Banned Films: Movies, Censors, & the First Amendment

A history of the censorship of films in the United States describes the legal battles over the banning of movies from 1908 to the 1980s.

The movies in America: industry, or art? Expression, or exploitation?

For as long as movies have been made, there has been a relentles struggle to control their appearance, morals, and ideas. Banned Films is the story of movie censorship in the United States. It’s the story of an industry compelled to “cooperate” with the military in times of war and with the Legion of Decency in times of peace; an industry confounded by local police regulations, state licensing rules, Customs Service prohibitions, and the opinions and pressures of countless political, religious, and social groups.

It is also the story of the First Amendment and the “right to watch” of the American people. Banned Films takes you into the darkened basement of the U.S. Supreme Court building, where nine Justices meet to view films and decide for the people what movies they can and cannot see. How did the nation’s highest court–empowered to champion the rights of speech and press–come to assume the role of censor? The story and the controversy continue today.

Banned Films also presents individual accounts of 122 representative American and foreign films banned in the United States. Here are the details on the techniques of censorship and the legal methods used to free films from censorship. Inculded are such movies as The Birth of a Nation, Ecstasy, The Miracle, The Lovers, I am Curious — Yellow, The Exorcist, Deep Throat, Caligula, and more.