Random Most Controversial Movie From The Year You Were Born (31 items)

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  (#22) JFK

  • Kevin Costner, Sissy Spacek, Joe Pesci, Tommy Lee Jones, Gary Oldman, Jay O. Sanders, Michael Rooker, Laurie Metcalf, Gary Grubbs, John Candy, Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Ed Asner, Donald Sutherland, Kevin Bacon, Brian Doyle-Murray, Sally Kirkland, Beata Pozniak, Vincent D'Onofrio, Tony Plana, Tomas Milian, Jim Garrison

  Oliver Stone's JFK is a remarkable film. This three-hour epic lays out the director's theory on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Based in part on the ideas of Chief of Special Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff L. Fletcher Prouty and New Orleans attorney Jim Garrison, it makes a compelling argument that the military-industrial complex was behind the slaying, with Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson even playing a role. 

  Because JFK is so detailed, it's easy to walk away from it agreeing that the theory of a "lone gunman" is nonsense, and that there had to be a second shooter on that grassy knoll in Dallas. At the end of the day, though, the movie isn't a documentary - it's a work of speculation. Speculating on something as significant as a presidential assassination didn't sit well with many of the nation's journalists. Multiple newspapers called out Stone and JFK for the film's historical inaccuracies. They feared audiences would see the film and get incorrect information from it. Some of these criticisms arrived before the movie was even released, but they went into overdrive afterward. The film even inspired an act of Congress to expedite the release of sealed documents regarding the assassination.
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  (#28) Lolita

  • Jeremy Irons, Melanie Griffith, Frank Langella, Dominique Swain, Ronald Pickup, Ed Grady, Keith Reddin, Suzanne Shepherd, Angela Paton, Emma Griffiths Malin, Ben Silverstone, Michael Goodwin, Erin Dean, Pat Pierre Perkins, Joan Glover

  Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita has been controversial ever since it was first published. Stanley Kubrick adapted it for the screen in 1962. Adapting it again in the '90s was a whole different ball game, though. The story is about a middle-aged man who becomes infatuated with a young teenage girl. By the time of Adrian Lyne's remake, the public took inappropriate behavior with minors more seriously than ever. Nothing about the subject seemed even remotely entertaining anymore.

  Lyne's Lolita was a movie no distributor wanted to touch with a 10-foot pole. Subsequently, it sat around for two full years, waiting for someone to give it a release. Even with name actors like Jeremy Irons, Melanie Griffith, and Frank Langella, it was too hot to touch. Perhaps hoping to juice ratings with some controversy, the Showtime cable network eventually debuted the film, which then got the most minimal of theatrical releases from Samuel Goldwyn Films.
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  (#17) Blue Velvet

  • Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, Dennis Hopper, Laura Dern, Hope Lange, Dean Stockwell, Priscilla Pointer, Frances Bay

  To call David Lynch's Blue Velvet divisive would be an understatement. The story centers on two teens (played by Kyle MacLachlan and Laura Dern) who get pulled into the criminal underworld by a nefarious figure named Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper). The adolescents quickly learn that a world of darkness exists beneath the white picket fences and perfectly manicured lawns of their small town.

  The disturbing imagery in Blue Velvet prompted some angry reactions. Booth continually inhales from a canister containing some sort of gas, and the woman he holds as his slave, Dorothy (Isabella Rossellini), is subjected to sexual humiliation. While the movie received its share of rapturous reviews, it also heard heaps of scorn from detractors. Some conservative outlets branded it "p*rnographic." There were reports of audience members getting into arguments about the film in cinema lobbies. Rossellini's agents dropped her as a client after the movie's release because they were so horrified. 

  Blue Velvet pushed the envelope to a degree that people either fell into the camp of absolutely loving it or thoroughly detesting it.
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  (#13) White Dog

  • Kristy McNichol, Burl Ives, Paul Winfield, Dick Miller, Paul Bartel, Samuel Fuller, Parley Baer, Marshall Thompson, Lynne Moody, Jameson Parker, Neyle Morrow, Tony Brubaker, Vernon Weddle, Christa Lang, Karl Lewis Miller, Karrie Emerson, Helen Siff, Glen Garner

  Any time a film tries to deal seriously with racism, there is the potential for controversy. Samuel Fuller found that out the hard way with White Dog. It's about a Black trainer (Paul Winfield) who is trying to reprogram a dog that's been specifically trained to attack people of color. He's largely successful, although the story ends with the pooch launching an unprovoked attack on a white person.

  Other movies had tackled the issues of race, but the whole approach of White Dog made Paramount Pictures nervous. The studio brought in representatives from the NAACP to give input on the film. Those reps worried the picture might actually encourage racists to train their dogs as the one on-screen had been. Consequently, the studio gave White Dog an extremely limited release, playing it for one week in five Detroit theaters. After that, it put the film on the shelf for a decade. New York City's famed arthouse cinema Film Forum finally ran the film in 1991.
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  (#23) Basic Instinct

  • Michael Douglas, Sharon Stone, George Dzundza, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Denis Arndt, Leilani Sarelle, Bruce A. Young, Chelcie Ross, Dorothy Malone, Wayne Knight, Daniel von Bargen, Stephen Tobolowsky, Benjamin Mouton, Bill Cable

  Basic Instinct is a rarity in that it created several controversies. The graphic sex and violence, which initially earned it an NC-17 rating, were too hot for some to handle. Star Sharon Stone claimed she was tricked by director Paul Verhoeven into allowing a private part of her body to be shown in the now-famous interrogation scene.

  Then there was the controversy over its subject matter. Stone's character, Catherine Trammell, is a bisexual author who may or may not be an icepick slayer. Gay rights groups felt the story's insinuation that bi and gay people are psychologically unbalanced and/or outright dangerous was offensive. They also believed Basic Instinct was inherently misogynistic. In an effort to deter the public from seeing the movie, they stood outside major city theaters on opening night with signs that read "Catherine Did It!" - essentially spoiling the ending. 

  In the end, the outrage probably helped the movie, which became a major box-office hit and turned Stone into an A-list star.
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  (#30) South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut

  • George Clooney, Minnie Driver, Isaac Hayes, Eric Idle, Matt Stone, Dave Foley, Trey Parker, Stewart Copeland, Mike Judge, Brent Spiner, Nick Rhodes, Mary Kay Bergman, Howard McGillin, Deb Adair, Jennifer Howell, Toddy Walters, Bruce Howell, Stanley G. Sawicki, Jesse Howell, Franchesca Clifford, Anthony Cross-Thomas

  South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut is a phenomenal example of meta comedy. It's an R-rated movie about children sneaking into an R-rated movie, and the whole point of the story is to examine claims that mature entertainment can have a detrimental impact on kids - the exact same charges parents made about South Park, the TV show. 

  The controversy this big-screen version of the popular animated series generated was meta, too. Parents were outraged, knowing that their kids watched South Park on the tube - with or without permission - and would now try to sneak into the R-rated film that seemingly glamorized cursing and swearing. The characters appealed to young people, they argued, and would therefore exert a negative influence. After all, it was reported that there were nearly 400 instances of profanity in the movie.

  A scene suggesting Satan and Saddam Hussein were lovers raised eyebrows, as well.

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