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25 most controversial movies of all time

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY'S THE 25 MOST CONTROVERSIAL MOVIES OF ALL TIME

01: THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
2004 / Directed by Mel Gibson
The Plot: You know that part in the Bible where Jesus gets betrayed, tortured, and crucified? That's it. That's all of it.
The Controversy: Gibson's intention - born of his deep Catholic faith - was to produce an unflinching depiction of Christ's suffering on behalf of mankind. What succeeded at best, however, was lighting a culture-war firestorm unrivaled in Hollywood history. For months prior to its release, The Passion was both denounced and defended sight unseen amid reports that the film wasn't just brutal, but compromised by dubious biblical interpretation and anti-Semitic sentiment. Gibson refused to let concerned parties view and vet his self-financed film, even as he was giving Passion previews to Christians as part of an unprecedented church-targeting promo push. Ultimately, movegoers pretty much got the experience they were epxecting, while Gibson got a $370 million gross - plus a provocative new reputation.

02: A CLOCKWORK ORANGE
1971 / Directed by Stanley Kubrick
The Plot: Teen trouble-maker/gang rapist Alex (Malcolm McDowell) gets brainwashed by a futuristic English government so that he becomes deathly ill every time he encounters violence.
The Controversy: You mean besides its irreverent use of Gene Kelly's "Singin' in the Rain"? That the movie first landed an X rating and was deemed pornographic across the US was nothing compared with its reception in the UK: Social uproar and reports of copycat crimes led Kubrick to withdraw Clockwork from distribution in his adopted country. It wasn't officially availble there again - in theaters or on video - until 2000, a year after his death.

03: FAHRENHEIT 9/11
2004 / Directed by Michael Moore
The Plot: Dubya's multitude of (alleged) sins, including the alliance between the Bush clan and Saudi Arabia and botched chances to prevent 9/11.
The Controversy: The documentary lit the fuse of right-wing America, detonating protests and hate campaigns to ban it (no dice). Moore was the first to break the post-9/11 moratorium on Bush bashing and set off a season of brutal smackdowns among the Bill O'Reillys and Keith Olbermanns of the world.

04: DEEP THROAT
1972 / Directed by Gerard Damiano
The Plot: Distraught over her inability to enjoy sex, a young woman (Linda Lovelace) goes to a doctor (Harry Reems), who tells her the condition can only be treated, um, orally.
The Controversy: Intellectuals championed the film for striking a blow for First Amendment rights, while conservative leaders got it banned in many places and put Reems on trial for obscenity charges. Lovelace herself later denounced the film, claiming that while filming "there was a gun to my head."

05: JFK
1991 / Directed by Oliver Stone
The Plot: The true story of how New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) investigated conspiracy theories about President Kennedy's assassination.
The Controversy: Some saw Stone's documentary-on-steroids-like interpretation of those theories as lending them a certain patina of truth - raising fears that moviegoers would construe it as bona fide history. One reseult: a 1992 congressional act to release classified documents (which revealed nothing).

06: THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST
1988 / Directed by Martin Scorcese
The Plot: Jesus (Willem Dafoe) pursues his calling but, in a Satan-induced hallucination, dreams of a normal life that includes sex with Mary Magdelene.
The Controversy: Religious fundamentalists picketed and threatened boycotts weeks before its release. One group offered to buy the $6.5 million film from Universal to destory it; some theatres, and later Blockbuster, refused to carry it. Oh, and the French rioted.

07: THE BIRTH OF A NATION
1915 / Directed by D.W. Griffith
The Plot: Griffith's epic follows the travails of two families during the Civil War and Reconstruction.
The Controversy: The film's depiction of African Americans as childlike, conniving, or rabid sex fiends, and the Ku Klux Klan as heroic saviors, sparked nation-wide protests by the nascent NAACP. (It also became a KKK recruiting tool.) Censorship debates and protests have dogged the film in subsequent rereleases and when it was added to the National Film Registry in 1993.

08: NATURAL BORN KILLERS
1994 / Directed by Oliver Stone
The Plot: Homicidal lovers (Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis) cut a blood-soaked swath through America.
The Controversy: Though intended as a satire on the media, the film actually inspired several copycat killers to seek their own 15 minutes of fame, some even using imagery and dialogue from the film. Over 12 murders in the US and abroad have been linked to Killers. One victim's family tried to sue Stone and Warner Bros.

09: LAST TANGO IN PARIS
1972 / Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
The Plot: A disaffected American (Marlon Brando) travels to Paris, where he throws himself into an affair with a young Frenchwoman (Maria Schneider).
The Controversy: Critics and audiences were sharply divided over this X-rated erotic psychodrama. The film's stark (as in naked) depiction of loveless, animalistic carnality horrified some - and landed its director and stars in an Italian court on obscenity charges.

10: BABY DOLL
1956 / Directed by Elia Kazan
The Plot: A Mississippi cotton-gin owner (Eli Wallach) humiliates a competitor (Karl Malden) by attempting to seduce the man's still-virgin wife (Carroll Baker).
The Controversy: Written by Tennessee Williams, the film struck Catholic leaders as lewd. (A similar flap greeted 1943's The Outlaw over Jane Russell's bust.) New York's Cardinal Spellman forbade the faithful to see it "under pain of sin". Some theatres pulled it, but it eventually earned four Oscar nominations.

11: THE MESSAGE
1977 / Directed by Moustapha Akkad
The Plot: Anthony Quinn plays Mohammed's uncle in an epic telling of Islam's origins.
The Controversy: The movie rankled Muslims and sparked riots, and that was just during production. Post-release, in March 1977, Hanafi terrorists took more than 100 people hostage in Washington D.C. - killing a reporter and shooting the city's future mayor Marion Barry in the two-day siege - demanding in part that The Message be banned. (It wasn't.) In a cruelly ironic coda, the Syrian-born Akkad died amid al-Qaeda's coordinated hotel bombings last fall in Amman, Jordan.

12: THE DEER HUNTER
1978 / Directed by Michael Cimino
The Plot: The Vietnam War shatters the lives of three Pennsylvania steel-mill workers.
The Controversy: By the time it won the Best Picture Oscar, Deer Hunter had ignited major debate over it's shocking POW-camp scenes, in which American soldiers are forced to play Russian roulette. War historians argued there was no record of such atrocities, and others called the Vietcong depiction racist. Cimino called the criticisms "beside the point."

13: THE DA VINCI CODE
2006 / Directed by Ron Howard
The Plot: A professor (Tom Hanks) unearths a 2000-year-old conspiracy to cover up the marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdelene.
The Controversy: It iddn't end up drawing mass pickets or boycotts, but there was much debate while the film was being made. Westminster Abbey wouldn't allow Howard to shoot inside its halls, and some 200 protestors mobbed the set in Lincolnshinre, England (although Howard says most were merely "trying to get autographs").

14: THE WARRIORS
1979 / Directed by Walter Hill
The Plot: Members of a street gang battle their way through a New York City populated by rival gangs ("Warriors, come out to plaaay!")
The Controversy: Hill's lurid nightmare of urban warfare was widely condemned for glorifying violence. Reports of criminal incidents where the film was shown - including a stabbing of a teenager in Massachusetts - fueled the outrage, forcing Paramount to temporarily pull its print and TV advertising for the film.

15: TRIUMPH OF THE WILL
1935 / Directed by Leni Riefenstahl
The Plot: Riefenstahl's notorious documentary of the 1934 Nazi rally at Nuremburg elevates propaganda to seductive Wagnerian grandeur.
The Controversy: While intellectuals still ponder the ethics of admiring so malevalent a masterpiece, others have had more visceral reactions. In the early '40s, director George Stevens was so disturbed by the film that he joined the army the next day. Protests greeted Riefenstahl (who never shook her Nazi-tainted past) at a 1974 Telluride Film Festival tribute, and the Anti-Defamation League decried a 1975 screening in Atlanta as "morally insensitive."

16: UNITED 93
2006 / Directed by Paul Greengrass
The Plot: An ultra-verite re-creation of the tragic heroism surrounding - and inside - the only hijacked 9/11 flight not to reach its target.
The Controversy: Greengrass' virtually-there experience may have been a little too close for comfort for some moviegoers. Even the trailer's suggestion of the movie's content prompted audiences to shout "Too soon!". One New York City theater pulled the footage from its preview reel after many viewers (one left sobbing) complained.

17: FREAKS
1932 / Directed by Tod Browning
The Plot: For his still-creepy circus noir about a midget who's conned by a greedy temptress, Browning used real sideshow performers.
The Controversy: Audiences fled preview screenings in droves. (One patron claimed the film caused her to miscarry.) Even with a castration scene cut, the National Association of Women found the film "offensive" and urged boycotts. It was banned in Atlanta and pulled from distribution; it was forbidden in the UK until the early '60s.

18: I AM CURIOUS (YELLOW)
1969 / Directed by Vilgot Sjoman
The Plot: Freewheeling Lena experiences the swinging '60s: protesting Vietnam, questioning the class system, and exploring carnal desires.
The Controversy: Before the 1967 Swedish film could open in the US, it was seized by customs officials concerned that scenes containing full frontal nudity and simulated sex acts were pornographic. The courts initially deemed the movie obscene, but the verdict was overturned.

19: BASIC INSTINCT
1992 / Directed by Paul Verhoeven
The Plot: A trigger-happy detective (Michael Douglas) falls for a bisexual author (Sharon Stone) who's suspected of murdering her male lover with an ice pick.
The Controversy: Gay-rights activists objected to the portrayal of man-hating lesbians before a frame of film was shot and protested through the film's opening. Then there was the film's eye-popping sex, including Sharon Stone's notorious leg-crossing, which contributed to Basic's initial NC-17 rating.

20: CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST
1985 / Directed by Ruggero Deodato
The Plot: This nauseatingly graphic Italian prototype for The Blair Witch Project follows four documentarians filming cannibal tribes in the Amazon. They become lunch.
The Controversy: After it's 1980 Milan premiere, the film's print was confiscated by the city's magistrate. Later, Deodato faced life in prison when Italian authorities believed the stars of the film were actually killed. The actors finally appeared on TV to prove otherwise.

21: BONNIE AND CLYDE
1967 / Directed by Arthur Penn
The Plot: Faye Dunaway is Bonnie, a bored Texas girl looking for danger. Warren Beatty is Clyde, a pistol-packing ex-con. They fall in love and kick off an infamous Depression-era crime spree.
The Controversy: Two years before Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, Penn's bloody, slo-mo bullet-riddled finale, where the young lovers bite the dust, sparked an outcry - even tough-guy actor James Garner, no stranger to shoot-outs, called it "amoral."

22: DO THE RIGHT THING
1989 / Directed by Spike Lee
The Plot: Racial tensions in a Brooklyn neighborhood escalate from amusing to tragic during the course of a single scorching summer day.
The Controversy: While the film was seen by some as a masterpiece (and earned Lee a Best Original Screenplay Oscar nom), others blasted the director as irresponsible, predicting that the film's shocking climax - in which Mookie (Lee) hurls a trashcan through a storefront window, inciting a riot - would evoke similar reactions from urban moviegoers. Thankfully, the film proved to be more of a catalyst for heated debate than a flash point for actual violence.

23: KIDS
1995 / Directed by Larry Clark
The Plot: A group of teens (played by, among others, Rosario Dawson and Chloe Sevigny) prowl the streets of NYC in search of sex, booze, drugs, and other high-risk kicks.
The Controversy: Clark's disturbing vision of promiscuous, borderline-sociopathic teens was heralded by some as a much-needed wake-up call about the nation's youth. Others saw prurient exploitation. As a buffer against the furor, Miramax created a new entity, Excalibur Films, to release the pic.

24: CALIGULA
1980 / Directed by Tinto Brass
The Plot: This lavishly decadent film depicts the orgy-filled life and death of ancient Rome's most notorious - and clearly psychotic - emperor (Malcolm McDowell).
The Controversy: Described as a "moral holocaust" by Variety, the film was given a very limited theatrical release for fear of prosecution on obscenity grounds.

25: ALADDIN
1992 / Directed by Ron Clements and John Musker
The Plot: You know: the genie-in-the-lamp tale.
The Controversy: The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee balked at a lyric describing the film's Arabian setting as a land "where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face." Result? The studio dubbed out the lyric for subsequent releases.

Source: My Entertainment Weekly magazine (this was typed up by me!); picture is from Yahoo! Movies