9. Pink Flamingos
One of my all time favourite films, Pink Flamingos is John Waters' finest piece of work. The film follows the life of Divine and her family, all proud owners of the title: "Filthiest People Alive." And it's a title which they sure and hell live up to. In what now has to be one of the most notoriously foul images ever recorded in a film Divine, a dolled up 370 pound transvestite, follows a dog, waits for it to take a dump and than eats it. John Waters' key aim in Pink Flamingos was to make trash beautiful. If you can find any beauty in this film, it's probably best kept left to yourself to avoid alienating yourself completely from everyone you've ever known. Beauty aside, Pink Flamingos succeeds in spades as a trashy, shocking and ultimately hilarious comedy. Divine's status as the world's filthiest person is challenged by Connie and Raymond Marble - a sexually perverse pair who have female prisoners in their basement that are regularly raped by their butler in efforts to get them pregnant. The offspring of their prisoners are then sold to desperate lesbian couples. Waters' camp and kitsch cinematic style thankfully manage to make this premise seem far less distressing than it sounds on the page; creating a delightful pair of villains in the Marbles, a couple who are eventually put to death by Divine after being found guilty of "assholism". While not banned by a governing censorship board, Pink Flamingos created such a cultural shock in the states that many towns flat out didn't allow it to be shown in their cinemas. It was also banned in Australia, select provinces of Canada and Norway. Pink Flamingos is a superb example of a film that straddles the precarious line between art and exploitation. For instance, when arthouse maestro Federico Fellini visited New York in the early 70's it was the first film he was recommended to go and see, a film that was simultaneously being refused distribution in many areas across the country. It'll make you gag and recoil in shock but Pink Flamingos is ultimately far less harmless than many of the films on this list, especially the next one.