17 "Shocking" Movies That Were Literally Banned In Countries For Good, Bad, Or Just Stupid Reasons
1.Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) was banned in the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Lebanon for featuring a single animated frame with a trans flag on it.
The trans flag appears VERY briefly in Gwen Stacy's bedroom, and it reads "protect trans kids." Unfortunately, there are extra strict guidelines for films in some countries — especially for movies with kids as the target audience — which need to abide by "local customs and values."
2.Barbie (2023) was banned in Vietnam because there's a scene that features a map with the "nine-dash line" (a controversial divider used by China to represent its territorial claims in the South China Sea) on it.
3.Several countries disagree with China's territorial claims, so this isn't the first time a depiction of the nine-dash line has led to a movie being banned. For example, in 2019, the animated film Abominable was banned in Vietnam, and the Philippines' government also called for a boycott of the film.
4.Lightyear (2022) was banned in several OIC (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) member states — including Egypt, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia — because of a brief same-sex kiss between two characters.
Disney originally cut the scene entirely because of this backlash, but it was ultimately added back in after a group of Pixar employees spoke out in opposition via an open letter to Disney. Alternate versions of the scene were then released in certain countries, like in Russia where the word "girlfriend" was changed to "partner."
Here's a snippet from the open letter to Disney, which you can read in full here: "We at Pixar have personally witnessed beautiful stories, full of diverse characters, come back from Disney corporate reviews shaved down to crumbs of what they once were. Nearly every moment of overtly gay affection is cut at Disney’s behest, regardless of when there is protest from both the creative teams and executive leadership at Pixar. Even if creating LGBTQIA+ content was the answer to fixing the discriminatory legislation in the world, we are being barred from creating it."
5.Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979) was banned in several different towns across the United States because of its "controversial themes about Christianity."
This movie was actually banned in several countries. For example, Ireland banned it from 1979–1987, and Norway banned it for a full year until 1980. The studio even used these bans as a way to promote the film. In Sweden, they added the tagline "the film so funny that it got banned in Norway."
6.Eternals (2021) was banned in Saudi Arabia and Oman because Marvel's first openly gay superhero, Phastos, had a husband in the movie and shared a kiss with him.
It was also banned in Kuwait and Qatar, but most likely because those markets "have historically had a problem with the depiction of gods and prophets, something they consider blasphemous."
7.Fifty Shades of Grey (2015) was banned all over — like in Kenya, Papua New Guinea, Zimbabwe, and the United Arab Emirates — for featuring strong sexual content.
The United Arab Emirates' National Media Council actually proposed that a shortened version of the film could be released, but the studio would have had to cut 35 minutes of "inappropriate scenes" to make it happen, so they instead just pulled the movie entirely.
8.Borat (2006) was banned in Russia — among several other countries — for potentially being offensive to certain peoples' "religious or national sensibilities."
Here's the exact reasoning and quote as to why, according to Yuri Vasyuchkov, the head of the film and licensing department for Russia: "We decided not to grant this film a cinema license because there are moments in the film which could offend some viewers' religious or national sensibilities."
9.The Da Vinci Code (2006) was banned in a bunchhh of countries — including Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon — because of "blasphemous content."
For example, the movie was banned in Jordan because it "tarnishes the memory of Christian and Islamic figures and contradicts the truth as written in the Bible and the Koran about Jesus."
10.Wonder Woman (2017) was banned in Tunisia and Lebanon because Gal Gadot, the film's Israeli-born star, served a mandatory two-year service on the Israel Defense Forces.
Lebanon has an Anti-Israel Boycott law, but apparently, it's "inconsistently enforced." This is why other Gal Gadot movies have aired there without being banned, like Fast & Furious 6 and Knight and Day.
11.The Human Centipede 2 (2011) was temporarily banned in Australia because of its "level of depictions of violence."
Australia has an RC ("refused classification") category for things like movies and video games. Basically, anything with this rating cannot be "sold, hired, advertised, or legally imported in Australia." The Human Centipede 2 originally got an RC rating because it contained "gratuitous, exploitative, or offensive depictions of violence with a very high degree of impact and cruelty." It was later resubmitted for a new rating.
12.Onward (2020) was banned in several countries in the Middle East because the movie depicted Disney's "first" openly gay character.
The movie was also censored in Russia by replacing the word "girlfriend" with "partner," and other versions simply edited around mentioning the queer character's gender entirely.
Justice for Globby!
13.The Phantom of the Opera (1925) was banned in the United Kingdom for a few different reasons, most famously because it was "too horrifying" for general audiences.
Carl Laemmle, one of the uncredited producers of The Phantom of the Opera, tried to dispute this ban back in 1926, but the Cinematograph Exhibitors' Association wouldn't budge.
This almost-100-year-old article from the New York Times about the banning is so fascinating.
14.The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) was banned in certain countries all across Europe, including in Finland from 1974–1996, for its graphic violence.
The movie was initially released in the UK and ran for a full year in London, but it was then banned for 25 years. The British Board of Film Classification even banned the word "chainsaw" from appearing in movie titles during that time.
Tobe Hopper, the movie's director, disagreed with the ban, asserting that there's "relatively little blood" in the actual film. He went into detail about one scene in particular, when the character Pam is hanged on a meat hook, saying, "You don’t see penetration. You don’t see blood splatter. There is the shot when she’s holding onto the hook and the camera pans down her body, and she’s over this washtub. There’s no blood running from her body into the tub, but you know what the tub is for. And a lot of people swear that they saw blood, because they know what it’s for. And the washtub comes out again later, so as not to ruin the carpet when they’re in the dinner scene."
15.Natural Born Killers (1994) was banned in Ireland because they were concerned about copycat killers being inspired by the movie.
Ireland's censorship board originally didn't give a reason as to why it was banned. Furthermore, the release of the film in the UK was delayed until the following year because the British Board of Film Classification was unsure if they should give it a rating.
Oliver Stone, the movie's director, defended the film against being banned by saying it was a "satire on how the news media can turn serial killers into celebrities."
16.Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) was banned in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, and Egypt because it features a lesbian character.
Xochitl Gomez plays America Chavez in the sequel. This character is gay in both the film and the Marvel comics, but unfortunately, it's super common for queer characters to be banned or edited out of movies in the Persian Gulf.
17.And finally, every single movie from the Marx Brothers was banned in Germany because they were Jewish.
The Marx Brothers made over a dozen films together throughout the '20s–'40s, and even though their mother, Miene Schönberg, was born in Dornum (a village in Germany), their films were still banned in the country.
Ireland also banned their film Monkey Business (1931) for nearly 70 years until the year 2000, in fear that it'd "provoke the Irish to anarchy." More famously, Duck Soup (1933) was banned in Italy for over a decade by Benito Mussolini because the movie mocked dictators, and he "regarded it as a personal insult."
