Top 10 Controversial Movies of the last decade

1. Aloha” (2015)

Cameron Crowe’s “Aloha” became one of the decade’s most prominent examples of Hollywood whitewashing when it cast Emma Stone as a character who is meant to be of one quarter Chinese and one quarter Hawaiian descent. The Media Action Network for Asian Americans publicly spoke out against the movie and accused Crowe of whitewashing Stone’s character, an Air Force pilot named Allison Ng. The controversy followed Stone around throughout the decade, so much so that host Sandra Oh made a joke about “Aloha” whitewashing at the 2019 Golden Globes. Emma Stone was in attendance and shouted, “I’m sorry!”

2. The Interview” (2014)

It was inevitable that Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s “The Interview” would be controversial considering its plot centered around two American journalists (played by Rogen and James Franco) who set up an interview with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (Randall Park) and then get recruited by the CIA to assassinate him. The political plotline was destined to ruffle feathers, but then “The Interview” became the subject of the infamous 2014 Sony Pictures hack. The general consensus around Hollywood is that North Korea hacked the studio in reaction to “The Interview.” Sony pulled the movie’s nationwide theatrical release and opted to put it on VOD instead (some indie movie theaters were able to show the film).

3. Joker” (2019)

Was there a more controversial comic book film this decade than “Joker”? Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix’s revisionist comic book drama turned heads by winning the Golden Lion at the 2019 Venice Film Festival and then endured months-long controversy over its depiction of both the Joker character and graphic violence. While Phillips maintained that showing the bloody ramifications of violence was important (he suggested PG-13 films do more damage by showing bloodless massacres), many critics were left wondering whether or not “Joker” would encourage viewers to commit acts of violence themselves. Some critics blasted “Joker” as irresponsible due to the way it creates sympathy for its main character, and at least one showing of the film in Los Angeles was canceled over opening weekend due to a legitimate threat. Ultimately, “Joker” overcame its pre-release anxieties to earn over $1 billion at the worldwide box office.

4. Zero Dark Thirty” (2012)

Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty” sparked a national debate over the U.S. military and the CIA’s use of torture during terrorist interrogations. The film depicts scenes of waterboarding and other forms of torture in graphic detail and positions these methods as one of many steps the CIA took to figure out the whereabouts of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. The debate ignited a firestorm of controversy over whether or not “Zero Dark Thirty” endorsed the use of torture. Some journalists slammed the movie for being pro-torture (The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald called the film “pernicious propaganda”). Many Oscar pundits believe the controversy derailed the film’s awards chances.

5. Black Swan (2010)

One of the most notable films of 2010, “Black Swan” shows the dark side of major ballet companies. Envy, betrayal, and insane competition are only some of the topics that surround Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman), an ambitious ballerina whose mind begins to break as she obtains the lead role of her company’s next production.

The film’s public and critical acclaim faced several accusations surrounding the legitimacy of Natalie Portman’s Oscar-winning performance.

Dance Magazine’s editor-in-chief Wendy Perron asked about Portman’s double, American Ballet Theater soloist Sarah Lane, and the credit she was given in the movie. As a result, Portman’s credit for her dancing in the film and her dance double’s role was largely speculated. Lane eventually stated that her main interest lied in the defense of ballet as an art that cannot be mastered in a year.

6. The Birth of a Nation” (2016)

“The Birth of a Nation” won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival and was supposed to be one of the year’s top Oscar contenders and a major breakout moment for actor-director-writer Nate Parker. None of those expectations were met after Parker’s 1999 rape trial resurfaced just a few weeks before Fox Searchlight’s October theatrical release. Parker and his “Birth” co-writer Jean McGianni Celestin were accused of raping a student at Penn State. Celestin was convicted of sexual assault but the decision was overturned on appeal in 2005. Parker maintained his innocence as the “Birth” release date drew closer, but his thin apologies only stirred up more outrage from the public. “Birth” went from expected Oscar darling to a quickly forgotten footnote in Fox Searchlight’s history.

7. Exodus: Gods and Kings” (2014)

Ridley Scott’s biblical epic “Exodus: Gods and Kings” courted controversy for casting white actors in nearly every major role. The social media movement #BoycottExodusMovie took off in the weeks leading up to the film’s release. Scott cast white actors Christian Bale and Sigourney Weaver as major characters and hired actors of color to play the slaves, servants, and civilians. Bale starred as Moses and Joel Edgerton as Ramesses II, but neither actor was of Egyptian descent like their characters. “Exodus” opened ahead of “Aloha” and “Ghost in the Shell” and was one of the first major Hollywood films of the decade that ignited serious conversations about the severity of whitewashing.

8. Ghost in the Shell” (2017)

Paramount Pictures had high hopes for Rupert Sanders’ live action “Ghost in the Shell” remake, but the $110 million production bombed at the U.S. box office after a whitewashing controversy involving Scarlett Johansson. The actress was cast as the film’s lead Motoko Kusanagi, who is traditionally animated as a Japanese woman in both the manga series on which the film is based and the 1995 anime movie. Johansson and the filmmakers tried to spin the casting decision as justified since Johannson’s character is a cyborg and thus does not belong to a specific ethnicity, but that was a soft excuse for what became one of the most egregious examples of Hollywood whitewashing this past decade. Johansson’s casting pushed the conversation around whitewashing to the forefront of Hollywood.

9. The Hunt” (2019)

Craig Zobel’s “The Hunt” was pulled from its September 27 theatrical release by Universal for two separate controversies that found themselves getting intertwined in the national conversation. The first was that the film’s promotional campaign had to be suspended by the studio after the mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas. In the wake of mass violence, many moviegoers wondered if “The Hunt” might have a negative impact because of its gun-heavy violence. The second controversy centered on the film’s plot, which the trailer set up as battle between “elites” and the unsuspecting Americans they gather up and hunt for sport. This controversy became a national firestorm after The Hollywood Reporter revealed the script referred to the hunted as “deplorables,” the word Hillary Clinton infamously used to describe Trump supporters. Conservatives lashed out against “The Hunt,” with Donald Trump even weighing in and calling “The Hunt” “very dangerous to our country.”

10. Batman Vs Superman - The Dawn of Justice (2016)

The biggest casting controversy of them all came when Ben Affleck was announced as the new Batman. The news was talked about so much on Twitter and other social networks that it spawned the celebrity relationship-like nickname Batfleck, as if everyone just found out that Batman and Affleck were an item. Fans were revolted by this news and began having flashbacks to Affleck's last superhero role in Daredevil. But everyone knows that 2003 Daredevil wasn't all Affleck's fault, right? There was also the bad writing, bad directing, and much worse casting choices than Affleck as Daredevil.