20 Most Controversial Movies Since 2000

11. Requiem For A Dream

Movies about drug addiction are often sources of controversy, with the ongoing debate about the glorification of drug use on screen a constant source of admonition for filmmakers attempting to explore the dynamics of this sensitive subject. Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream was no exception, although any suggestion that the heroin addicts portrayed are potential role models falls flat when you witness to depths to which their lives plummet.

Still, Requiem for a Dream did cause a storm upon its release, and Aronofsky fought tirelessly with the MPAA in order to try and lower the NC17 rating they wanted to impose on his film. It's a squalid, dirty depiction of both heroin addiction and addiction to weight control amphetamines, and the snazzy editing and mixture of visual styles lends it a deceptively stylish look which sits at odds with the degradation of life and the characters' abandonment of hope as the addiction ruins their lives. It's often unbearably bleak, but then it is adapted from the novel by Hubert Selby Jnr., whose Last Exit To Brooklyn similarly explored moral impoverishment and lives on the brink of collapse.