While the United States doesn’t have the same rich history of banning films as the United Kingdom with their Video Nasties, films still have been banned from playing in theaters in various places across the U.S. over cinema’s more than 100-year history. But what gets a film banned?
1. The Birth of a Nation (1915)
While The Birth of a Nation is widely regarded as one of the most influential films of all time from a filmmaking perspective, it’s also been called “the most racist movie ever made.” The movie portrays the Ku Klux Klan as heroes battling against villainous Black characters (played by White actors in blackface). The film was banned in several cities across the U.S. for its racism but still screened at the White House for President Woodrow Wilson, who supported the film.
2. Purity (1916)
Purity tells the story of a young woman who poses naked to make money to make a better life for herself and the man she loves. Given that premise, it’s easy to guess why the film was banned in multiple cities in the early 20th century. Nudity may be normal in cinema now, but at the time, it was scandalous and controversial.
3. Birth Control (1917)
Similarly scandalous and controversial was the documentary Birth Control, which showed activist Margaret Sanger’s work in promoting and researching the eponymous practice. It was banned by Commissioner Bell, who threatened to pull the license of any venue that played it.
4. Häxan (1922)
Swedish film Häxan combines documentary and narrative to educate audiences on witches and witchcraft from the medieval period. Unsurprisingly, many censors worldwide, including in the U.S., found the film’s subject matter dangerous and banned the film. The scenes of nudity and torture didn’t help either.
5. The Road to Ruin (1928)
The Road to Ruin might seem like a censor’s favorite kind of film, with its story about a young woman whose life is destroyed by adult relations, drugs, and abortion. But while the movie warns against the dangers of such behavior, it still portrays it, leading some cities in the U.S. to ban the film.
6. Party Girl (1930)
Not to be confused with the Parker Posey movie of the same name, Party Girl (1930) is based on the novel Dangerous Business by Edwin Balmer and tells the story of a young woman who becomes a “party girl,” a nicer name for an escort. The film was banned in several cities for its empathetic and frank depiction of the eponymous party girl.
7. Scarface (1932)
While the Al Pacino-starring remake is better known now, the first film adaptation of the novel Scarface by Armitage Trail made quite a splash in its day. The film was very popular with audiences and critics, but censors across the United States felt it glorified crime and banned it from their cities.
8. Ecstasy (1933)
An early adult film, Ecstasy tells the story of a young woman who discovers passion with a young man after a disappointing marriage to an older man. The film includes nudity and adult scenes, which focus only on the characters’ faces, which was scandalous enough to get it banned from playing in the U.S. for years.
9. G Men (1935)
Censors in Chicago barred G Men from playing in the city in 1935 despite its pro-cop story of the eponymous agents who work to bring down gangsters because they felt it might make child viewers “too excited.” Yet they also admitted that the film “teaches a good moral.” Censors don’t always make the most sense.
10. The Birth of a Baby (1938)
The Birth of a Baby features actual footage of, well, the birth of a baby. While there’s no moral argument against the topic of birth, a court in New York state judged that images of childbirth were “indecent when presented to patrons of public entertainment.”
11. Strange Cargo (1940)
Strange Cargo, a movie about penal colony escapees and the woman who falls in with them, includes both adult scenes and violence. But, it was the disrespectful treatment of the Bible and a character’s unorthodox relationship with God that caused the film to be banned in multiple major U.S. cities.
12. Two-Faced Woman (1941)
Two-Faced Woman sees a woman pretend to be her (nonexistent) twin sister to get her husband back from another woman. It’s a comedy with quick-witted banter and a happy ending, which led some censors to deem the film’s treatment of adultery too permissive and ban it.
13. Brewster’s Millions (1945)
Lloyd T. Binford was chairman of the Memphis Board of Motion Picture Censors for decades and banned many films for many reasons. But chief among them was his discomfort with films portraying relationships between characters of different races as too friendly. That’s what got Brewster’s Millions, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by George Barr McCutcheon about a man who must spend a million dollars or lose a larger inheritance, banned in Memphis. According to Binford, the Black servant character in the film had “too familiar a way about him” with White characters, which was bad for “public welfare.”
14. The Southerner (1945)
Based on the award-winning novel Hold Autumn in Your Hand by George Sessions Perry and directed by celebrated filmmaker Jean Renoir, The Southerner tells the story of Sam Tucker and his family, who overcomes a series of obstacles to establish their farm in Texas. In theory, it’s a beautiful story of Southern resilience and determination. But Lloyd T. Binford found the film offensive to Southern farmers and banned it.
15. Scarlet Street (1945)
Renoir wasn’t the only great filmmaker to run into issues with censors. Fritz Lang’s Scarlet Street, based on the novel La Chienne by Georges de La Fouchardière, tells the story of criminals who scheme to steal a painter’s artwork. The film was banned in many places across the U.S., including Atlanta, where censor Christina Smith said it “would tend to weaken a respect for the law.”
16. Duel in the Sun (1946)
Lloyd T. Binford didn’t only have an issue with Black characters being too friendly with White characters. He also banned Duel in the Sun, which sees its central half-Mexican character develop romances with two White brothers.
17. Curley (1947)
Another Binford victim, Curley runs just fifty-three minutes and centers on children playing pranks on their teacher. It’s lighthearted, kid-friendly stuff, but Binford found the film “inimical to the morals and welfare of our city” because White and Black children played together.
18. Bicycle Thieves (1948)
Bicycle Thieves is widely regarded as a great film. But quality didn’t stop the Motion Pictures Association of America from banning the movie from playing in the United States for two reasons. The first, a scene in a brothel, makes some sense. But the second, a kid peeing, is laughable.
19. Lost Boundaries (1949)
A film in which White actors play Black characters who pretend to be White people sounds like satire, but that’s precisely what Lost Boundaries is. The film, based on the non-fiction book of the same name by William Lindsay White, tells the story of a White-passing Black family who live as White. Again, Lloyd T. Binford banned the film, which he saw as “inimical to the public welfare.”
20. Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950)
A tough-as-nails noir with a cruel career criminal lead character, Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye was considered “a sordid, sadistic presentation of brutality and an extreme presentation of crime with explicit steps in commission” by Ohio censors.
21. The Vanishing Prairie (1954)
While many Disney animated movies have become classics over time, this nature documentary from the studio, which sought to show the American prairie as it was before human settlers arrived, has been all but forgotten. It’s likely best remembered because it was banned for including a buffalo birth.
22. Baby Doll (1956)
Based on two one-act plays by Tennessee Williams, Baby Doll tells the story of two economically competing cotton gin owners and the eponymous and attractive young woman (Carroll Baker) stuck between them. The film was controversial before anyone even saw it for a poster that shows Baker in a crib (where she sleeps in the movie) and sucking her thumb. It was banned in multiple cities, including Nashville, where it was deemed “detrimental to morals.”
23. Victim (1961)
The British film Victim tells the story of a gay lawyer investigating the people who attempt to blackmail him. But it wasn’t the film’s empathetic treatment of its protagonist that got it banned in the U.S., at least not officially. It was simply that the word “homosexual” is said in the film.
24. Promises! Promises! (1963)
While this movie’s genre may not be the most well-respected film category, there’s no denying that Promises! Promises! made an impact on changing censorship in the U.S. The film was the first since the silent era to show a mainstream star naked, showing diminishing respect for the censors. Of course, the censors couldn’t have that and banned it in several cities nationwide.
25. Titicut Follies (1967)
Frederick Wiseman is one of the most celebrated documentarians of all time, and he began his career with this look inside a hospital for the criminally insane in Massachusetts. The state banned the film and sought to ban it elsewhere, arguing that it violated the inmates’ privacy, but more likely because it showed the horrible conditions of the hospital.
26. Pink Flamingos (1972)
Pink Flamingos is explicitly about pushing the boundaries of taste as it centers on characters competing to be “the filthiest person alive.” So it’s unsurprising that many towns found the film, which includes a finale during which star Divine eats dog feces, in such bad taste that they banned it.
27. Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979)
It’s easy to see why so many conservative Christians took issue with Monty Python’s Life of Brian, which tells the story of a man regularly confused for Jesus throughout his life in Roman-occupied Palestine. It’s a broad and silly comedy with some sharp satire, which was too much for many, leading many towns across the U.S. to ban the film.
28. Cannibal Holocaust (1980)
One of the most infamous horror films ever made because of the actual violence against animals caught on film, Cannibal Holocaust was banned in many countries, including the United States. It’s another film that, in theory, has a decent message as it centers on Americans exploiting indigenous tribes in the Amazon rainforest for entertainment. But is so incredibly violent and horrific that the message gets lost in its viscera.
29. Return to Oz (1985)
The Vanishing Prairie wasn’t the only Disney movie banned in some places in the United States. Return to Oz, a dark fantasy sequel to The Wizard of Oz that sees Dorothy (Fairuza Balk) return and save Oz from a villainous king, was briefly banned in Ingham County, Michigan, where a local library that exhibited movies refused to show the film because of its scandalous PG rating.
30. The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
Like the novel of the same name by Nikos Kazantzakis from which it’s adapted, Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ was the center of much controversy upon release because it showed Jesus tempted by various things. The film was briefly banned in Savannah, Georgia, because of its alleged sacrilegious treatment of Christ.
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