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

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  (#1) Performance

  • James Fox, Mick Jagger, Anita Pallenberg, Michele Breton, Ann Sidney, John Bindon, Stanley Meadows, Allan Cuthbertson

  Warner Bros. execs thought they had a hit on their hands with Performance - until they saw it, that is. The movie is about a ruthless gangster who hides from police inside the home of a former rock star and his groupie girlfriend. Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger was hired to play the rocker. This was at the peak of his band's success, so there was no reason to think the movie wouldn't be a big commercial draw.

  However, the studio executives were horrified at the first screening. Performance's mixture of graphic sex and bloody violence caught them completely off guard. One executive's wife reportedly vomited into her handbag because she was so repulsed by it. Warner Bros. responded by shelving the movie for nearly two years, releasing it in August of 1970 and only after some heavy reediting to soften the adult content.
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  (#2) Dirty Harry

  • Clint Eastwood, Harry Guardino, Reni Santoni, John Larch, Andrew Robinson, John Vernon, John Mitchum, Mae Mercer

  There were quite a few controversial movies in 1971, including A Clockwork Orange, Carnal Knowledge, The Devils, and Straw Dogs. It's probably Dirty Harry that takes the prize for most controversial, though. The others raised hackles largely for their violent or sexual imagery. Dirty Harry, on the other hand, made some people feel threatened by its ideas. That's a deeper, more psychological kind of controversy.

  Of course, Clint Eastwood portrays cop Harry Callahan. He's a man who doesn't necessarily play by the rules, nor does he hesitate to take the law into his own hands when he deems it necessary. Law enforcement bureaucracy - like those pesky Miranda rights - particularly infuriates him. Film critic Pauline Kael summed up the controversy, calling Dirty Harry "a deeply immoral movie" and inferring that it embraced a fascist attitude toward policing. She was not alone in that assessment. The film, which became a huge hit, prompted heated debate regarding its tone and intent.
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  (#3) Last Tango in Paris

  • Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Darling Legitimus, Catherine Sola, Mauro Marchetti, Dan Diament, Giovanna Galletti

  Movies with explicit sexuality were more common in the early '70s. Filmmakers dared to push boundaries, and audiences dared to expose themselves to boundary-pushing works. Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris managed to get tongues wagging in more ways than one. It's the story of American widower Paul (played by Marlon Brando), who begins an intense and controlling sexual relationship with a younger Parisian woman, Jeanne (Maria Schneider). He insists they not share their names or personal information with one another.

  The controversy over Last Tango stems largely from one particular scene involving butter and Paul's sexual assault of Jeanne. Some critics and audience members were angered by the sequence, unsure if its portrayal of male domination was meant to be titillating. Others felt it was just needlessly graphic, especially on top of the abundant nudity in the film. Still others in the media called it p*rnographic. Picketers stood outside some theaters showing the movie.

  Last Tango in Paris remained controversial decades later, when Schneider gave an interview claiming that the assault scene was not in the script, and that it traumatized her. The actress said, "I did the scene and I cried. I cried real tears during that scene. I was feeling humiliation."
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  (#4) The Exorcist

  • Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, Max von Sydow, Lee J. Cobb, Kitty Winn, Jack MacGowran, Jason Miller, William O'Malley, Barton Heyman, Peter Masterson, Rudolf Schündler, Gina Petrushka, Robert Symonds, Arthur Storch, Thomas Bermingham, Vasiliki Maliaros, Titos Vandis, Wallace Rooney, Ron Faber, Donna Mitchell, Roy Cooper, Robert Gerringer, Mercedes McCambridge

  The Exorcist mixes religion and horror. That's always a recipe for controversy. William Friedkin's film tells the story of young Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair), who becomes possessed by the devil. A priest named Father Karras (Jason Miller) attempts to perform an exorcism on her, to catastrophic results. The movie's intense horror has rightly earned it classic status. 

  The Catholic Church approved of the film, which was inspired by actual cases of demonic possession. Other religious figures and audience members were less accepting, thanks to scenes like the one in which Regan curses up a blue streak, or the one where she does something sexual with a crucifix. Those individuals were so outraged that some of them sent Linda Blair threatening letters, claiming the movie glorified Satan. 

  A slightly less severe controversy stemmed from Friedkin's alleged use of subliminal imagery in The Exorcist. A white face flashes on-screen during Father Karras's dream about his late mother, and the sound of buzzing bees was incorporated into the soundtrack to spur an involuntary sense of discomfort in viewers. Concerns were raised over what impact these techniques might have on an audience, as well as whether it was fair for a director to toy with viewers without their knowledge.
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  (#5) The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

  • Marilyn Burns, Gunnar Hansen, Allen Danziger, Paul A. Partain, William Vail, Teri McMinn, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow, John Dugan, Perry Lorenz

  Director Wes Craven once said, "The first monster that an audience has to be scared of is the filmmaker. They have to feel in the presence of someone not confined by the normal rules of propriety and decency." He wasn't specifically talking about The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, but he may as well have been. Director Tobe Hooper's picture had a rawness and a sense of realism that was unlike anything else on the landscape in 1974. That made it utterly terrifying.

  This is one of those movies that isn't as graphic as you think it is. Hooper makes viewers believe they've seen more gore than they really have. Nevertheless, it was reported that audiences at a test screening became physically ill, yelled obscenities at the screen, and even demanded their money back. Once in regular release, some people walked out of the film in disgust, and a few cinemas refused to play it. The sheer intensity also earned The Texas Chain Saw Massacre an X rating, meaning Hooper had to tone it down to get a more commercially viable R rating.
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  (#6) Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom

  • Paolo Bonacelli, Caterina Boratto, Hélène Surgère, Franco Merli, Sonia Saviange, Ines Pellegrini, Umberto P. Quintavalle, Elsa De Giorgi, Aldo Valletti, Giorgio Cataldi

  Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom caused a major uproar when it was released in 1975. Its reputation as an all-time shocker remains intact to this day. In Pier Paolo Pasolini's film, nine adolescents are subjected to torture by a group of fascists. The torture, which lasts 120 days, is physical, mental, and sexual in nature. All of that is shown in unflinching detail.

  Obviously, a stark portrait of that kind of abuse will rub most people the wrong way, and that's precisely what happened. Several countries, including Britain and Australia, banned it from being shown. Some major world cities didn't go quite that far but did demand edits before they would allow it to play, leading to legal proceedings with the filmmakers. Even when it did screen, the graphic nature of Salò proved vastly disturbing to audience members. Even by today's standards, it's a tough watch.
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  (#7) Taxi Driver

  • Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Harvey Keitel, Victor Argo, Peter Boyle, Albert Brooks, Leonard Harris, Norman Matlock, Harry E. Northup, Peter Savage

  Martin Scorsese's brilliant Taxi Driver was controversial on two fronts that collided in the film's final minutes. Robert De Niro plays Travis Bickle, a disturbed NYC cabbie who finds his grip on sanity slowly vanishing. One of the elements that got people riled up is that Travis develops a friendship with a teenage prostitute named Iris, played by then-12-year-old Jodie Foster. Many expressed concern about whether it was appropriate to have such a young actress taking on a role that edgy.

  Then there was the finale, in which Travis guns down Iris's pimp in an effort to save her. Iris, meanwhile, cries and pleads with him to end his rampage. It's an incredibly bloody, disturbing climax intended to show how all the simmering anger inside Travis has been unleashed. Scorsese didn't hold back in making the climax as brutal as possible, leaving a lot of people unnerved.

  A cultural conversation followed about whether Taxi Driver might spur real-life Travis Bickles into action. Of course, a few years after its release, a man named John Hinkley fired at President Ronald Reagan in an effort to get Foster's attention.
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  (#8) Looking for Mr. Goodbar

  • Diane Keaton, Richard Gere, Tom Berenger, Tuesday Weld, William Atherton, Richard Kiley, Alan Feinstein, Priscilla Pointer, Laurie Prange, Joel Fabiani, Julius Harris, Richard Bright, LeVar Burton, Marilyn Coleman, Elizabeth Cheshire

  In Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Diane Keaton plays a woman who leads a double life. By day, she's a noble teacher to deaf children. By night, she cruises bars and discos, looking for men with whom she can have one-night stands. And she's not looking for a nice guy, either. She's attracted to men who have an air of danger.

  The movie's frank take on sexuality made it scandalous upon release. The very idea of a woman rejecting her Catholic upbringing to pursue promiscuity was incendiary, to say the least. Stories about men carousing were viewed as acceptable; showing a woman doing it was relatively scandalous. There were also accusations that Looking for Mr. Goodbar glamorized a promiscuous lifestyle. Aside from those issues, the frank portrayal of homosexuality - a subject rarely addressed on-screen at the time - was sufficient to generate controversy. Scenes involving men kissing and a foray into a gay bar were sticking points for more closed-minded audience members.
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  (#9) I Spit on Your Grave

  • Camille Keaton, Eron Tabor, Richard Pace, Gunter Kleemann, Anthony Nichols, Alexis Magnotti

  I Spit on Your Grave made a lot of film critics really mad. Roger Ebert, for example, called the movie "a vile bag of garbage" and said "attending it was one of the most depressing experiences of my life." That was one of the kinder reviews. 

  What could spur that sort of reaction? The plot is as simple as it is exploitive. A woman on vacation is repeatedly raped by a group of men. A few weeks later, she tracks them all down and brutally slays them. The end. As Ebert pointed out, there is no artistry to I Spit on Your Grave. The first hour is intended to titillate people with sick fantasies about violating women. The last half-hour has a faux "female empowerment" revenge angle designed to make the glamorization of assault seem justified.

  Critics weren't the only ones appalled. Feminist groups protested the film, and a number of countries banned it altogether.
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  (#10) Life of Brian

  • Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Kenneth Colley, Gwen Taylor, Eric Idle, Terence Bayler, Carol Cleveland, Charles McKeown, Sue Jones-Davies, John Young, Bernard McKenna, Andrew MacLachlan, Neil Innes, Spike Milligan, George Harrison

  Monty Python were known for their irreverence. They spared no one, not even Jesus Christ. Monty Python's Life of Brian is a comedy about an ordinary young man who is mistaken for the Messiah. His journey is similar to Christ's, but filled with comic complications.

  Naturally, the faith community didn't take well to that idea. Charges of blasphemy were leveled at Life of Brian. In some cities, religious leaders and Christian groups picketed in front of theaters showing the movie. A scene at the end in which Brian is crucified - and in which he and other victims burst into song - was a particular source of irritation, with those same people accusing Monty Python of outright mocking Jesus. Another gag, when a crowd doesn't hear Christ's words clearly and thinks he says "blessed are the cheese makers," is another example of content many found offensive.
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  (#11) Cruising

  • Al Pacino, Paul Sorvino, Karen Allen, Richard Cox, Don Scardino, Joe Spinell, Jay Acovone, Barton Heyman, Sonny Grosso, Larry Atlas, James Remar, William Russ, Steve Inwood

  William Friedkin's Cruising stars Al Pacino as an undercover cop sent into the world of S&M bars. He's attempting to find a serial killer who targets gay men. In order to pull off his mission, the cop has to pretend to be gay himself. Over time, he appears to lose his identity, becoming more aggressive and intense. Does he realize he's been denying his own sexuality? Does he somehow identify with the homophobic slayer? The film asks those questions but doesn't answer them, allowing viewers to decide for themselves.

  The controversy over Cruising began before production was even completed. Gay rights activists, upset about what they felt was an unrealistic and bigoted depiction of their community, attempted to disrupt filming. They used mirrors to interfere with the lighting, and blasted air horns and whistles to mess up the recording of dialogue. Once the movie was released, those same activists protested in front of theaters that were playing Cruising. The story's insinuation that Pacino's character grows aggressive as a result of proximity to gay men outraged many.
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  (#12) The Evil Dead

  • Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Betsy Baker, Richard DeManincor, Theresa Tilly

  Most horror buffs who saw Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead in 1981 recognized it as an instant classic in the genre. It was graphic, original, and scary. But there was one scene that stood out like a sore thumb. In it, the character Cheryl wanders out into the woods. Eerie noises surround her. Then a tree extends its branches, wrapping themselves around her and sexually violating her.

  Horror movies generally present disturbing ideas, but this particular moment was needlessly graphic. It was dubbed upsetting and misogynist by several critics who saw it. The Evil Dead was even banned in some countries because of that sequence. Years later, Raimi apologized, saying, "I think it was unnecessary gratuitous and a little too severe. My goal is not to offend people. It is to entertain, thrill, scare, make them laugh, but not to offend them. I think my judgment was a little wrong at the time."
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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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  (#14) Twilight Zone: The Movie

  • Vic Morrow, John Lithgow, Kathleen Quinlan, Scatman Crothers, Bill Quinn, Selma Diamond, Jeremy Licht, Kevin McCarthy, William Schallert, Abbe Lane, John Larroquette

  Even decades later, it's more than a little mind-blowing that Twilight Zone: The Movie got released, or at least that part of it got released. On the night of July 23, 1982, director John Landis was filming his segment for the anthology film, which involved a racist man being transported back to the Vietnam War, where he becomes an unlikely savior to two Vietnamese children. The scene being filmed required actor Vic Morrow to carry two small kids across a shallow river while a helicopter pursues them. Then an unthinkable tragedy occurred. 

  The young actors were on set in violation of child labor laws, and Landis - looking to get the most intense shot possible - screamed for the helicopter to maneuver lower to the ground. When a special-effects explosion was set off, it knocked the helicopter off-course, causing it to crash into the actors. Morrow and one of the children were decapitated by the blades. The other was crushed to death. As a result of this catastrophe, Landis faced criminal charges, although he was eventually acquitted.

  For reasons that remain unfathomable, the studio opted to release Twilight Zone: The Movie with this segment intact. Landis had to change his story slightly, but it remained part of the film. Many people felt it was an inappropriate decision for Warner Bros. Pictures to profit off the grisly demise of three actors.
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  (#15) Silent Night, Deadly Night

  • Tara Buckman, Linnea Quigley, Lilyan Chauvin, Aron Kincaid, Charles Dierkop, Don Shanks, Will Hare, Gilmer McCormick, Robert Brian Wilson, Britt Leach, Leo Geter, John Bishop, Judith Anna Roberts, Randy Stumpf, Oscar Rowland, Jonathan Best, Melissa Best, H.E.D. Redford, Jayne Luke, Jonathan Wilde, J. Paul Broadhead, Angela Montoya, Jacob Peterson, Toni Nero, Max Robinson, Geoff Hansen, Nancy Borgenicht, Spencer Alston, Jean-Paul Rodrigues, Susie Massa, Max Broadhead, Eric Hart, Vinc Massa, Joan Forster, Spencer Ashby, Alex Burton, Kristi Ballard, Danny Wagner, Monique Rodrigues, Micheline Rodrigues, Richard D. Clark, Betsy Nagel, Amy Styvesant, Tip Boxell, A. Madeline Smith, Paul Mulder, Barbara Stafford, Molly Cameron, Richard C. Terry, John Michael Alvarez, Sarah Stuyvesant, Dan Rogers

  Slasher movies were common in the early to mid-'80s, but Silent Night, Deadly Night was a whole other ball game. The movie is about a psychologically tormented child who grows up to put on a Santa Claus costume and walk around brutally slaying people at Christmastime. TriStar Pictures, the company that released the movie, made the mistake of airing TV ads during hours when children were watching. This led to outraged parents, claiming their kids were traumatized by the sight of an ax-wielding Santa. 

  TriStar responded by pulling the ads. That wasn't enough to placate parents worried about the effect Silent Night, Deadly Night would have on their children. Theaters showing the movie found protestors out front. Film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert also weighed in, going so far as to name and shame the writer, director, and producer on their TV show, and saying any profits they made from the movie amounted to "blood money."

  The controversy became so relentless that the studio ended up pulling Silent Night, Deadly Night from theaters altogether.
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  (#16) Hail Mary

  • Juliette Binoche, Myriem Roussel, Thierry Rode, Manon Andersen, Philippe Lacoste, Malachi Jara Kohan, Myriem Roussel

  Jean-Luc Godard found himself in the middle of a firestorm in 1985. His movie Hail Mary reimagines the story of Christ's mother, portraying Mary as a young student/gas station attendant who becomes pregnant despite being a virgin. The character is shown fully nude in some scenes, and the film's version of Joseph comes in the form of a cab driver. Intermittent blasphemous dialogue was another flashpoint.

  Chaos ensued immediately. Pope John Paul II condemned Hail Mary, issuing a statement saying it "distorts and slanders the spiritual significance and historic value and profoundly wounds the religious sentiment of believers and the respect for the sacred and for the figure of the Virgin Mary, who is venerated with such filial love by Catholics and is so dear to Christians." The city of Boston banned it altogether, while protestors gathered outside theaters showing it in other cities. Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, thieves broke into one cinema and stole the print. 

  Hail Mary was not only the most controversial movie of 1985; it's one of the most controversial movies of that entire decade.
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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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  (#18) Nekromantik

  • Jörg Buttgereit, Beatrice Manowski, Daktari Lorenz, Volker Hauptvogel, Suza Kohlstedt, Clemens Schwender, Elke Fuchs, Colloseo Schulzendorf, Margit Im Schlaa, Harald Weis, Heike Surban, Holger Suhr, Henri Boeck, Patricia Leipold, Harald Lundt

  Horror movies regularly generate controversy. Dealing with taboo subjects is part of what makes them scary. The German film Nekromantik took that idea to the extreme. As the title implies, it deals with one of the most taboo subjects of all - necrophilia. The protagonist is a guy named Rob whose job cleaning up after accidents gives him plenty of exposure to corpses. 

  The film lives up to its title, with several insanely graphic scenes, including an intimate encounter between Rob, his wife, and a cadaver. A rabbit and a cat get slaughtered in the film, too. Nekromantik ends with Rob taking his own life while engaging in an act of self-gratification. Consequently, the movie was banned in many countries and was only allowed to be shown in adult theaters in its native land. Even in the places where it wasn't banned, the picture had trouble finding theaters willing to play it. 

  Perhaps unsurprisingly, Nekromantik had its strongest life as a bootleg VHS cassette.
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  (#19) The Last Temptation of Christ

  • Willem Dafoe, Harvey Keitel, Barbara Hershey, Paul Greco, Verna Bloom, Roberts Blossom, Barry Miller, Irvin Kershner

  Martin Scorsese wanted to make a movie about the duality of Jesus, who was both God and man. To do that, he adapted the Nikos Kazantzakis novel The Last Temptation of Christ. In the film, as Jesus is crucified on the cross, he has a fantasy of living a normal life, where he is not the son of God, but rather an ordinary man. He even becomes intimate with Mary Magdalene in this dream. 

  That idea was considered blasphemous by the Catholic Church, which immediately deemed the movie "morally offensive." Prominent religious figures, including Mother Teresa, spoke out against it, advocating for the faithful to stay away. Mother Angelica of the noted Eternal Word Television Network went so far as to suggest that anyone who paid to see The Last Temptation of Christ would literally burn in hell. It wasn't just Catholics who were outraged. Evangelicals and Baptists joined them in picketing in front of theaters showing the picture.
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  (#20) Do the Right Thing

  • Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Edson, Giancarlo Esposito, Spike Lee, Bill Nunn, John Turturro, Rosie Perez, Paul Benjamin, Frankie R. Faison, Robin Harris, Joie Lee, Samuel L. Jackson, Roger Guenveur Smith, John Savage

  These days, spoiling the ending of a movie would be considered a mortal sin. In 1989, the ending of Do the Right Thing got spoiled immediately after it debuted at the Cannes Film Festival. The movie is about a group of people living on a block in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of New York. It's the hottest day of the summer, tensions flare, and by the end of the day, a full-scale race riot takes place after cops use excessive force on a Black man, taking his life. 

  The controversy stemmed from the way that riot kicks off. Mookie (played by writer/director Spike Lee) has been a moderately tempered presence throughout the film. When his friend Radio Raheem perishes at the hands of the police, though, he picks up a trash can and flings it through the window of Sal's Pizzeria, the white-owned business where he works. Notable critics and pundits like David Denby and Joe Klein called the film incendiary, claiming it would incite Black viewers to start riots in their own neighborhoods. Others, including Lee and critic Roger Ebert, felt such claims were themselves racist.

  Universal Pictures consequently received pressure to not release Do the Right Thing. It was released, and exactly zero riots broke out because of it. The film did, however, spawn an endless number of think pieces in the media and got audiences debating whether or not Mookie followed the instruction of the title. 
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  (#21) Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer

  • Michael Rooker, Tracy Arnold, Tom Towles, Anne Bartoletti, Mary Demas, Elizabeth Kaden, Ted Kaden

  Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer was made in 1986, but wasn't formally released until 1990 because it took a long time to find a distributor willing to put it out. Director John McNaughton brought a documentary-like feel to the story of a disturbed man (Michael Rooker) who takes pleasure in slaying others. Shooting it on 16mm film gave the movie a raw, grainy look that added to the authenticity. Festival audiences were the first to lay their eyes on it, and they were horrified by the stark terror.

  The Motion Picture Association of America gave Henry an X rating, making it box-office poison. For a time, the Music Box Theatre in Chicago was the only cinema in America willing to show it, which it did - at midnight, for 18 months. A company called Greycat Films eventually bought the rights and distributed it without a rating. As if that wasn't controversial enough, some people accused the movie of being too violent, especially in showing the ways the title character harms women.
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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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  (#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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  (#24) Indecent Proposal

  • Robert Redford, Demi Moore, Woody Harrelson, Oliver Platt, Seymour Cassel, Billy Bob Thornton, Rip Taylor, Billy Connolly

  Every so often, a movie comes along that sets off a firestorm of discussion and debate. Indecent Proposal did just that in 1993. Woody Harrelson and Demi Moore play a happily married but financially struggling couple. They meet wealthy businessman Robert Redford, who offers them $1 million in exchange for a night of intimacy with Moore. After some hesitation, they take him up on the offer, only to find the one-night stand threatens their marriage.

  Thanks to that provocative premise, Indecent Proposal became a massive hit. Everyone had an opinion on it. Conservative types were scandalized by the film. People everywhere - whether they'd actually seen the picture or not - debated what they would do in such a situation. Media personalities and outlets had a field day analyzing it. Keep in mind, this was before the internet, so it took an excessive amount of momentum to create such a nationwide conversation. That's how controversial the film was.
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  (#25) Natural Born Killers

  • Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Robert Downey, Tommy Lee Jones, Tom Sizemore, Rodney Dangerfield, Russell Means, Edie McClurg, Balthazar Getty, Joe Grifasi, O-Lan Jones

  Just three years after raising a ruckus with JFK, Oliver Stone was at it again. Natural Born Killers stars Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis as Mickey and Mallory Knox, a young married couple who go on a savage crime spree. Because of the explicitness with which their actions are shown, Stone had to go to the ratings board multiple times before locking down an R rating.

  There has long been a discussion about whether violent movies help inspire violence in real life. NBK ignited that debate like never before. Mickey and Mallory are ostensibly the heroes of the story, so to some eyes, Stone appeared to be glamorizing them. It didn't help that an 18-year-old Oklahoma woman and her boyfriend went on a cross-state crime spree in which they took the lives of two people. They watched the movie before embarking upon their rampage, giving credence to the notion that Natural Born Killers was potentially a bad influence on those who saw it. Noted author John Grisham was one of the loudest voices in condemning Stone's movie, suggesting that those involved in making it should be held responsible for those actions.
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  (#26) Kids

  • Leo Fitzpatrick, Justin Pierce, Chloë Sevigny, Sarah Henderson, Rosario Dawson, Harold Hunter, Yakira Peguero, Joseph Knofelmacher

  If Kids had not been shot in a cinema verite style, it still would have been controversial due to the subject matter. But since it was shot that way, questions were raised about whether it was a work of fiction at all. Starring a then-unknown Rosario Dawson and Chloe Sevigny, the movie follows a group of New York City teens as they engage in substance abuse, casual sex, and intermittent violence. One character is HIV positive and knowingly exposes his partners to it. The picture ends with a different character sexually assaulting an unconscious girl. Shocking stuff all the way around.

  Such unflinching depictions of wayward youth prevented Kids from getting an R rating. The distributor had to release it unrated, rather than succumb to the dreaded NC-17. The issue was that the movie felt too real. To some degree it was. The actors smoked actual pot on-screen, and because of the explicit sex scenes that included nudity, some viewers believed they were real, too. Director Larry Clark and his producers were faced with accusations of child endangerment. Fearing that they might actually go to jail, they hired a lawyer to protect them from any potential legal repercussions.
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  (#27) Crash

  • James Spader, Holly Hunter, Elias Koteas, Deborah Kara Unger, Rosanna Arquette, Peter MacNeill, Cheryl Swarts, Boyd Banks

  You only have to hear the premise of Crash to understand why it was controversial. It's about people who get turned on by car accidents and the injuries caused by them. The film came from David Cronenberg, a filmmaker who specialized in "body horror" flicks like Videodrome, Shivers, and Rabid. This was not intended to be a horror movie, though. It was an art film, one dealing with a subject that arthouse patrons were not used to dealing with. 

  Understandably, given that Crash contains scenes of characters becoming aroused by gruesome wounds and even amputations, many people had a strong negative reaction to it. Cronenberg was booed at the Cannes Film Festival, and he has long claimed that jury president Francis Ford Coppola attempted to prevent it from winning any awards. Fine Line Features chief Ted Turner was so aghast over the film that he temporarily yanked it from the release schedule. Italy and Britain banned it altogether.
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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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  (#29) Happiness

  • Jane Adams, Dylan Baker, Lara Flynn Boyle, Ben Gazzara, Jared Harris, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jon Lovitz, Marla Maples, Cynthia Stevenson, Elizabeth Ashley, Louise Lasser, Camryn Manheim, Rufus Read, Anne Bobby, Dan Moran, Evan Silverberg

  Happiness was directed by Todd Solondz, who first became a critics' darling with his 1995 coming-of-age comedy Welcome to the Dollhouse. For this film, he created an ensemble piece that followed a bunch of individuals, all of whom had some connection to one another. Solondz wanted to look at the dark behavior of seemingly normal people. One of the characters has a fetish for making obscene phone calls. Another is a psychiatrist who molests children.

  The movie received an award at the Cannes Film Festival, and October Films - an arthouse distributor - was all set to put Happiness into theaters. But October was owned by Universal Pictures, and Universal was owned by Seagram, and neither of them wanted anything to do with the picture because of its provocative nature. They also didn't like the idea of it asking viewers to empathize somewhat with a pedophile. A new distribution company had to be created specifically to get it into cinemas. The filmmakers also knew there was no way they could escape an NC-17 rating, so they bypassed the ratings board and put it out unrated.
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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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  (#31) Requiem for a Dream

  • Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Marlon Wayans, Christopher McDonald, Louise Lasser, Keith David, Sean Gullette

  There are dozens of movies about addiction and substance abuse. Requiem for a Dream took a different approach. Through its imagery and editing techniques, it intentionally simulated the experience of being completely wasted for the audience. That in itself made the film powerful.

  Beyond that, Darren Aronofsky's adaptation of Hubert Selby Jr.'s brilliant novel was absolutely unsparing in depicting how low people can sink when their addictions control them. Sara (played by Ellen Burstyn), for example, becomes deeply paranoid, wasting away inside her apartment. Even more disturbing is the fate of Marion (Jennifer Connelly). In exchange for her drug of choice, she allows herself to be part of an adult-oriented show in which she is sexually degraded. Aronofsky's camera does not shy away.

  The director had all kinds of trouble when it came to Requiem for a Dream, despite rave reviews. The MPAA refused to give it an R rating, and some TV shows wouldn't cover the movie or have cast members on for interviews because the material was simply too unpleasant.

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