Every "Banned" 80s Sci-Fi Movie Is a Myth (Except One)

Banned. Another day in the yard!!!! YouTube is full of lists of 80s sci-fi movies that Hollywood "tried to ban", "buried forever" or "tried to hide". The four biggest name 48 different films between them. So every film on those lists goes through the same three boxes. The law: did a government censor, a court or the police actually stop it? The whole film: was the film itself refused, not just a few seconds of it? Still gone: can you still not watch it today? RoboCop was rated X eight times, by a ratings board the studios run themselves. The Thing, Scanners, Xtro and Inseminoid really were on a British police list, and all four passed uncut. Contamination sat on the prosecutors' own list and now has a 15 certificate. Brazil and Brainstorm were buried by the studios that paid for them. Mad Max is from 1979. Peter Jackson's Bad Taste was refused by a vote of five to four, and it has been on DVD uncut since 2004. Only one film ticks all three boxes. Its negative was destroyed by mistake, and the complete version survives on a videotape format whose deadline has already passed. Verdict: REFUSED. CHAPTERS 0:00 Intro 1:17 The lists and the three boxes 2:53 RoboCop and the X 5:05 The Thing and the video nasties 7:45 Contamination 9:15 Buried by the studio: Brazil and Brainstorm 11:32 The real bans: Mad Max and Bad Taste 13:32 The one real ban 16:52 The verdict 17:47 Another day in the yard Narrated by: Me :) SOURCES - The lists: four Weird Hollywood videos (YouTube, Sept 2026): "15 Adult Sci-Fi Movies From the 80s Studios Tried to Hide", "12 Adult Sci-Fi Movies From the 80s Hollywood Tried to Ban", "15 Adult Sci-Fi Movies From the 80s That Hollywood Buried Forever", "20 Adult Sci-Fi Movies From the 80s That Went Too Far For TV" - Motion Picture Association film rating system (voluntary, industry-run; the X was never trademarked); RoboCop (X rating, 8 submissions per Paul Verhoeven); Flesh + Steel: The Making of RoboCop - Video nasty: DPP list (June 1983, 72 titles, 39 prosecuted) and the Section 3 list of 82; Kate Egan, Trash or Treasure? Censorship and the Changing Meanings of the Video Nasties (2007); Video Recordings Act 1984 - The Thing (1982) box office ($19.6M on $15M); Xtro and Inseminoid chart positions and BBFC history; Contamination (uncut 15, 2004; Blu-ray 2015) - Brazil (Sheinberg, the Variety ad, LA Film Critics Association 1985, the 132-minute release); Brainstorm (Lloyd's of London: $2.75M to finish, $3.5M for post-production) - Mad Max (New Zealand and Sweden, ban lifted 2005); Refused-Classification.com: Bad Taste (Australian classification refusal, April 1989, 5 votes to 4) and Death Warmed Up (Refused Registration June 1985, 2,271 m; Reconstructed Version passed November 1985, 2,221.83 m; Queensland Films Board of Review, March 1986; David Blyth's 2009 note) - Umbrella Entertainment Blu-ray of Death Warmed Up (2019) and its notes on the uncut New Zealand VHS; reviews: Daily Dead, Mondo Digital - National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, "Deadline 2025: Collections at Risk"; Funai ends VCR production (July 2016) FOOTAGE Film clips are used under fair use for commentary and criticism: RoboCop (1987), The Thing (1982), Blade Runner (1982), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Contamination (1980), Alien 2: On Earth (1980), Brazil (1985), Out of Africa (1985), Brainstorm (1983), Mad Max (1979), Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981), Bad Taste (1987), Death Warmed Up (1984), Saturn 3 (1980), Night of the Comet (1984), The Hidden (1987), Lifeforce (1985), Scanners (1981), Xtro (1982), Inseminoid (1981), Galaxy of Terror (1981), The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), and the 1970 Academy Awards (Midnight Cowboy). Clips and footage via: Arrow Video, BBC Studios, BLAURÜCKEN TV, Bloody Disgusting Horror, BreadCrustCouncil, craigavonvideo, DrCassette, Freq Out, FT Depot, giofre, Greig Stott, Grindhouse Movie Trailers, HD Retro Trailers, Meathook Cinema, Movieclips, Narrow Gauge Films, nucleusfilms, Oscars, Park Circus, Reel Video Stream, REVOK, Rotten Tomatoes Classic Trailers, Sanchez del Campo, ScreamFactoryTV, Subcutaneous Torture, Thames News, ThamesTv, The Celluloid Highway, The Dick Cavett Show, Umbrella Entertainment, Universal Pictures At Home, Warner Bros. Entertainment, wolfsonarchive (Wolfson Archives, Miami Dade College). Stills: Wikimedia Commons.