10 Most Controversial Comedies Of All Time

Sacha Baron Cohen has made a career out of his bizarre, caricatured "man on the street" style of shock comedy that incorporates real-life, unsuspecting people into his bits. So rest assured this won't be the last time we discuss one of Cohen's movies in this article. The guy's a black hole of controversy.

Expanding on yet another character from his television program, Da Ali G Show, Cohen plays a stereotypical gay, Austrian fashion journalist, Brüno Gehard, whose goal is to become, in his own words, "the biggest gay Austrian celebrity since Hitler".

That sentence alone should give you some context as to why certain groups of people had an issue with Cohen's big screen portrayal.

The first cut of the film received an NC-17 rating due to its over-the-top graphicness, but even the R-rated version garnered plenty of complaints for some full frontal nudity and a generous helping of masochistic orgies. Ukraine banned the film outright, while the Austrian ambassador called the film "totally inappropriate" and warned the general public to stay away.

It even caused a popular children's author, Margaret Merry, to change the name of the lead character from her book The Wise Old Boar - who also happened to be named Bruno - out of fear that her kiddy book would somehow become tainted with the frequent repetitions of the name.