10 Most Controversial Opening Movie Scenes

Repeat after me: leave pregnant women out of horror movies.

Antichrist Shower
IFC Films

There's no lack of controversial movie scenes from throughout cinema's history, with filmmakers constantly trying to push the boundary of just how much they can get away with, whether that was John Waters asking his actors to eat real dog droppings in Pink Flamingos or Gaspar Noe's unsimulated sex scenes in Love.

However, those movies at least had the decency to ease you into things first, essentially letting you know what you were in for before dropping a major scene that upped the ante and pushed things as far as they could go. Other films, on the other hand, didn't give you the luxury of that same prep time, instead attempting to catch you off-guard with an opening scene that immediately cranked things up to 11.

Whether they were purposefully button-pushing in an attempt to expand genres or narratives or simply to achieve a hot-topic opening to stir up backlash and enjoy some free marketing, there have been plenty of controversial first scenes that made their movies instantly infamous.

Advertisement
In this post: 
Antichrist
 
Posted On: 
Contributor

Josh has over 11 years of experience as a published writer, having worked nine of those years as a full-time content producer at WhatCulture. In that period he has created hundreds of articles, videos and podcast episodes for multiple WhatCulture channels, specialising in gaming, horror and film & TV. He now primarily works as a senior content producer and presenter on WhatCulture Gaming where he co-hosts the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast, a top 3 UK most listened to gaming podcast that he co-created in 2018. Over the years he has reviewed several high-profile gaming releases, covered industry events with on-site reporting, opined on breaking news, and even kicked off his interviewing career by chatting to childhood hero, Tommy Wiseau.