Controversial Movies of Last Century

So it was my boyfriend’s birthday. He is a medical doctor but the type that doesn’t like hospitals (yes, you go and figure out). He is in love with cinema and movies and he is pursuing his passion professionally beside his academically achieved background to save lives. He writes movie critique pieces as a freelance. And I have to admit he is good.

It is his first birthday present since we met and me, as a person who is a perfectionist, want to impress. Putting my thoughts together I dwelled on an idea given by a good friend (David Grammig) to gather a list of movies that I think is important in last hundred years and gift it with my own notes to my cinema lover boyfriend.

At first it seemed an easy task. I had to choose few criteria to create the list and immediately decided movies that were banned or have been provocative can give a good edge to the gift set.

Once I started to put together a list, I thought it should also be preferably movies that he didn’t watch or at least watched long before and at that time it became a harder task to shorten the list from around twenty selection.

Controversial movies in the last century

• In the Realm of Senses (Japan 1976) Censored in Japan and banned in USA
• The Idiots (Denmark 1998) Controversy over sex scenes
• Baby Doll (USA 1956) Condemned by Cardinal in NYC from St. Patrick’s Cathedral
• The Kiss (USA 1896) Only 18 sec long – first film kiss ever
• The Life of Brian (UK 1979)
• It’s not the homosexual who is perverse, but the society in which he lives (Germany 1971)
• Triggered modern German and Swiss gay movement. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicht_der_Homosexuelle_ist_pervers,_sondern_die_Situation,_in_der_er_lebt
• Un Chien Andalou (France 1929) Film by Spanish director Luis Bunuel and artist Salvador Dali
• Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (Italy/France, 1975) Based on the book with the same name from 1785, banned I several countries for decades
• O.K. (Germany 1970) Anti-Vietnam war film – caused so much controversy that the Berlin International Film Festival jury stepped down without announcing a winner

• Shortbus (USA 2006) A provocative and open movie about orgasm issues of a sex therapist