[caitlin1214]

25. ALADDIN (1992)
DIRECTED BY Ron Clements and John Musker
THE PLOT You know: the genie-in-the-lamp tale.
THE CONTROVERSY The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee balked at a lyric describing the film's Arabian setting as a land ''where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face.'' Result? The studio dubbed out the lyric for subsequent releases.



24. CALIGULA (1980)
DIRECTED BY Tinto Brass
THE PLOT This lavishly decadent film depicts the orgy-filled life and death of ancient Rome's most notorious — and clearly psychotic — emperor (Malcolm McDowell).
THE CONTROVERSY Described as a ''moral holocaust'' by Variety, the film was first given a very limited theatrical release for fear of prosecution on obscenity grounds.



23. KIDS (1995)
DIRECTED BY Larry Clark
THE PLOT A group of teens (played by, among others, Rosario Dawson and Chloë Sevigny) prowl the streets of NYC in search of sex, booze, drugs, and other high-risk kicks.
THE CONTROVERSY Clark's disturbing vision of promiscuous, borderline-sociopathic teens was heralded by some as a much-needed wake-up call about the nation's youth. Others saw prurient exploitation. As a buffer against the furor, Miramax created a new entity, Excalibur Films, to release the pic.



22. DO THE RIGHT THING (1989)
DIRECTED BY Spike Lee
THE PLOT Racial tensions in a Brooklyn neighborhood escalate from amusing to tragic during the course of a single scorching summer day.
THE CONTROVERSY While the film was seen by some as a masterpiece (and earned Lee a Best Original Screenplay Oscar nom), others blasted the director as irresponsible, predicting that the film's shocking climax — in which Mookie (Lee) hurls a trashcan through a storefront window, inciting a riot — would evoke similar reactions from urban moviegoers. Thankfully, the film proved to be more of a catalyst for heated debate than a flashpoint for actual violence.

[caitlin1214]

20. CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1985)
DIRECTED BY Ruggero Deodato
THE PLOT This nauseatingly graphic Italian prototype for The Blair Witch Project follows four documentarians filming cannibal tribes in the Amazon. They become lunch.
THE CONTROVERSY After its 1980 Milan premiere, the film's print was confiscated by the city's magistrate. Later, Deodato faced life in prison when Italian authorities believed the stars of his film were really killed. The actors finally appeared on TV to prove otherwise.

(Yyyyeeeaaahhhh . . . I'm not showing the movie poster to this. - caitlin1214)



19. BASIC INSTINCT (1992)
DIRECTED BY Paul Verhoeven
THE PLOT A trigger-happy detective (Michael Douglas) falls for a bisexual author (Sharon Stone) who's suspected of murdering her male lover with an ice pick.
THE CONTROVERSY Gay-rights activists objected to the portrayal of man-hating lesbians before a frame of film was shot and protested through the film's opening. Then there was the film's eye-popping sex, including Sharon Stone's notorious leg-crossing, which contributed to Basic's initial NC-17 rating.



18. I AM CURIOUS (YELLOW) (1969)
DIRECTED BY Vilgot Sjöman
THE PLOT Freewheeling Lena experiences the swinging '60s: protesting Vietnam, questioning the class system, and exploring carnal desires.
THE CONTROVERSY Before the 1967 Swedish film could open in the U.S., it was seized by customs officials concerned that scenes containing full frontal nudity and simulated sex acts were pornographic. The courts initially deemed the movie obscene, but the verdict was overturned.



17. FREAKS (1932)
DIRECTED BY Tod Browning
THE PLOT For his still-creepy circus noir about a midget who's conned by a greedy temptress, Browning used real sideshow performers.
THE CONTROVERSY Audiences fled preview screenings in droves. (One patron claimed the film caused her to miscarry.) Even with a castration scene cut, the National Association of Women found the film ''offensive'' and urged boycotts. It was banned in Atlanta and pulled from distribution; it was forbidden in the U.K. until the early '60s.

(Again, not showing the movie poster. - caitlin1214)



16. UNITED 93 (2006)
DIRECTED BY Paul Greengrass
THE PLOT An ultra-vérité re-creation of the tragic heroism surrounding — and inside — the only hijacked 9/11 flight not to reach its intended target.
THE CONTROVERSY Greengrass' virtually-there experience may have been a little too close for comfort for some moviegoers. Even the trailer's suggestion of the movie's content prompted audiences to shout Too soon! One New York City theater pulled the footage from its preview reel after many viewers (one left sobbing) complained.

[caitlin1214]

15. TRIUMPH OF THE WILL (1935)
DIRECTED BY Leni Riefenstahl
THE PLOT Riefenstahl's notorious documentary of the 1934 Nazi rally at Nuremberg elevates propaganda to seductive Wagnerian grandeur.
THE CONTROVERSY While intellectuals still ponder the ethics of admiring so malevolent a masterpiece, others have had more visceral reactions. In the early '40s, director George Stevens was so disturbed by the film that he joined the Army the next day. Protests greeted Riefenstahl (who never shook her Nazi-tainted past) at a 1974 Telluride Film Festival tribute, and the Anti-Defamation League decried a 1975 screening in Atlanta as ''morally insensitive.''



14. THE WARRIORS (1979)
DIRECTED BY Walter Hill
THE PLOT Members of a street gang battle their way through a New York City populated by rival gangs (''Warriors, come out to plaaay!'').
THE CONTROVERSY Hill's lurid nightmare of urban warfare was widely condemned for glorifying violence. Reports of criminal incidents where the film was shown — including the stabbing of a teenager in Massachusetts — fueled the outrage, forcing Paramount to temporarily pull its print and TV advertising for the film.



13. THE DA VINCI CODE (2006)
DIRECTED BY Ron Howard
THE PLOT A professor (Tom Hanks) unearths a 2,000-year-old conspiracy to cover up the marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene.
THE CONTROVERSY It didn't end up drawing mass pickets or boycotts, but there was much debate while the film was being made. Westminster Abbey wouldn't allow Howard to shoot inside its halls, and some 200 protesters mobbed the set in Lincolnshire, England (although Howard says most were merely ''trying to get autographs'').



12. THE DEER HUNTER (1978)
DIRECTED BY Michael Cimino
THE PLOT The Vietnam War shatters the lives of three Pennsylvania steel-mill workers.
THE CONTROVERSY By the time it won the Best Picture Oscar, Deer Hunter had ignited major debate over its shocking POW-camp scenes, in which American soldiers are forced to play Russian roulette. War historians argued there was no record of such atrocities, and others called the Vietcong depiction racist. Cimino called the criticisms ''beside the point.''



11. THE MESSAGE (1977)
DIRECTED BY Moustapha Akkad
THE PLOT Anthony Quinn plays Mohammed's uncle in an epic telling of Islam's origins.
THE CONTROVERSY The movie rankled Muslims and sparked riots, and that was just during production. Post-release, in March 1977, Hanafi terrorists took more than 100 people hostage in Washington, D.C. — killing a reporter and shooting the city's future mayor Marion Barry in the two-day siege — demanding in part that The Message be banned. (It wasn't.) In a cruelly ironic coda, the Syrian-born Akkad died amid al-Qaeda's coordinated hotel bombings last fall in Amman, Jordan.

[caitlin1214]

10. BABY DOLL (1956)
DIRECTED BY Elia Kazan
THE PLOT A Mississippi cotton-gin owner (Eli Wallach) humiliates a competitor (Karl Malden) by attempting to seduce the man's still-virgin wife (Carroll Baker).
THE CONTROVERSY Written by Tennessee Williams, the film struck Catholic leaders as lewd. (A similar flap greeted 1943's The Outlaw over Jane Russell's bust.) New York's Cardinal Spellman forbade the faithful to see it ''under pain of sin.'' Some theaters pulled it, but it eventually earned four Oscar nominations.



9. LAST TANGO IN PARIS (1972)
DIRECTED BY Bernardo Bertolucci
THE PLOT A disaffected American (Marlon Brando) travels to Paris, where he throws himself into an affair with a young Frenchwoman (Maria Schneider).
THE CONTROVERSY Critics and audiences were sharply divided over this X-rated erotic psychodrama. The film's stark (as in naked) depiction of loveless, animalistic carnality horrified some — and landed its director and stars in an Italian court on obscenity charges.

(Um . . . the picture's a bit too nude for this forum. - caitlin1214)



8. NATURAL BORN KILLERS (1994)
DIRECTED BY Oliver Stone
THE PLOT Homicidal lovers (Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis) cut a blood-soaked swath through America.
THE CONTROVERSY Though intended as a satire on the media, the film actually inspired several copycat killers to seek their own 15 minutes of fame, some even using imagery and dialogue from the film. Over 12 murders in the U.S. and abroad have been linked to Killers. One victim's family tried to sue Stone and Warner Bros.



7. THE BIRTH OF A NATION (1915)
DIRECTED BY D.W. Griffith
THE PLOT Griffith's epic follows the travails of two families during the Civil War and Reconstruction.
THE CONTROVERSY The film's depiction of African Americans as childlike, conniving, or rabid sex fiends, and the Ku Klux Klan as heroic saviors, sparked nationwide protests by the nascent NAACP. (It also became a KKK recruiting tool.) Censorship debates and protests have dogged the film in subsequent re-releases and when it was added to the National Film Registry in 1993.



6. THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST (1988)
DIRECTED BY Martin Scorsese
THE PLOT Jesus (Willem Dafoe) pursues his calling but, in a Satan-induced hallucination, dreams of a normal life that includes sex with Mary Magdalene.
THE CONTROVERSY Religious fundamentalists picketed and threatened boycotts weeks before its release. One group offered to buy the $6.5 million film from Universal to destroy it; some theaters, and later Blockbuster, refused to carry it. Oh, and the French rioted.

[caitlin1214]

5. JFK (1991)
DIRECTED BY Oliver Stone
THE PLOT The true story of how New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) investigated conspiracy theories about President Kennedy's assassination.
THE CONTROVERSY Some saw Stone's documentary-on-steroids-like interpretation of those theories as lending them a certain patina of truth — raising fears that moviegoers would construe it as bona fide history. One result: a 1992 congressional act to release classified documents (which revealed nothing).



4. DEEP THROAT (1972)
DIRECTED BY Gerard Damiano
THE PLOT Distraught over her inability to enjoy sex, a young woman (Linda Lovelace) goes to a doctor (Harry Reems), who tells her the condition can only be treated, um, orally.
THE CONTROVERSY Intellectuals championed the film for striking a blow for First Amendment rights, while conservative leaders got it banned in many places and put Reems on trial for obscenity charges. Lovelace herself later denounced the film, claiming that while filming ''there was a gun to my head.''



3. FAHRENHEIT 9/11 (2004)
DIRECTED BY Michael Moore
THE PLOT Dubya's multitude of (alleged) sins, including the alliance between the Bush clan and Saudi Arabia and botched chances to prevent 9/11.
THE CONTROVERSY The documentary lit the fuse of right-wing America, detonating protests and hate campaigns to ban it (no dice). Moore was the first to break the post-9/11 moratorium on Bush bashing and set off a season of brutal smack-downs among the Bill O'Reillys and Keith Olbermanns of the world.



2. A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971)
DIRECTED BY Stanley Kubrick
THE PLOT Teen troublemaker/gang rapist Alex (Malcolm McDowell) gets brainwashed by a futuristic English government so that he becomes deathly ill every time he encounters violence.
THE CONTROVERSY You mean besides its irreverent use of Gene Kelly's ''Singin' in the Rain''? That the movie first landed an X rating and was deemed pornographic across the U.S. was nothing compared with its reception in the U.K.: Social uproar and reports of copycat crimes led Kubrick to withdraw Clockwork from distribution in his adopted country. It wasn't officially available there again — in theaters or on video — until 2000, a year after his death.



1. THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (2004)
DIRECTED BY Mel Gibson
THE PLOT You know the part in the Bible where Jesus gets betrayed, tortured, and crucified? That's it. That's all of it.
THE CONTROVERSY Gibson's intention — born of his deep Catholic faith — was to produce an unflinching depiction of Christ's suffering on behalf of mankind. What he succeeded at best, however, was igniting a culture-war firestorm unrivaled in Hollywood history. For months prior to its release, The Passion was both denounced and defended sight unseen amid reports that the film wasn't just brutal, but compromised by dubious biblical interpretation and anti-Semitic sentiment. Gibson refused to let concerned parties view and vet his self-financed film, even as he was giving Passion previews to Christians as part of an unprecedented church-targeting promo push. Ultimately, moviegoers pretty much got the experience they were expecting, while Gibson got a $370 million gross — plus a provocative new reputation.

(Again, not posting the picture. - caitlin1214)

[caitlin1214]

''The Passion of the Christ,'' ''The Da Vinci Code,'' ''Basic Instinct'' -- we're fascinated by what shocks, disgusts, and divides us


EW.com

[Demosthenes]

I agree with lots of these choices. The sickest, most disturbing movie I've ever seen was Salo... that would be my #1 choice, but I guess it wasn't popular enough to incite controversy.

For the DaVinci Code, I thought the book was more controversial than the movie... the movie was a total hollywood blockbuster and it didn't really get into the details the way the book did.

[GirlFriday]

I remember when Natural Born Killers came out the movie theater in my town put up a sign on the ticket booth telling people that their money would not be refunded if they left the movie before it ended. That tells you a lot of people walked out. 12 deaths are connected to it. Gees! I think it's important that people have the right to express themselves through art, but sometimes I just don't see the point of people put crap like that out there.

[Tangerine]

The 90s were chock full of 'oooh loook how CONTROVERSIAL we can be!! oooh ahhh' crap. lolll. They didnt bother with substance. Kids? Basic Instinct? (Sorry but tht was HORRIBLE, what a cop out ending.) Gus Van Sant has some explaining to do as well...

And maybe I am biased cause I have a *distaste* for Oliver Stone, but JFK was a total, self indulgent, disjointed, drag. It felt like a 3 hour episode of a news magazine (well, without the responsible journalism) and when they got to any actual character centric stuff, it was too little, too late.


Anyway, Babydoll was a great film. A bit creepy yeah, but Eli Wallach was immense in that.

[Tangerine]

Originally Posted by GirlFriday

I remember when Natural Born Killers came out the movie theater in my town put up a sign on the ticket booth telling people that their money would not be refunded if they left the movie before it ended. That tells you a lot of people walked out. 12 deaths are connected to it. Gees! I think it's important that people have the right to express themselves through art, but sometimes I just don't see the point of people put crap like that out there.

What a LOAD that movie is. I know some people love it, but...... ehhh. Its so self important and way too flashy and 'look how cool we are' to pass as a character study. IMHO. It only serves to desensitize people to creative endevours that may ACTUALLY have some sort of use for the serial killer aspect.

Problem is, whenever you make a movie there is a central character, there is just no way around the fact that a film either attempts a. sympathy or b. at least a common understanding ( some people call this an excuse) for why these characters did such horrible things. If you make 2 hours about someone so awful and twisted and sick its either gonna be an unwatchable pile of tripe with no purpose or its gonna come off as an unsuccessful attempt at justification of their actions. Thats already dangerous. And to add such a highly stylized, MTV style 'coolness' to that is DISASTER. Not to mention super wanky.



Oliver Stone has no sense of responsibility to history, discretion, anything but his wankiness, as I see it.





And I'm SOOO wary of this movie about Lennon's killer.... What were they thinking? The biggest icon of the last century was murdered by this MANIAC so they are giving him 2 hours to try and make us understand his motivations and feel humanity from him??? SUCH a bad idea. Sure it might be creepy, but creepy doesn't carry a movie, humanity does. And EVERY film maker tries for that. Even the completely misguided horrible ones making movies about real people and real events. Failure in that sense is dangerous. It shows total and utter lack of responsibility.

[MichelleAntonia]

Originally Posted by Tangerine

And I'm SOOO wary of this movie about Lennon's killer.... What were they thinking? The biggest icon of the last century was murdered by this MANIAC so they are giving him 2 hours to try and make us understand his motivations and feel humanity from him??? SUCH a bad idea. Sure it might be creepy, but creepy doesn't carry a movie, humanity does. And EVERY film maker tries for that. Even the completely misguided horrible ones making movies about real people and real events. Failure in that sense is dangerous. It shows total and utter lack of responsibility.

yeah, true. this movie MIGHT have a chance at working if, and that's a big IF, the central character is actually someone other than the killer. like that showtime (or was it hbo movie) with catherine keener, about a woman the mid century in the midwest (forget her name, true story btw) who imprisoned and poisoned a child she took as a charge. although i haven't seen it all, it seems that they actually made it more about one of her daughters who tried to help the girl, and ended up testifying against her mother in court. at least that's ONE sympathetic character, but it REALLY has to be their journey.

even still, it annoys me to no end when the only sympathetic character is so clearly SECONDARY, more time is spent on this way more main character who is abhorrent in every way and at no point illicits sympathey from the audience. like 'gangster number one' with paul bettany. that was a horrible "piece" let me tell you. so violent and wannabe "shocking", the only character worth sympathy was the butcher of mayfair character whom we were supposed to understand at teh conclusion of the film, that the main character wanted desperately to be. wanting badly enough to be someone else, even going to pathetic extremes to do it, does not sympathy illicit. it just makes me dislike the main character even more.

i don't like the idea of these types of movies, from a storytelling standpoint. the humanity is sold SO short, and the little that we do see of it, we're left thinking- "how come this wasn't so-and-so's story!?" the story of the secondary ppl we actually DO manage to give a crap about.

i'm not interested in murderers and gangsters simply doing horrible deeds just because they're "shocking". i could care less, why waste 2 hours of celluloid trying to underhandedly show us how "cool" this is. it's a waste of time, no one, unless they are a sociopath, will connect with that character