List of banned films

For nearly the entire history of film production, certain films have been banned by film censorship or review organizations for political or moral reasons or for controversial content, such as racism, copyright violation, and underage immorality. Censorship standards vary widely by country, and can vary within an individual country over time due to political or moral change.
Many countries have government-appointed or private commissions to censor and rate productions for film and television exhibition. While it is common for films to be edited to fall into certain rating classifications, this list includes only films that have been explicitly prohibited from public screening. In some countries, films are banned on a wide scale; these are not listed in this table.

Argentina

Australia

Date	Title	Notes
1972	Pink Flamingos	Banned on its initial release until the 1980s due to offensive content.
1975–1992	Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom	Banned on its initial release, but lifted after seventeen years.
1976–2000	In the Realm of the Senses	Banned because of obscenity, though a censored version was made available in 1977. Only in 2000 did it finally become available in its complete cut.
2003	Ken Park	Banned and refused classification in 2003 for graphic depictions of teenage sex, incest, and auto-erotic asphyxiation.
2011	The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence)	Temporarily banned for cruel, disturbing, and sexually explicit content. A censored DVD version was later released on 23 February 2012.

Bangladesh

Cambodia

Commonwealth of Independent States

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Egypt

Date	Title	Notes
1953	The Desert Rats	Possibly because the government did not want to remind its people that it was the Eighth Army which defended Egypt.
1959	Ben-Hur	Banned from all Arab League states because actress Haya Harareet was Israeli.
1960	Exodus	Banned due to actor Paul Newman's "material support for Zionism and Israel".
1968	Funny Girl	Banned because the Egyptian Muslim lead is portrayed in a romantic storyline with Jewish actress Barbra Streisand. Streisand's political support for Israel at the height of military tensions between Egypt and Israel was also a factor.
1994	The Emigrant	This film, which is loosely based on the story of the Biblical character Joseph, raised several protests, since Islam forbids the visual depiction of religious figures. After achieving all necessary approvals from the censors, the film ran successfully in Egyptian cinema until a lawsuit initiated by a fundamentalist Islamist lawyer caused a temporary ban. After a year-long court battle, the director Youssef Chahine won the case, only to face a second ban resulting from a lawsuit initiated by a Christian lawyer who objected to the movie's deviations from the Biblical account.
1998	The Prince of Egypt	Banned for religious reasons.
2003	The Matrix Reloaded	Banned due to violent content and its religious themes.
2003–2007	Bruce Almighty	It was banned for imaging God as an ordinary man and is deemed blasphemous to Islam. The ban was lifted four years later.
2006	Borat	Banned in every Arab League country except Lebanon.
2006	The Da Vinci Code	Banned because of blasphemous content.
2014	Halawet Rooh	Banned right after screening the film in cinemas, after criticism over scenes deemed sexually provocative. The movie was criticized for copying Giuseppe Tornatore's movie Malèna starring Italian actress Monica Bellucci.
2014	Exodus: Gods and Kings	Banned for historical inaccuracies and showing history from a Zionist viewpoint.
2022	Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness	Banned because it includes America Chavez, a lesbian character.
2022	Lightyear	Banned because of a same-sex kiss.
2022	Thor: Love and Thunder	Banned due to LGBT representation.
2023	Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse	Banned due to it containing frames which feature a transgender flag on which the phrase "Protect Trans Kids" is displayed.

Germany

Hungary

Iran

Italy

Kenya

Lebanon

Date	Title	Notes
1959	Ben-Hur	Banned from all Arab League states because actress Haya Harareet was Israeli.
1993	Schindler's List	Banned for political reasons.
2006	The Da Vinci Code	Banned because of blasphemous content.
2008–2008	Persepolis	Banned initially after some clerics found it to be "offensive to Iran and Islam." The ban was later revoked after an outcry in Lebanese intellectual and political circles.
2008	Waltz with Bashir	The film is banned in Lebanon, with the most harsh critics saying the film depicts a vague and violent time in Lebanon's history. A movement of bloggers, among them the Lebanese Inner Circle, +961 and others have rebelled against the Lebanese government's ban of the film, and have managed to get the film seen by local Lebanese critics, in defiance of their government's request on banning it. The film was privately screened in January 2009 in Beirut in front of 90 people. Since then, many screenings have taken place. Unofficial copies are also available in the country.
2010	Chou sar?	The General Security Department did not state the reason behind banning the documentary, which covered the Lebanese Civil War.
2011	Beirut Hotel	Banned for political reasons.
2011	Shame
2012	Fetih 1453	Banned for being offensive to Christianity.
2012	The Attack	Banned because the director, Ziad Doueiri, filmed in Israel.
2013	Too Much Love Will Kill You	Banned for being blasphemous and provocative.
2013	I Offered You Pleasure	The film tackles issues of sexual discrimination and the oppression of social traditions.
2013	Stranger By The Lake	The film shows a romantic relationship between two men.
2015	Wasp	The film centers around a gay couple.
2015	I Say Dust	Banned because of a same-sex kiss.
2015	In This Land Lay Graves of Mine	This film tackles fears of communities about demographic partition stemming from massacres and displacements perpetrated along sectarian lines during the Lebanese Civil War. It was banned for "stimulating sectarian and partisan zealotries and disturbing civil peace".
2016	Personal Affairs	Produced by an Israeli company and filmed in Israel.
2017	The Beach House	This film by Roy Dib, which tells the story of a late-night dinner party in which two sisters play host to an old friend and his male companion, was banned due to the revelation that the two male characters were lovers.
2017–2017	Mawlana	A critique of corruption and fundamentalism. Its ban was lifted after parts of the film were cut out.
2017	Wonder Woman	Banned because it casts the Israeli actress Gal Gadot.
2017	Panoptic	This documentary was banned in Lebanon due to the director Rana Eid refusing to remove a single sentence and any military presence, as well for being critical of the Lebanese military.
2017	Justice League	Banned because it casts the Israeli actress Gal Gadot.
2017	Jungle	Banned because it tells the true story of a former Israeli navy serviceman.
2018	The Nun	Banned because it is "offensive to Christianity".
2022	Death on the Nile	Banned because it casts the Israeli actress Gal Gadot.
2022	Minions: The Rise of Gru	While no reason was given, it was supposedly banned for portraying two minions kissing in the movie, and a nun attempting to use nunchucks.
2022	Lightyear	Banned because of a same-sex kiss.
2023	Scream VI	Banned because of a same-sex kiss between the two openly queer couple Mindy Meeks-Martin and Anika Kayoko.
2023	Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse	No reason was given for the ban, but it may have been because a transgender flag, which had the slogan "Protect Trans Kids" on it, was briefly shown on Gwen's bedroom wall.
2025	Snow White	Banned because it casts the Israeli actress Gal Gadot.

Maldives

Morocco

Nigeria

North Korea

Date	Title	Notes
1948–present	All foreign films	Several reports have stated that North Korea bans all foreign films, as well as almost all foreign products, including all foreign media, regardless of content. There have, however, been some exemptions. North Korean leader Kim Jong Il reportedly owned a collection of around 15,000 films, many of which were from overseas. According to Nick Romano of Vanity Fair, during Kim Il Sung's reign of North Korea, " even established an underground circuit of bootleg films, as North Koreans weren’t allowed to watch most international releases". The British film Bend It Like Beckham was broadcast on North Korean state television on 26 December 2010, to celebrate foreign relations between the two nations; the film contains significant sub-plots about religion and homosexuality, but was edited down to half its original runtime for the broadcast. In 2015, the British Film Institute reported that 108 films from outside of North Korea had been screened at that year's Pyongyang International Film Festival, but none were from South Korea, Japan, or the United States.
1986	Pulgasari	Banned under the orders of Kim Jong Il upon its director, Shin Sang-ok, escaping captivity in North Korea alongside his wife in March 1986. As of 2015, it is still banned theatrically.

Pakistan

Date	Title	Notes
1980	The Blood of Hussain	Banned by General Zia ul-Haq, after he seized power in a coup de état in 1977, as the film portrays a fictional military coup in an unfavourable light.
2006	The Da Vinci Code	Banned because of blasphemous content.
2012	Agent Vinod	Banned by the Central Board of Film Censors of Pakistan, for containing various controversial references to the Pakistani spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence.
2016	Maalik	Banned by the Government of Pakistan.
2016	Sarabjit	Banned because of blasphemous content and excessive controversial depictions.
2023	Barbie	Initially banned in Punjab due to it containing objectionable content but it was rescinded.

Peru

Qatar

Saudi Arabia

Somalia

Sri Lanka

Syria

Thailand

Ukraine

United States

Generally speaking, the government itself cannot ban a film, since the United States Supreme Court ruled that films are protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution in a landmark 1950s decision. Instead of formal government censorship or bans, the film industry has, largely, policed itself through content-based ratings that are awarded to the vast majority of films that are to be publicly exhibited. Sometimes, a filmmaker may make edits to a film to avoid an 'R-rating' or an 'NC-17' rating, but a modern-day, government ban on a film would likely be struck down by the courts.