11 Most Banned Films in the World
When it comes to books, my policy is usually to look for the ones that people are trying to ban; they are almost always helpful, at least for understanding why their ideas are being suppressed. This is true for films as well, but the calculation is slightly different. Some banned films are important films, period; others are problematic but nevertheless worth studying; still others appear to be cult favorites just because they are so controversial. As you browse through the 11 films collected here, your banned movie binge will offer a little bit of everything, from genius to thrash and even genius thrash.
But first: the lists of countries I’ve added to each entry, noting where films are banned, are not exhaustive; countries generally do not publish lists of banned films, and sometimes films remain “banned” just because no one has tried to release new releases. There are also countries like Afghanistan that ban movies by default so no one tries to release them (anything with queer content won’t be sold in Russia, China or much of the Middle East, for example). It’s tricky, so the countries you’ll see are the places where the movie in question was the most controversial.