The 10 most controversial movie posters of all time
Involving a lengthy planning process of constant script rewrites and legal admin, followed by an arduous time-constrained shooting schedule, moviemaking is a many-armed beast that constantly presents problems. Such issues don’t stop once the physical movie is finished either, with distribution and marketing companies taking over afterwards to push a feature film into the public eye of audiences and critics.
Though seemingly straightforward, the marketing process is no walk in the park, with countless movie posters creating controversy upon their release out into the world, pasted onto double-decker buses and vast billboards. Usually, these controversies come down to an awfully designed art style featuring poorly photoshopped faces, but on several other occasions, something far more sinister prompts public anger.
On our list of the ten most controversial movie posters of all time, we delve into moments throughout cinema history where a piece of print marketing has proved to be simply too unpalatable for audiences. Whilst this usually comes due to the presence of ‘violent’ or ‘pornographic’ images, there have been several other strange occasions when the Motion Picture Association Of America (MPAA) has blocked the distribution of a particular poster.
From niche horror movies to celebrated arthouse flicks, take a look at ten of the most misjudged and controversial movie posters of all time in our list below.
The 10 most controversial movie posters of all time
10. The Road to Guantanamo (Mat Whitecross, Michael Winterbottom, 2006)
The documentary medium isn’t the first thing you think of when you consider the greatest movie posters of all time. Yet, the marketing team behind the 2006 movie The Road to Guantanamo produced one of the industry’s most controversial pieces of marketing material ever, in the eyes of the MPAA at least. Telling the true story of three British men held at Guantanamo Bay unlawfully for over two years, the poster for the movie showed a prisoner tied to a wall with a thick bag over his face.
Arguably tame in comparison to the real crimes that occurred at the infamous prison, the poster was banned for the ‘burlap bag’ over the man’s head, which suggested that the figure had been tortured.
9. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (David Fincher, 2011)
When compared to what young people are exposed to on the internet, the ‘nudity’ of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo poster is incredibly tame. In fact, it displays no nudity at all. Indeed, just suggesting nudity is too much for some conservative critics, who deemed the marketing for the David Fincher-directed crime drama to be pushing the envelope just a little too far. The poster itself sees Daniel Craig’s Mikael with his arm around a scantily-clad Lisbeth, played by Rooney Mara.
Whilst the film poster was criticised for its suggestive nudity, it also drew criticism from fans of the original Stieg Larsson novel of the same name. The protagonist, Lisbeth, is a survivor of rape and other brutal abuses, yet the poser suggests that the character is in need of Mikael’s protection, even though this is far from the truth.
8. The Hills Have Eyes 2 (Martin Weisz, 2007)
The horror genre has been responsible for some of the most controversial movie posters of all time, and it doesn’t take a genius to work out why. With violent, explicit subject matter, designers of horror posters have a lot of tools to play with when it comes to the poster. Still, the poster for 2007’s The Hills Have Eyes 2 doesn’t seem too bad compared to others of the genre, depicting a body being dragged across the desert in a bag with a hand clawing from the slight opening.
The MPAA hated the poster, however, citing the trailing hand as being the sole reason. The solution from the marketing team was to replace the trailing hand with a pair of feet. Clearly, the MPAA has some sort of foot fetish.
7. Five Senses of Eros (Hyuk Byun, Min Kyu-dong, Hur Jin-ho, Ki-hwan Oh, Young-sik YU, 2009)
An anthology film that brings together five separate stories that revolve around lust, love and passion, Five Senses of Eros is a South Korean film from filmmakers Hyuk Byun, Min Kyu-dong, Hur Jin-ho, Ki-hwan Oh and Young-sik YU. Predictably, a film all about sexual urges produced a rather risqué poster that bizarrely made history in South Korea for being the first-ever film poster to depict a naked bottom.
Showing a woman lying face-down on crisp-white bed linen with a bare bottom, the poster drew a tremendous amount of controversy, especially after considering that the model in question doesn’t even appear in the movie.
6. Teeth (Mitchell Lichtenstein, 2007)
Already known as one of the most infamous horror comedy movies of the new century, Mitchell Lichtenstein’s veiled coming-of-age story Teeth follows a young woman whose genitals grow gnashers. So, how best to depict this concept in a simple movie poster? Simple, of course, just show an x-ray of the character’s body, subtly nodding to the fantastical abnormality at the bottom of the poster.
In reality, the MPAA didn’t take well to the poster, deciding that it was far too disturbing for young children to see on their innocent waddles to school.
5. Bamboozled (Spike Lee, 2000)
Spike Lee’s 2000 satire Bamboozled is one of his finest and most forgotten pieces of work, telling the story of an African-American TV writer who suggests a reintroduction of the blackface minstrel show. Crucially, however, Lee’s satire doesn’t depict white people in blackface. Rather it tells the story of black actors who choose to adopt the abhorrent practice, with the director making a profound comment about the state of contemporary entertainment in the process.
It’s fair to say the nuance of this satire was lost in the poster, which parodied the advertisements of real minstrel shows in the 1800s. Many accused publications and cinemas that showed the posters as being racist, but the reality was far different.
4. Ali G Indahouse (Mark Mylod, 2002)
Long before Sacha Baron Cohen was Bruno or Borat, the English comic actor took on the character of Ali G, a wannabe gangster. In the film adaptation of Cohen’s TV character, Ali G becomes a pawn in a plot to overthrow the Prime Minister of the UK, becoming the voice of the youth in the process. A hit at the time, the film was packed with some impressive talent behind the camera, directed by Succession’s Mark Mylod.
Still, whilst the film was commercially successful, the poster was pretty controversial, receiving hundreds of complaints for its pornographic imagery. Maybe the marketing authorities got it right with this one.
3. Dying Breed (Jody Dwyer, 2008)
We’ve already discussed one horror movie on this list, though that one got in trouble for a strange technicality rather than flagrant graphic imagery. The pretty much unknown 2008 horror flick Dying Breed, from director Jody Dwyer, took things to new levels of bad taste with a nasty poster that showed minced human remains within the shortcrust pastry of a pie; eyes, bones and all.
Though the poster related somewhat to the source material, with the film following a group of teenagers being stalked by a group of sinister cannibals, the marketing team didn’t have to go quite that far with the imagery.
2. Man Bites Dog (Benoît Poelvoorde, Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel, 1992)
As we’ve already discussed with Spike Lee’s Bamboozled, satire doesn’t translate all that well to printed media. The same can most certainly be said for the dark Belgian mockumentary Man Bites Dog, which follows a ruthless killer who goes about his daily routine with a film crew following his every move. Subtly comic, the film takes a turn when the fictional movie crew lose control and begins helping the crook.
It’s fair to say that the movie poster probably went too far, however, showing the central murderer pointing a gun at an unseen baby whose blood and dummy fly in the air. Seen as too shocking for many countries rating advertising boards, the dummy was replaced with dentures.
1. Shame (Steve McQueen, 2011)
The British filmmaker Steve McQueen is largely celebrated for his 2014 ‘Best Picture’ winner, 12 Years a Slave, but his career is far richer than that one admitted classic. 2008 saw the release of the gripping drama Hunger, whilst three years later, the screenwriter and director would create the underrated erotic film Shame, telling the story of a sex addict’s carefully constructed private life that slowly falls apart.
Leaving nothing to the imagination, the marketing team behind the Hungarian movie poster chose to display upon a model’s back written in bodily fluids. It’s just a little too graphic, to say the least.
