Lifting the lid on the world of cinema censorship, this programme has unique access to the files of the British Board of Film Classification. Featuring explicit and detailed exchanges between the censor and film-makers, 'Dear Censor' casts a wry eye over some of the most infamous cases in the history of the board. From the now seemingly innocuous Rebel Without a Cause, the first 'naturist' films and the infamous works of Ken Russell, and up to Rambo III, this frank and surprisingly warm documentary demonstrates how a body created by the industry to safeguard standards and reflect shifts in public opinion has also worked unexpectedly closely with the film-makers themselves to ensure that their work was able reach an audience.


6.9David Wozniak is a perpetual adolescent who discovers that, as a sperm donor, he has fathered 533 children. He is advised that more than 100 of his offspring are trying to force the fertility clinic to reveal the true identity of "Starbuck," the pseudonym he used when donating his sperm. To make matters worse, his girlfriend Valérie is pregnant with his child, but doesn't feel that he is mature enough to be a father.
8.5An idiosyncratic FBI agent investigates the murder of a young woman in the even more idiosyncratic town of Twin Peaks. (This standalone version of the series pilot was produced for the European VHS market and has an alternate, closed ending.)
6.3The whole clique of Cruchot's police station is retired. Now he lives with his rich wife in her castle - and is bored almost to death. He fights with the butler, because he isn't even allowed to do the simple works. But when one of the clique suffers from amnesia after an accident, all of the others reunite and kidnap him, to take him on a tour to their old working places and through their memories. In their old uniforms they turn St. Tropez upside down.
7.5A snobbish phonetics professor agrees to a wager that he can take a flower girl and make her presentable in high society.
7.4In the midst of trying to legitimize his business dealings in 1979 New York and Italy, aging mafia don, Michael Corleone seeks forgiveness for his sins while taking a young protege under his wing.
6.9Shotgun Stories tracks a feud that erupts between two sets of half brothers following the death of their father. Set against the cotton fields and back roads of Southeast Arkansas, these brothers discover the lengths to which each will go to protect their family.
7.7In this chilling and groundbreaking documentary, former Indonesian death squad leaders reenact their real-life mass killings in the style of various film genres. As they recreate their past atrocities, the line between reality and performance blurs, exposing the lingering impact of Indonesia's 1965-66 anti-communist purge and the unsettling psychology of its perpetrators.
6.4Alice Tate, mother of two, with a marriage of 16 years, finds herself falling for a handsome sax player, Joe. Stricken with a backache, she consults herbalist Dr. Yang, who realizes that her problems are not related to her back, but in her mind and heart. Dr. Yang's magical herbs give Alice wondrous powers, taking her out of her well-established rut.
7.1When a lottery winner dies of shock, his fellow townsfolk attempt to claim the money.
7.6An ambitious mobster plans an elaborate diamond heist while seducing the daughter-in-law of a ruthless mob patriarch as a determined police commissioner closes in on all of them.
7.1Widowed Welsh mother Anna Leonowens becomes a governess and English tutor to the wives and many children of the stubborn King Mongkut of Siam. Anna and the King have a clash of personalities as she works to teach the royal family about the English language, customs and etiquette, and rushes to prepare a party for a group of European diplomats who must change their opinions about the King.
8.1A nameless ronin, or samurai with no master, enters a small village in feudal Japan where two rival businessmen are struggling for control of the local gambling trade. Taking the name Sanjuro Kuwabatake, the ronin convinces both silk merchant Tazaemon and sake merchant Tokuemon to hire him as a personal bodyguard, then artfully sets in motion a full-scale gang war between the two ambitious and unscrupulous men.
6.6During the Cold War, an American scientist appears to defect to East Germany as part of a cloak and dagger mission to find the formula for a resin solution—but the plan goes awry when his fiancee, unaware of his motivation, follows him across the border.
7.8Questions arise when Senator Stoddard attends the funeral of a local man named Tom Doniphon in a small Western town. Flashing back, we learn Doniphon saved Stoddard, then a lawyer, when he was roughed up by a crew of outlaws terrorizing the town, led by Liberty Valance. As the territory's safety hung in the balance, Doniphon and Stoddard, two of the only people standing up to him, proved to be very important, but different, foes to Valance.
6.0A reporter in Iraq might just have the story of a lifetime when he meets Lyn Cassady, a guy who claims to be a former member of the U.S. Army's New Earth Army, a unit that employs paranormal powers in their missions.
5.8Four tales unfold in the Eternal City: While vacationing in Rome, architect John encounters a young man whose romantic woes remind him of a painful incident from his own youth; retired opera director Jerry discovers a mortician with an amazing voice, and he seizes the opportunity to rejuvenate his own flagging career; a young couple have separate romantic interludes; a spotlight shines on an ordinary man.
7.4A left-wing journalist whose wife died while giving birth to his son during a military coup returns to his family's farm. Estranged from his father for turning his back on the family and wasting his life with political activism instead, he tries to reconnect with him so that his son will have a place to live as his health is deteriorating due to the extensive torture he had to endure.
8.1Crotchety retired doctor Isak Borg travels from Stockholm to Lund, Sweden, with his pregnant and unhappy daughter-in-law, Marianne, in order to receive an honorary degree from his alma mater. Along the way, they encounter a series of hitchhikers, each of whom causes the elderly doctor to muse upon the pleasures and failures of his own life. These include the vivacious young Sara, a dead ringer for the doctor's own first love.
7.1An ethical Baltimore defense lawyer disgusted with rampant legal corruption is forced to defend a judge he despises in a rape trial under the threat of being disbarred.
7.2Based on the real-life experiences of Ed Horman. A conservative American businessman travels to Chile to investigate the sudden disappearance of his son after a military takeover. Accompanied by his son's wife he uncovers a trail of cover-ups that implicate the US State department which supports the dictatorship.
0.0A documentary about the Staatsoper Stuttgart (Stuttgart State Opera) in Germany.
10.0A man living between dream and reality, making the woman he fell in love with as a statue and falling in love with her and then killing her in his dreams.
6.8On January 31, 1857, the French writer Gustave Flaubert (1821-80) took his place in the dock for contempt of public morality and religion. The accused, the real one, is, through him, Emma Bovary, heroine with a thousand faces and a thousand desires, guilty without doubt of an unforgivable desire to live.
6.5Between 1933 and 1945 roughly 1200 films were made in Germany, of which 300 were banned by the Allied forces. Today, around 40 films, called "Vorbehaltsfilme", are locked away from the public with an uncertain future. Should they be re-released, destroyed, or continue to be neglected? Verbotene Filme takes a closer look at some of these forbidden films.
6.5The story of iconic Spanish artist Susana Estrada's struggle against censorship and sexual repression during the turbulent years following the death of dictator Francisco Franco.
0.0As local newsrooms vanish, "News Without a Newsroom" explores journalism's uncertain future in the digital age. Through powerful stories and expert insights, the film examines the collapse of traditional media, the rise of misinformation, and the fight to preserve truth, trust and accountability in an era of disruption.
6.7A retrospective documentary about the groundbreaking horror series, Friday the 13th, featuring interviews with cast and crew from the twelve films spanning 3 decades.
7.4At the end of the 1960s, when the air is filled with rock-and-roll and student rebellions are changing the world, the older of two brothers joins a prestigious newsroom of the public radio broadcaster. Not long after, he finds himself in the middle of a dangerous conflict between journalists and the secret service.
6.0In Maija Blåfield’s documentary, eight former North Koreans talk about what it was like to watch illegal films in a closed society. In addition to the 'waste videos', South Korean films were also smuggled into the country via China.
10.0A Bunch of Questions with No Answers (2025) is a 23-hour film by artists Alex Reynolds and Robert M. Ochshorn. Compiled entirely from questions posed by journalists at U.S. State Department press briefings between October 3, 2023, and the end of the Biden administration, the work removes the officials’ answers, leaving only the unresolved demands for clarity and accountability.
7.1A deep dive into the hidden industry of digital cleaning, which rids the Internet of unwanted violence, porn and political content.
0.0There was an undeclared war for nearly half a century in Bulgaria between the then government and the majority of democratic-minded filmmakers during the Communist regime. Paradoxically, most of the banned or censored out movies were made by members of the Communist Party, believers in their party's ideas and justice. The Communist Party aesthetics against the freedom to tell truth.
6.0When does art become obscenity? Cover Your Ears takes a close look at this question through the lens of the past 100 years of music and the ever-evolving discussion of legal and moral lines in the industry
6.9A documentary primarily focusing on the filming and release of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
0.0How free and independent is the press in Europe? In recent years, multiple crises and the rise of authoritarianism have put pressure on journalists. We take a look at these countries, where aggression towards the media seems to be undermining the very idea of democracy.
6.8A documentary analyzing the furore which so-called "video nasties" caused in Britain during the 1980s.
0.0In 1950, America was in a state of panic. Juvenile delinquency was destroying the very fabric of society. Ninety percent of all children were reading comic books. In 1954, psychiatrist Dr. Fredric Wertham wrote a scathing indictment of comics called Seduction of the Innocent. Its central premise: Comic books were the leading contributing factor to juvenile delinquency. That same year, Dr. Wertham testified at special hearings on comic books at the Senate Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency in the United States. Comics were on trial. Diagram for Delinquents captures the zeitgeist of late 1940s and early 1950s America and investigates how the funny books found themselves on the fire. Using expert and comic book insider interviews, never seen before historical photographs and films, and animation, DIAGRAM goes further than any previous comic book documentary to explore and understand the controversial figure at the center of this American tale: Fredric Wertham.
0.0After a YouTube video in which he claimed that Bluetooth attracts bees was blocked for misinformation, Thomas Wrinklesmooth started his investigation into censorship and cancel culture.
0.0An essay film by filmmaker and archivist Sari Braithwaite, [Censored] offers an overview of film censorship in Australia, told through an ever-changing collage of images compiled from the footage that was cut from films released domestically between 1958 and 1971.
0.0This short documentary explores how the Ilustrada section of the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper had to fight back against censorship from the military dictatorship in Brazil after Lourenço Diaféria, one of its columnists, published an article criticising the patron of the Brazilian army, Duque de Caxias.
