The 1990s was a good decade for film. Well, if you were a fan of independent and world cinema, that is. The mainstream may have been churning out derivative sequels, franchise films and big-budget CGI duds (sound familiar?), but away from the mainstream, a group of young, maverick filmmakers were doing their best to revive cinema. These directors, actors, writers and producers were responsible for one of the biggest indie booms in film history, helping their brand of cinema go from the arthouse to the multiplex and the Oscars. With their penchant for violence, challenging themes such as drug use and sex and foul language, it was inevitable that there would be controversies. But few could have predicted just how much controversy these films would cause. Some 1990s films proved to be so problematic that they resulted in lawsuits, while others are still banned in some countries today. It was an experimental time, to be sure, but those experiments were not without consequences. The indie filmmakers may have been stubbornly challenging the status quo, but there were also several notable studio films that asked questions of the censors and ended up in court. Were the controversies justified, or was this a case of a whole load of smoke and no fire? Here are the fifteen most controversial movies of the 90s.
