10 Movies That Had A Bigger Impact Than You Realise

4. A Flushing Toilet - Psycho

What it's known for: Psycho opens with an unmarried couple having just got it on during their lunch break and rolls from there. Boasting gruesome murders motivated by sexual repression, it was rather progressive for the time, with Alfred Hitchcock having to fight to get his version of the film released. The first time he submitted the film the censors baulked at the now-iconic shower scene, claiming it contained gore and nudity (frame by frame analysis proves this to be a lie). Hitchcock simply resubmitted the film untouched and this time it passed through. If that isn't testament to the sequence's brilliance we don't know what is. What it also changed: Although the violence was a strong talking point, the real point of contention with Psycho was something that seems utterly ridiculous by today's standards. In 1960 the highly restrictive Hays Code was still in effect, with some rather strict rules determining what could be shown and insinuated on screen. And it was the scene where Marion flushes away her rudimentary sum just before her death that really got censors on edge; it was not only the first Hitchcock bathroom to show a toilet, but also the first mainstream movie to show the bowl flushing. Scandalous.