This is a list of films that are or have been at one time or another banned in the United States; including films banned in some American cities or states. This also includes television specials, and films that were not banned from theaters but were banned from airing it on television.
| Film | Release date | Date(s) banned | Reason | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stag films | 1896-1930 | 1934-1970s | Banned during the Hays Office Code for the obscene nature in these films,[1] despite them only shown in private parties. | |
| All Charlie Chaplin films | 1914-1952 | 1940s-1956 | Memphis, Tennessee's longtime board chief Lloyd T. Binford had a strong history of banning every single Charlie Chaplin movie due to his objection to the popular actor's private life. However throughout time, the Memphis area outside of the city screened his movies without a single warning. A few examples include the 1952 film Limelight being screened in neighboring West Memphis, Arkansas to avoid Binford's reaction. And on May 2, 1954, the First Unitarian Church in Memphis screened one of his silent movies to a test audience with a capacity of 100 people. Binford replied that the church would "violate the law" if they screened the 1915 movie A Burlesque on Carmen. They did, the audience enjoyed it with heavy laughter, and there was nothing "morally" wrong with the picture. Shortly after Binford knew about the church screening the movie, Binford replied that he might've send police to stop the showing but failed, adding that he "hasn't received anything extra left to say."[2] | |
| Three Weeks | 1914 | 1915 | Banned in Charleston, West Virginia due to immoral behavioral content. | |
| data-sort-value="Birth Nation" | The Birth of a Nation | 1915 | 1915–1916 | Banned in several American cities for its racist content and portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan, including Chicago, Las Vegas, Denver, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis, and the states of Ohio, Kansas, and West Virginia,[3] as well as "dozens" of other jurisdictions. Unbanned in 1916 outside of Kansas.[4] |
| Purity | 1916 | 1916 | Banned in the state of Kansas, and several other cities across America including Dallas, Kansas City, Jackson (MS) and Washington, D.C. among others due to the use of nudity. | |
| Birth Control | 1917 | 1917 | Produced by and starring Margaret Sanger; banned, with the New York Court of Appeals holding that a film on family planning work may be censored "in the interest of morality, decency, and public safety and welfare".[5] | |
| Häxan | 1922 | 1922–1929 | Banned until 1929 due to the use of torture and nudity. Its themes of witchcraft and Satanism may also have been a factor in the ban.[6] | |
| Babe Comes Home | 1927 | 1927 | Briefly banned in portions of the Chicago Metropolitan Area due to scenes of Babe Ruth chewing tobacco and spitting in the film. Mrs. Albert L. Stevenson, a film censor member, later recommended that "the censors do not believe that there is an inherent virtue in chewing tobacco and don't wish the children in Highland Park to believe that one must chew to achieve fame." The ban was later lifted. | |
| The Road to Ruin | 1928 | 1928 | Banned in Stockton, California due to its content.[7] | |
| Party Girl | 1930 | 1930 | Though passed for theatrical screening, several cities banned the film due to its depiction of prostitution, namely Birmingham, Alabama.[8] | |
| No Limit | 1931 | 1931 | Banned in Riverside, California by the city's censor boards due to "notoriety", as its star, Clara Bow, was at that time present in the trial of Daisy DeBoe, a former secretary of hers who had been charged with grand theft auto in Los Angeles.[9] | |
| 11 Warner Bros. short films | 1931-1944 | Since 1968 | Nearly dozen animated short films, including Hittin' the Trail for Hallelujah Land, Uncle Tom's Bungalow, and Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs, were pulled from circulation under Censored Eleven.[10] | |
| Scarface | 1932 | 1932 | Banned in five states and five other cities due to "glorification of crime." | |
| Ecstasy | 1933 | 1933–1937 | Banned in the US from 1933 to 1937 due to its erotic content.[11] [12] | |
| 8 Popeye the Sailor short films | 1933-1952 | Since the 1990s | Banned from television rotation as politically incorrect. Some of the short films, like Spinach Fer Britain, Seein' Red, White 'N' Blue, and Wigwam Whoopee, were seen on the anthology series The Popeye Show on Adult Swim in the early 2000s,[13] which one of them briefly appeared on Boomerang before being removed for its potentially offensive stereotyping and sexualization in background. | |
| G Men | 1935 | 1935 | The State of Illinois Board of Censors banned one of the top-grossing films of 1935 in Chicago due to its depiction of the trapping of John Dillinger, which the censor felt might've made children "too excited".[14] | |
| Amateur Fire Brigade | 1935 | 1936 | On February 11, 1936, the State of Ohio banned the anti-New Deal cartoon after its request by the state's censor due to its content that seeks to arouse passions, emotions, and prejudice, and encourages disrespect for the office of then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt.[15] | |
| Spain in Flames | 1937 | 1937 | The compilation film/newsreel was banned in a few states including Ohio and Pennsylvania, and multiple cities across the country including New Brunswick, New Jersey, Waterbury, Connecticut, and Provincetown, Massachusetts, due to the film's plot being reported as "harmful and tortured."[16] [17] | |
| The Birth of a Baby | 1938 | Since 1938 | Banned in New York City by the state's Motion Picture Censors, and in Cincinnati, Ohio by the city's manager Clarence Sherrill due to the film being reported as "non-educational" and as it lacked certification by the state's Board of Motion Pictures Censors. The Cincinnati Police Department's chief Eugene T. Weatherly later viewed the film and described the picture as "positively terrible."[18] | |
| Gone with the Wind | 1939 | 2020 | Briefly removed from HBO Max in response of George Floyd protests.[19] | |
| Yes, My Darling Daughter | 1939 | 1939 | The Motion Picture Division of New York State Education Department briefly banned the Warner Brothers movie in New York due to the film's description and role failure. The New York State Board of Censors immediately got into big arguments toward the state's Department Of Education shortly after its ban. Censors replied that it could be "absolutely" okay and approved to be sent to theaters across the state, but some New York State Censors believed that it may set a "dangerous example". | |
| The Ramparts We Watch | 1940 | 1940 | The March Of Time documentary was briefly banned all across Pennsylvania due to portions of the film being termed as "part of the fear propaganda being disseminated by Germany", which demonstrates scenes on the German invasion of Poland and clips from the German film "Baptism of Fire". | |
| Strange Cargo | 1940 | 1940 | Banned in Detroit by Frank D. Eaman and Charles W. Snyder of the Detroit Police Department because it was said to have "a general spirit that is contrary to certain religious ideas."[20] | |
| Two-Faced Woman | 1941 | 1941 | This film's theme (adultery) caused it to be banned in New York City, among other places. | |
| Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy | 1941 | Since 1941 | Suspended after the initial release due to the alleged relationship between Raggedy Ann and her brother Andy depicted as lovers instead of siblings, mistaken as incest.[21] Because of this, Andy would remain absent in the Noveltoons cartoons until A Musical Adventure in 1977. This particular short can easily be found on YouTube. | |
| Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat | 1941 | Since 1949 | Banned after the 1948 reissue for the excessive racist content as Walter Lantz stated that he would never distribute the short film on television.[22] | |
| 12 Bugs Bunny short films | 1941-1960 | Since 2001 | Dozen Bugs Bunny cartoons were withdrawn from broadcast as "politically incorrect".[23] One of them was already banned under Censored Eleven since 1968. Most of them only limited their release on collectible home medias. | |
| Ossessione | 1943 | 1943–1976 | Banned for 33 years because the plot was based on James M. Cain's novel The Postman Always Rings Twice to which MGM owned the rights. It took until 1976 before copyright issues were resolved. | |
| Red Hot Riding Hood | 1943 | Before 1984 | Red Hot Riding Hood and all other short films featuring Red were refused to be televised due to the restrictions of the television code resulting that the character's scantily clad suggestiveness would not be appropriate for children to view.[24] [25] The description of the front VHS cover of Cartoons for Big Kids from 1989 stated that the films featuring Red were indeed "banned from television". | |
| The Burning Question, Mom and Dad, No Orchids For Miss Blandish, Without Pity, Woman Of Antwep, Gigi (1949 French version), She Shoulda Said No!, and The Paris Waltz (along with 11 other films) | 1943-1950 | Since between 1949 and 1952 | Ever since Sydney R. Traub of the Maryland State Board of Motion Picture Censors took over as the main chairman on May 2, 1949, Traub banned a total of 19 films in the State Of Maryland alone between May 1949 and March 1952, with almost all of which were exploited features about normal and gay sexual relationships, sexual content, drug addiction, nudity, racial invasions, extreme violence, and pregnancy. Several of the listed banned features were unlisted. Only one film, On Polish Ground, is the only film that was invoked by the board's ban for reasons other than sex or narcotics. It was due to the film's reality was claimed "false and fraudulent" despite being a documentary on the disastrous moments of Poland during World War II.[26] | |
| Western Approaches | 1944 | 1944 | The Hays Code banned the British film for "mild profanity", but the British Film Office responded with an angry note to the Hays Code that December, replying that they've been "unnecessary prudish" in banning the film despite being "shot at sea with merchant navy men playing in all parts".[27] | |
| Suddenly, It’s Spring | 1944 | Since 2018 | Withdrawn from television rotation due to a scene containing an offending image that is unsuitable for children.[28] | |
| We Accuse | 1945 | 1945 | A documentary story about the Kharkiv war criminal trials, banned by the Hays Code due to many concerns and complaints about pictures of Nazi atrocities, as well as the word "damned" being used. | |
| Brewster's Millions | 1945 | 1945 | Banned in Memphis, Tennessee, due to Brewster's African-American servant was treated too well.[29] [30] | |
| Dillinger & Dead End | 1945/1937 | 1945 | Both films (including the 1945 reissue of Dead End) were banned in Memphis by Lloyd T. Binford and his censors due to both features being conducive to crime. | |
| The Southerner | 1945 | 1945 | Banned in Memphis by censors due to the film being reported as "giving the nation the wrong idea about the South".[31] [32] [33] | |
| Scarlet Street | 1945 | 1946 | On January 4, 1946, the New York State Censor Board banned Scarlet Street, relying on the statute that gave it the power to censor films that were "obscene, indecent, immoral, inhuman, sacrilegious" or whose exhibition "would tend to corrupt morals or incite to crime." One week later the Motion Picture Commission for the city of Milwaukee also banned the film as part of a new policy encouraged by police for "stricter regulation of undesirable films." On February 3 Christina Smith, the city censor of Atlanta, argued that because of "the sordid life it portrayed, the treatment of illicit love, the failure of the characters to receive orthodox punishment from the police, and because the picture would tend to weaken a respect for the law," Scarlet Street was "licentious, profane, obscure and contrary to the good order of the community." ... Universal was discouraged from challenging the constitutionality of the censors by the protests of the national religious groups that arose as the Atlanta case went to court.[34] | |
| Duel in the Sun | 1946 | 1947 | Banned in Memphis due to the film's plot being reported as "mature throughout the film". Lloyd T. Binford said in a statement that it started with "two murders, then a rape, then a train wreck, and ended with two murders".[35] | |
| The Martins and the Coys | 1946 | Since 1988 | The first segment in Make Mine Music is withdrawn from the film for the depictions of gun violence that were deemed unsuitable for children. Disney has since refused to release the film with this particular segment intact, even by request.[36] | |
| Curley | 1947 | 1947 | Banned in Memphis by Lloyd T. Binford. He wrote a letter to distributor United Artists saying that "'[the board] was unable to approve your 'Curley' picture with the little Negroes as the south does not permit Negroes in white schools nor recognize social equality between the races, even in children.'".[37] | |
| Uncle Tom's Cabaña | 1947 | Since 1954 | Banned after the 1954 reissue for the excessive racist content. However, it made a limited release on laserdisc in 1993[38] before putting it in obscurity indefinitely. | |
| Bicycle Thieves | 1948 | 1950 | The Italian prize-winning movie was banned all over the United States by MPAA in March 1950 due to the use of urination by a little boy and disturbing culture including scenes from inside of a bordello.[39] | |
| Drug Addict | 1948 | Since 1948 | The 34-minute National Film Board of Canada documentary by Robert Anderson was banned by Federal Bureau of Narcotics commissioner Harry J. Anslinger because its clear illustration of drug addiction as an illness was diametrically opposed to his policies. Anslinger went as far as to formally request that the Canadian government ban the film within its own borders; the request was refused. Technically, 'Drug Addict' remains banned.[40] | |
| Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat | 1948, 1951 | Since 2004 | Banned from subsequent releases as uncut versions are since refused by Warner Bros. Discovery.[41] | |
| The Miracle | 1948 | 1950–1952 | The second part of the Italian film "L'Amore" (or "Love" in English) was banned all over the United States, as it was condemned by the National Legion of Decency, which termed the part as "anti-Catholic" and "sacrilegious". Shortly afterward in the middle of February 1951, the State of New York revoked the license to show the film from the state's Board of Regents. The ban led to the law's Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson which led to a decision by Supreme Court in 1952 that the film was a form of artistic expression and was protected by the First Amendment.[42] | |
| A Song Is Born | 1948 | 1948 | Banned in Memphis due to both its plot and racial content, which also featured scenes of both whites and negroes dancing together.[43] | |
| Lost Boundaries | 1949 | 1949 | Banned in Atlanta and Memphis; liable to "create dissension and strife between members of the white and colored races, and would be likely to cause disorders, disturbances, and clashes between the races."[44] | |
| Bitter Rice | 1949 | 1951 | Exactly 11 months after the ban of Bicycle Thieves and The Miracle, police crackdowns and bitter Catholic oppositions led the state of New York censors to ban a third Italian film, Bitter Rice.[45] | |
| Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye | 1950 | 1950 | The film was banned in Ohio as "a sordid, sadistic presentation of brutality and an extreme presentation of crime with explicit steps in commission." | |
| Stromboli | 1950 | 1950 | The Syndicate Theaters Circuit chain that served 320 Indiana movie theaters at the time of the film's release banned the RKO movie in the Hoosier State exactly one week before the film's release because Ingrid Bergman was part of the cast, and the Allied Theater Owners of Indiana replied by mail that she was discredited and failed to discipline errant stars.[46] | |
| His Mouse Friday | 1951 | Since 1959 | Banned after the 1958 reissue for the excessive racist content and is refused to be televised.[47] Only limited its release on collectible home medias.[48] | |
| Cease Fire | 1953 | 1953 | The Korean War film was banned all over the United States for a brief time due to the terms "hell" and "damn" being heard in the dialogue.[49] | |
| data-sort-value="Moon Blue" | The Moon Is Blue | 1953 | 1953 | Banned in Jersey City, New Jersey as "indecent and obscene."[50] |
| data-sort-value="Vanishing Prairie" | The Vanishing Prairie | 1954 | 1954 | The Walt Disney documentary was banned in New York on August 10, 1954 due to a clip where it demonstrated a buffalo giving birth. The ban was lifted after a complaint by the American Civil Liberties Union.[51] [52] |
| The Bamboo Prison | 1954 | 1955 | The Korean War film was banned in Memphis due to its "inimical" content.[53] | |
| All Speedy Gonzales shorts | 1955-1969 | 1985-1986, 1999-2002 | Right after the longtime The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show's departure from CBS and return to ABC at the start of the 1985-1986 season as The Bugs Bunny/Looney Tunes Comedy Hour, all shorts that starred Speedy Gonzales were banned from the program because of Mexican stereotypes before the packaged series remerge into the longtime The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show name, which introduces the Tweety shorts that were omitted from the previous package for unknown reasons.[54] In 1999, Cartoon Network banned all of Speedy's shorts following the same censorship back in 1985, but was lifted in mid-2002 following a grass-roots campaign in part of Hispanic groups.[55] | |
| Baby Doll | 1956 | 1956–1957 | Banned in Memphis, Nashville, and Atlanta due to the film plot's culture, which a member of the Memphis Board determines the film as "immoral." It was the first picture to be banned after the death of Memphis censor chief Lloyd T. Binford. Binford died at the age of 89 on August 27, 1956, and his death became national headlines. The film was intended to be demonstrated in Nashville (via the Tennessee Theatre) in January 1957, but was banned by its local censor from being shown within the city; as such, the film ended up being booked for three drive-in theaters within Davidson County.[56] | |
| Portland Exposé | 1957 | 1957 | The film was banned regionally by local agencies in the Pacific Northwest, particularly in Portland, Oregon—its setting—due to its depiction of crimes inspired by those committed by crime boss Jim Elkins.[57] [58] | |
| The Immoral Mr. Teas | 1959 | 1962–1963 | Banned in Baltimore (along with two other films) for a 12-month hiatus by Maryland's State Of Board Censors on November 8, 1962 due to its sexually explicit content.[59] | |
| Hideout in the Sun | 1960 | 1960 | Banned in Memphis by the Board of Censors shortly after the film's release in February 1960 due to nudity.[60] | |
| Victim | 1961 | 1961 | Banned in many American cities due to language.[61] | |
| All Tom and Jerry short films by Gene Deitch | 1961-1962 | Before 1988 | Gene Deitch's Tom and Jerry shorts were never televised prior to the late 1980s due to its legal dispute with Rembrandt Films in Czechoslovakia.[62] | |
| Naughty New Orleans | 1962 | 1963 | An exploitation film on downtown New Orleans was banned in Memphis by the Board of Censors in May 1963. The censor, Minter Somerville Hooker, did not view the film as obscene but said she banned it anyway.[63] | |
| Flaming Creatures | 1963 | 1964 | Banned in New York City because of sexual content.[64] | |
| Promises! Promises! | 1963 | 1963 | Banned in Cleveland by the Cleveland Division Of Police, Pittsburgh by the Pittsburgh Police, and several other cities due to explicit nude scenes, though later the Cleveland court decided the nude scenes in the film were not lewd after all. The ban took place a few weeks prior to the assassination of John F. Kennedy.[65] [66] | |
| My Bare Lady | 1963 | 1963 | The 64-minute British exploitation film (along with one other exploitation film) was banned in Pittsburgh by the Pittsburgh Police due to its content shortly days after Pittsburgh's ban on Promises! Promises | The ban came before the arrest of two Cameraphone Theatre (East Liberty) owners after complaints from showing the film three days prior to Kennedy's assassination.[67] |
| John Goldfarb, Please Come Home! | 1964 | 1964–1965 | The Notre Dame-based film (along with the book from which it was adapted) was banned in New York by a judge due to the main characters depicted as "drunken party boys" before the film premiered around Christmas 1964 in selected 200+ theaters. Supreme Court Justice Henry Clay Greenburg called the situation "ugly, vulgar, and tawdry."[68] | |
| Viva Maria! | 1965 | 1966–1968 | Banned in Dallas for sexual and anti-Catholic content, prior to the United States Supreme Court striking down the ban and limiting the ability of municipalities to ban films for adults in Interstate Circuit, Inc. v. City of Dallas.[69] | |
| Titicut Follies | 1967 | 1968–1991 | Banned from distribution in Massachusetts to the general public by court order because the film was considered a violation of the privacy of the prison inmates it filmed. | |
| The Mouse from H.U.N.G.E.R. | 1967 | Since 1999 | Despite being passed in theaters, the Chuck Jones Tom and Jerry short was banned from later television airings from Cartoon Network and was never broadcast on Boomerang for safety reasons. Only limited its release on collectible home medias. | |
| I Am Curious (Yellow) | 1967 | 1969 | Banned as pornography. After three court cases, the ban was lifted when the anti-obscenity laws concerning films were overturned.[70] | |
| Injun Trouble | 1969 | Since 1969 | Banned after premiere for the excessive racist content and still remains unavailable to this day.[71] | |
| Death of a Legend | 1971 | 1973 | The 49-minute Audubon Society-sponsored Canadian documentary about the remaining wolves in North America was banned in Florida by the Broward County Public Schools due to scenes of mating sequences as was reported by parents from two students who complained about the scenes.[72] | |
| Pink Flamingos | 1972 | 1972–1997 | Banned in Orange County, Florida, for 25 years because of explicit sexual content, animal cruelty, and depiction of its lead character, Divine, eating dog feces in the end.[73] | |
| data-sort-value="Thorn" | The Thorn | 1974 | Since 1974 (seized in 1984) | Closed days after opening in New York City for misleading marketing exploiting the fame of one of its co-stars, Bette Midler. It was blocked from opening on re-release in 1980. The film was briefly distributed on home video under a new title before Midler threatened legal action.[74] [75] |
| Coonskin | 1975 | 1975-1987 | Ralph Bakshi's blaxploitation film received backlash as the film was pulled from theaters, regarding it as racist by CORE.[76] Coonskin would not see the light of day again until it surfaced on home video with a new title 12 years later. | |
| Really Rosie | 1975 | 1997-2002 | Limited animated adaptation of Maurice Sendak's The Nutshell Library series had ceased broadcast in the late 1990s and remained absent until it surfaced and downsized on DVD in 2002, which removes "The Ballad of Chicken Soup" sequence due to concerns of children demonstrating self-strangulation, which became a serious matter in children’s television today.[77] | |
| Monty Python's Life of Brian | 1979 | 1979 | Banned in several towns for showing controversial themes about Christianity. | |
| data-sort-value="Tin Drum" | The Tin Drum | 1979 | 1997 | Briefly banned in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, when a district court judge deemed the film child pornography. The shot in question depicted a child embracing a naked woman. The verdict was overturned on appeal.[78] |
| If You Love This Planet | 1982 | 1982 | Designated as "foreign political propaganda" by the Department of Justice and suppressed in the United States.[79] [80] Despite this, it went on to win the 1982 Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject.[81] | |
| 2 Peanuts TV specials | 1983, 1994 | Since between 1994 and 2008 | After Warner Bros. bought distribution rights to the Peanuts specials in the late 2000s, 2 of these specials, It's an Adventure, Charlie Brown[82] and You're in the Super Bowl, Charlie Brown,[83] are no longer seen in circulation due to copyright restrictions. 4 other specials, including Snoopy! The Musical, It's the Girl in the Red Truck, Charlie Brown, It Was My Best Birthday Ever, Charlie Brown, and It's the Pied Piper, Charlie Brown, are not distributed by Warner Bros. as put in obscurity for unknown reasons. Yet, the Girl in the Red Truck special is assumed to rather be disregarded as shelved in later years much to numerous disapprovals.[84] | |
| Return to Oz | 1985 | 1985 | The Disney live-action film was banned for a very short period of time in the Ingham County Library near Lansing. At the time, the library had scheduled it and Beverly Hills Cop for a free film program, which was cancelled because of non-compliance with a recommendation by the school board that insisted on only films that the MPAA had rated G be shown at the library. The ban was lifted soon afterward.[85] | |
| 1987 | Since 1990 | Banned from circulation for copyright infringement after its original television airing by PBS as song covers by The Carpenters were used without permission.[86] [87] | ||
| data-sort-value="Last Temptation" | The Last Temptation of Christ | 1988 | 1988 | Banned in Savannah, Georgia when city leaders sent a petition to Universal Pictures requesting a ban. However, it opened in Savannah on September 23, 1988, six weeks after its national and worldwide debut.[88] |
| Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue | 1990 | Since 1990 | This mini-movie only aired once on numerous networks in America (alongside other channels around the world) before permanently withdrawing it from circulation due to Jim Davis' character Garfield was used without permission and has yet to see the light of day on television.[89] | |
| Hollyrock-a-Bye Baby | 1993 | 1993-2001, 2003-2012 | Banned after the initial broadcast for its questionable content in a children’s movie and remained unseen on television for nearly a decade.[90] Then was withdrawn again until it surfaced on DVD in 2012. | |
| The Santa Clause | 1994 | 1996-1999 | Confiscated from the markets due to an incident caused by a little child from Steilacoom, Washington making a phone call that was taken from one point in the film, which turned out to be an actual sex line number, incurring a $400 phone bill.[91] The film returned to the markets much later with the number removed. | |
| 1996 | Since 1996 | Banned after its initial broadcast for the depictions of racial atrocities and child murder attempts as declared "unsuitable for television".[92] | ||
| Belly | 1998 | 1998 | The film about the rise-and-fall of two violent criminals was banned from the Magic Johnson Theatres chain due to its raising concerns on the film's overwhelmingly negative and violent depictions of African-Americans alongside its potential to create disrupted situations for their theaters in Los Angeles, Houston, and Atlanta.[93] | |
| 1998 | 2002-2004 | Pulled from television rotation due to the dark subject matter, which is edited for subsequent release.[94] | ||
| 1999 | 2017 | Banned from Universal Kids without reasons given. Yet, it ran on Freeform with the TV-PG rating in 2019 resulting its exploited thematic material and age disparity sexuality were not suitable for younger children.[95] | ||
| Toy Story 2 | 1999 | 2018-2019 | Pulled from television rotation due to a brief sexual content during the mid-credits, which was later censored for subsequent releases. | |
| Cry Baby Lane | 2000 | 2000-2011 (alleged ban) | Aired on Nickelodeon in October 2000. It was not seen after its initial broadcast as it received backlash by parents disapproving the film's themes that were deemed unsuitable for the attending audiences, led to the result of being banned from subsequent showings. It was then responded that Nickelodeon merely forgotten the film, resulting its absence for 11 years.[96] The tape was found and uploaded on Reddit in 2011.[97] Another Nickelodeon film, The Electric Piper, was not seen after its second run in 2003[98] and was also mistaken as a banned film as Nickelodeon responded to have forgotten it as well. | |
| data-sort-value="Profit" | The Profit | 2001 | 2002–2007 | A film that borrows elements of the life of L. Ron Hubbard, it was prevented from release when the Church of Scientology claimed the film could taint the jury pool in the wrongful death trial of former member Lisa McPherson. While the injunction has since been lifted a few years after the suit was settled and the film is no longer banned per se, a legal dispute with investor Robert S. Minton continues to hold up the release. The Disinformation Book of Lists and The Times have characterized The Profit as a "banned film" in the United States.[99] [100] |
| Ernest and Bertram | 2002 | Since 2002 | Gay parody of Ernie and Bert was confiscated when Sesame Workshop served the film's producers with a cease and desist order for violating the use of Sesame Street characters. | |
| Death of a President | 2006 | 2006 | Shortly right after the mockumentary film's release in Canada and the United Kingdom, many American movie theater chains including AMC, Regal, and Cinemark refused to run the controversial British feature and banned it due to the film's depiction over the fictional assassination of then-President George W. Bush. Regal's president Dick Westerling replied that "the chain doesn't feel it is appropriate enough to portray the future scenario". At the same time, CNN and the National Public Radio announced that neither network would accept commercials for the film due to its extreme nature.[101] | |
| Hounddog | 2007 | 2007-2008 | After the screening at Sundance Film Festival in January 2007, the film was withheld from being theatrically released since Dakota Fanning was involved in a part of the movie's rape scene when she was 12, receiving intense controversy.[102] The ban was lifted in September the following year.[103] [104] Unfortunately, the film was boycotted from theaters by the protest of concerned mothers days after the release, citing that the damage has already been done to the child actress.[105] The film did receive a home video release after the theatrical screening. Yet, it’s not allowed to be distributed anywhere outside North America due to prohibitions of screened child sexual abuse. | |
| 2008 | 2008 | A political documentary about presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, it was prevented by the Federal Election Commission from being aired on video-on-demand on cable TV shortly before the 2008 Democratic primaries as an "electioneering communication" mentioning a candidate within 30 days of a primary, an apparent violation of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (aka "McCain-Feingold"). The ban and much of the BCRA was then overturned by the Supreme Court in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.[106] | ||
| Bill Cosby 77 | Unreleased | Since 2014 | It was scheduled to be released on the streaming service Netflix on November 28, 2014. However, it was cancelled and shelved in response of the Bill Cosby sexual assault cases 10 days before the scheduling date,[107] considering it banned.[108] | |