Because 2025 is still a year where movies are banned and filmmakers persecuted to voice their opinions, it felt like a must-do to list some of the most iconic films that made the history of censorship and controversy in cinema. Whether it’s political, religious, blasphemy, or just too depraved, many countries and governments have found ways to censor filmmakers and sometimes draw even more attention to their art. From Malaysia, through Europe, and to Iran here is a list of 16 movies banned in their home countries.
L’Âge D’Or (The Golden Age or Age of Gold) – Luis Buñuel – 1930 🇫🇷
Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali portray how society cages lust in a surrealist satire. An attack on religion, the Bourgeois society, and peer pressure that are constantly getting in the way of a man and a woman desperately trying to consume their passion.
Even though the movie premiered in Paris and was well received, the French right-wing Ligues des Patriotes interrupted the following screenings and the Prefect of Police of Paris banned the movie. For 50 years.
Z – Costas Gavras – 1968 🇬🇷
A political thriller that shines light on corruption and dark political crimes. The murder of a prominent and progressive politician is covered up by the government and military. A tenacious magistrate is determined to not let them get away with it and fight the high classes that obstruct judicial investigation.
Even though the movie is a loose adaptation of Vassilikos’ novel (based on true events), when it came out, the very non-fictive military juta still ruled Greece, so it was banned for several years. The film’s title Z is a reference to Zei, a slogan that means He lives, which led to the ban of the letter Z by the juta. Naming the movie was already a protest, but later watching the movie was also a way to express opposition.
Z is still considered one of the best, if not the best, political thriller with an impressive worldwide success and two Oscars in 1970.
Monty Python’s Life of Brian – Terry Jones – 1979 🇬🇧
A dark comedy about the life of Brian Cohen born the same day and next door to Jesus, and was mistaken for the Messiah. If the film has been judged as a religious and blasphemous satire it wasn’t the Pythons’ approach who targeted different groups without being too specific. The Christian community reacted strongly to the release and it was banned in Ireland and Norway right away, and later in England local councils would ban it as well.
This censorship campaign confirmed the famous quote “there’s not such thing as bad publicity“, as the protest, ban, and opposition did skyrocket the movie to a box office hit.
Cannibal Holocaust – Ruggero Deodato – 1980 🇺🇸
Named the most controversial movie in the history of Cinema, Cannibal Holocaust is an extremely gore and realistic Horror Movie following journalists so desperate to film Amazon tribes they enter the unexplored the jungle and disappear. Later a rescue mission starts to recover the truth and the records of the documentary.
Director Deodato was arrested and charged for obscenity after the movie’s premiere, and the rumours around the movie were followed by a trial for murder. Seen as a shock movie, the provocation and violence both on set and during the marketing made the film a show in itself, where the line in between true from false was hard to catch. The movie was banned from several countries, including the USA. The Grindhouse release is the one and only uncensored and uncut version.
Crash – David Cronenberg – 1996 🇬🇧
Too obscene, too disturbing, just like the original novel it’s adapted from, Crash is about a fetish you’ve never expected. After surviving a car accident James Ballard finds himself getting aroused by collisions, pain, and fatalities. It’s almost surreal as none of the relationships in the movie seem to have any chemistry nor passion and make it even more awkward, uncomfortable, and sickening.
The movie was banned in the UK and many other countries, and received a very controversial response from the audience starting at the Cannes festival where it won the Jury Prize.
Taste Of Cherry – Abbas Kiarostami – 1997 🇮🇷
A man drives his car desperately looking for someone to bury him under a cherry tree after he commits suicide. Taste of Cherry is one of the many Kiarostami’s movies that brought Iranian cinéma a worldwide reputation.
It did not please the religious conservative mostly because of the suicidal topic and was banned in Iran but still made it to the Cannes Festival where it won the Palm D’Or, highest prize of the festival.
The Circle – Jafar Panahi – 2000 🇮🇷
Panahi’s movie follows women facing different injustices in Iran. From abortion, and identity, to prostitution Jafar Panahi offers moving narratives about struggles and despair women endure when living, and fighting, in the oppressive and sexist Iran.
Winning the Golden Lion and 5 more awards at the Venice Film Festival in 2000, The Circle was very well received, despite being banned in Iran, its home country. A movie about women being women. A movie about women being punished for being women. A movie banned for showing women being women, women being punished for being women.
Persepolis – Marjane Satrapi – 2007 🇮🇷
This black and white animation movie retraces the suffocating life of a young Iranian girl, Marjane, in the 70s. Slowly going from a rebel teenage girl to a free woman, she struggles to find where she belongs.
Now you might start to see the pattern for Iranian movies ; Persepolis was banned in Iran but very well acclaimed in most of the rest of the world, except Lebanon and Tunisia for example where Islamist protesters were not pleased with the movie. Despite the censorship Persepolis won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Festival.
Santouri (The Music Man) – Dariush Mehrjui – 2007 🇮🇷
In this drama Mehrjui tells the story of a talented musician playing santour (an iranian instrument) and spiraling down as he becomes addicted to heroin and his life takes a darker turn.
Dariush Mehrjui wanted to draw attention to the impact and realities of drug abuse in Iran, which did not please the Islamic fundamentalists and led to the movie being banned in Iran..
Antichrist – Lars Von Trier – 2009 🇫🇷 🇩🇰🇩🇪
In this psychological horror drama, a wife and husband retreat in the woods to heal from grief which leads to some gruesome events.
The movie was banned in France, 7 years after its release when a religious Catholic traditionalist group pushed for the movie to be rated 18 instead of 16.
Wadjda – Haifaa al-Mansour – 2012 🇸🇦
Wadjda it’s a sweet but mischievous Saudi girl who’s so set to get that green bicycle that she enrolls in a Quran recitation competition. So she can win the money to buy a bicycle she’s forbidden to ride. It’s a movie about a girl who always wants to do more than what’s permitted (for little girls to do).
Wadjda, it’s also the first Saudi movie ever made, by a first time female filmmaker. The movie wasn’t literally banned in Saudi Arabia, but movie theaters were, so there was no screening at that time. The 35 year ban was lifted only in 2018.
To Singapore, With Love – Tan Pin Pin – 2013 🇸🇬
In this documentary Tan Pin Pin gives a voice to political exiles that are unable to return to their home, and hers, Singapore. The movie dives into themes such as national identity, love for your country, longing for a home that persecutes you, and … how food that helps you cope with missing your country.
Despite being only a portrayal of people and allowing them to have a voice without looking for the truth into the political events that occurred in the 70s and 80s, the movie was not well received by the Singaporean government and was banned, and still is, in Singapore.
Much Loved – Nabil Ayouch – 2015 🇲🇦
Much Loved, it’s four women, who live from priced love in Marrakech. This tale of “love for sale” portrays sorority, objects of desire, women condemned for what they are while so many don’t hesitate to take advantage of them.
The movie was banned in Morocco and followed by insults and violence toward the cast and film director.
Tiger Stripes – Amanda Nell Eu – 2023 🇲🇾
In this coming-of-age body horror movie we follow Zaffan, a young girl entering the mysterious and gore phase of puberty. As she’s the first to go through this dark side of adolescence she’s being ostracised by her friends and society.
Amanda Nell Eu’s first movie has won the prize for best feature at the Cannes Festival. But it’s also been highly censored in Malaysia. The only way for the movie to not be fully banned was to be screened with specific scenes cut such as blood on a sanitary pad, a girl trying on a bra on top of her clothes, and Zaffan dancing in the river with her hair out.
Read my review of Tiger Stripes.
My Favorite Cake – Maryam Moghadam & Behtash Sanaeeha- 2024 🇮🇷
Solitary seventy-year-old Mahin decides to revive her love life despite living in a society that expects widows to stay alone after their husband’s death. A sweet tale on widowhood, women outliving their husband, on old age and loneliness, on love and loss.
Here again, no violence, no nudity, no profanity, but women showing their hair, not wearing hijab. This is what pushed the Iranian government to ban the movie. Offices were raided, computers, hard drives, and passeports were confiscated. Moghadam and Sanaeeha were forbidden to leave the country and attend the premier of the movie at the Berlin Festival. The filmmakers and cast were put on trial in February 2025 and charged with propaganda against the government, vulgarity, and spreading prostitution and libertinism.
The Seed Of The Sacred Fig – Mohammad Rasoulof – 2024 🇮🇷
Iman, patriarch of the family, is given the role of investigating judge for the Islamic government and expected to blindly permit executions and other major sentences and penalties. He is also given a gun from the government but it suddenly goes missing and Iman starts to panic and becomes paranoid, toward his wife and daughters.
In 2022 Rasoulof was forbidden to leave the country for 2 years after being arrested for voicing his opinion on the Iranian government. Later they tried to stop him from releasing The Seed of The Sacred Fig and threatened to hold him for even longer if he didn’t pull the movie from the Cannes Festival. Despite being harassed by the government Rasoulof still submitted the film to the Festival and was sentenced to 8 years of prison, flogging, and seizing of his property. Eventually Rasoulof escaped Iran, unable to come back to his home country, Iran, where his movie is banned and won’t be released anytime soon.
Black Box Diaries – Ito Shiori – 2025 🇯🇵
In this Oscar-nominated documentary Ito Shiori, survivor of a sexual assault by Yamaguchi, a well-connected and prominent journalist, chronicles her ordeal, its aftermath, and her battle for justice.
Despite the fact that no court ruling or official censorship law is banning the documentary, there has not been any screening in Japan yet. “The real reason it hasn’t been screened is the same reason Shiori’s case was buried for so long: media self-censorship and fear of retaliation from powerful political and media elites,” says Jake Adelstein.
Voilà!
These movies are historical fragments that offer a bigger picture on censorship campaigns, how audiences react to controversial content, and how filmmakers voice their opinion in a non-permissive environment.
Western censorship mainly obsesses about violence, nudity, which makes us question how adults are allowed to consume content. While censorship, in Iran for example, goes as far as banning films that don’t show any profanity nor violence or nudity, but just human beings imprisoned in a society.
Most of the characters portrayed in the movies are driven by the same need of freedom. The same freedom taken away from the film makers.
Share with us more movies that were banned from their own countries and that we should definitely add to our watch list.