that made the film appear different than it actually was -- as a conventional thriller. Others wondered whether it was "too soon" after the event (on the 5th year anniversary) for US audiences to view - and varying opinions contributed to the emotional debate. Universal also received criticism that it was exploiting a national tragedy, although others felt it was important to help remember and be inspired by the shattering event.

Viridiana (1961, Sp./Mex.)
D. Luis Bunuel

Bunuel's film has been generally considered a masterpiece and it won the Palme d'Or at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival in the year of its release. The film was originally banned in the director's home country and condemned by the Catholic church for its perceived indictment of Catholic self-righteousness, blasphemy, and obscenity. It was also controversial for its scenes hinting at incest, rape and necrophilia.

In the plot, devout Spanish convent novice Viridiana (Silvia Pinal) visited her widower uncle Don Jaime's (Fernando Rey) who was still mourning the death of his wife due to a heart attack on their wedding night - without consummation. To reluctantly satisfy his obsession with her similar looks, Virdiana was clothed in his wife's wedding gown -- and drugged. He then carried her into the bedroom, loosened her dress, fondled her and was tempted to rape her. The next day, he falsely confessed to her that he had taken her virginity to keep her from returning to the convent for her final vows -- but the ultimate result was his own guilty self-humiliation and a suicidal hanging.

Another of the film's most controversial scenes was a drunken parody and re-enactment of Da Vinci's 'The Last Supper' by a group of beggars, to the sounds of the "Hallelujah Chorus" in Handel's Messiah - one of the celebrants even raped the virtuous and idealistic Viridiana.

The Warriors (1979) # 14
D. Walter Hill

This urban fantasy cult movie (a modern retelling inspired by the Greek tale Anabasis by Xenophon) was director/writer Walter Hill's third feature film. It was a surprise hit although it had a large cast of unknown actors from the New York theater area, and it presented a cartoonish-like display of violence (without blood) and an unrealistic view of NY street gangs (with their flamboyant costumes and face paint).

However, the film's original poster, which stated the film's tagline: "These are the armies of the night" and this additional phrase: "They are 100,000 strong. They outnumber the cops five to one. They could run New York City", outraged and scared many people - and some of the film's early showings incited lethal violence (in Palm Springs and Oxnard, California) and caused gang outbreaks.

Due to these reports of criminal violence in a few locations, the film was temporarily pulled out of circulation in over half a dozen theaters by its nervous Paramount Studios despite being a box office success. One theater in Washington hired full time security until the end of the film's run. Paramount also attempted to modify the film's advertising campaign by pulling its print and TV advertising, but then was compelled to remove the film from release entirely. The film later gained a cult following when the cable TV and the VCR revolution occurred, and through midnight showings.

This controversial film told the story of The Warriors gang (from Coney Island) who attended a truce meeting of gang members in Van Cortland Park in the Bronx, where charismatic gangleader Cyrus (Roger Hill) was shot dead by anarchistic Luther (David Patrick Kelly) of the Rogues gang after a speech, with the Warriors falsely accused of the crime by the Gramercy Riffs. The Warriors gang, led by reluctant hero Swan (Michael Beck) and joined by tough-talking would-be girlfriend Mercy (Deborah Van Valkenburgh) from the Orphans, had to flee back to their home turf without weapons and with every rival gang in pursuit through the dark night of NYC. Lynne Thigpen's role was as a melodic-voiced, omniscient radio DJ who communicated God-like through coded-message broadcasts, providing a running commentary about the progress of all the rival gangs and the movements and location of the Warriors - she was represented only by her full, sensual fire-red lipsticked lips.

The gangs they encountered along each stop of their subway ride across town included the Turnball ACs (multi-racial skinheads riding in old green schoolbuses, with chains and planks of wood for weapons), the Orphans (low-class hoodlums with razor blades), the infamous Baseball Furies (represented the Furies - with baseball bats as weapons), the seductive Lizzies (a female gang representing the Sirens), the Punks (dungaree clad who fight the Warriors in the men's room of the Bowery station, in one of the film's best scenes), the Rogues (led by Luther who memorably taunted with empty clinking beer bottles: "Warriors, come out to playyy"), the (Gramercy) Riffs (the largest and most powerful gang - now vengeful and led by Masai after Cyrus' death) -- and many more -- and finally, the New York City police.

The Wild Bunch (1969)
D. Sam Peckinpah

Director/co-writer Sam Peckinpah's provocative, brilliant yet controversial breakthrough Western was shocking for its graphic and elevated portrayal of violence and savagely-explicit, orgiastic carnage, yet hailed for its truly realistic and reinterpreted vision of the dying West in the early 20th century (at a time when mass-produced murder was possible with the Gatling gun). The film opened with innocent village children intrigued by putting red fire ants and scorpions together and setting fire to the swarming pile.

The much-imitated, influential film was book-ended by two extraordinary sequences, both massacres. The gang of desperadoes were first assaulted in the film's opening ambush following a failed bank robbery in a Texas border town, and then brutally destroyed in the film's conclusion - as united comrades in a selfless, redemptive act - by a savage and vindictive Mexican warlord named Mapache (Emilio Fernandez) after a double-crossing arms deal. The two scenes included some of the bloodiest, most violent shoot-ups ever filmed. Peckinpah choreographed each of the film's two bloodbaths as a visually prolonged, beautiful ballet - a semi slow-motion, aesthetically breath-taking, non-gratuitous, lyrical, extreme celebration of bodies spurting blood and being torn apart by bullets. The slaughter of innocent bystanders (in a temperance parade), and the use of women as shields (in the all-male film) were served up as counterpoints to the media's honest display of violence during the late 60s, with the Vietnam War, assassinations, urban riots, and other events filling the airwaves.

Due to its violence, the film was originally threatened with an X-rating by the newly-created MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), but an R-rating was its final decision. A so-called 'director's cut' version of the film, threatened with an NC-17 rating when submitted to the MPAA ratings board in 1993 prior to a re-release in 1994, held up the film's re-release for many months.

Year of the Dragon (1985)
D. Michael Cimino
Oliver Stone, co-screenwriter

This much-forgotten cop-thriller gangster film was Michael Cimino's first film after the disastrous Heaven's Gate (1980). It was criticized for alleged racism toward the Chinese-American community in its story of angry Vietnam vet and Captain Stanley White (Mickey Rourke), a racist police officer who pledged to "clean up" the violence in mid-80s New York's Chinatown. With the aid of an exotic Asian-American reporter Tracy Tzu (Ariane in mostly gratuitous nude scenes), White staged a relentless, lawless anti-crime crusade against the community and its powerful Asian Mafia (Triad) leader Joey Tai (John Lone), who was responsible for the murder, corruption, extortion and drug dealing.

Based loosely on Robert Daley's novel of the same name, Chinese-Americans protested the racial stereotyping, xenophobism ("chinks" and "slant-eyed" and "yellow niggers" were terms used in the film) and sexism before the film opened. Protesters from a coalition of organizations picketed various premieres around the country. Some groups worried that moviegoers would get the notion that Chinatown was unsafe - and feared an economic downturn in the community.

Numerous objections of political uncorrectness led the studio to add the following disclaimer to the beginning of the film: "This film does not intend to demean or to ignore the many positive features of Asian Americans and specifically Chinese American communities. Any similarity between the depiction in this film and any association, organization, individual or Chinatown that exists in real life is accidental."