20 Most Controversial Movies Since 2000

2. Irreversible

You'd have to have spent the last ten years living under a movie-free rock to have avoided hearing about Gaspar Noe's film Irreversible - perhaps only one other movie since 2000 (which we'll get to in a moment) has caused such a storm of controversy on its release. Noe deconstructs the formulaic revenge thriller by reversing the order of the scenes, as Marcus (Vincent Cassel) and his friend Pierre (Albert Dupontel) hunt down the man who raped the beautiful Alex (Monica Bellucci), leaving her for dead in an underpass.

Reversing the chronology, the film begins with the brutal murder of the man thought to be Alex's rapist, as Pierre repeatedly hammers his head in with a fire extinguisher until all that remains is a bloody pulp. Perhaps the most brutal beatdown in cinema history is later followed by one of the most uncompromising rape scenes ever committed to film, as the camera sits directly in front of Alex for all of 9 minutes as she is violated from behind then beaten to a pulp. Everyone from feminists to homosexual rights activists attacked Irreversible, and yet the outrage overshadowed what is actually a more interesting exercise in the nature of fate, shot with technical bravado.