Random Most Controversial Teen Movies (13 items)

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  (#12) L.I.E.

  In the 2001 drama L.I.E, an acronym for the Long Island Expressway, a teenager named Howie is grieving his mother's death in a car accident on the expressway and struggling with his distant father, who already has a new girlfriend a month after his wife’s passing. But Howie finds comfort with his delinquent best friend, Gary, to whom he is attracted, though he doesn’t know if Gary would return those feelings.

  Along with their two other friends, Gary and Howie frequently break into houses in the neighborhood and are nearly caught stealing from middle-aged ex-marine Big John, who later confronts Gary and Howie about the theft and demands they return his items. When Howie can’t return everything, John implies he can repay him with sex, and Howie flees but later fantasizes about John.

  When Gary steals money from Howie’s dad and leaves Howie behind for LA, Howie begins a delicate friendship with John and quickly realizes he holds sexual power over the middle-age man. While staying over at John’s house one night, displacing John’s jealous lover named Scott, Howie finds illicit content involving children, including pictures of an 11-year-old Gary. 

  Howie’s father is arrested for dangerous practices at his construction business, but Howie believes his father has abandoned him and goes to John with the intention of having sex. John explains the arrest to Howie, who breaks down crying, and he takes Howie to see his father in jail the next day. Afterwards, John sits alone in his car at a rest area where Scott arrives, heartbroken from John’s abandonment, and shoots him dead. The film closes with Howie watching the expressway, making a vow he would not let the Long Island Expressway get him, too.

  The film was slapped with an NC-17 rating for its graphic violence and sexual activity, stirring up controversy for the way John was not portrayed as a cartoonish monster but instead a complicated character that has a sexual interest in teenage boys while also wanting to be a father. This humanization of John prevented filmmakers from appealing for an R rating, as the Motion Picture Association of America would not allow it.
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  (#4) Elephant

  • Alex Frost, Eric Deulen, John Robinson, Elias McConnell, Jordan Taylor, Carrie Finklea, Nicole George, Brittany Mountain, Alicia Miles, Kristen Hicks, Bennie Dixon, Nathan Tyson, Timothy Bottoms, Matt Malloy

  The second film in director Gus Van Sant’s “Death Trilogy,” Elephant is the harrowing chronicle of the events surrounding a school shooting in the suburbs of Portland, OR. Based in part on the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, we meet a cast of students prior to the shooting in short scenes of their daily lives: John struggles with his alcoholic father, the outcast Michele struggles with body issues, John’s friend Acadia attends a Gay-Straight Alliance meeting, Elias builds a portfolio of student photographs, and bulimic Nicole, Brittany, and Jordan complain about their parents. 

  Unbeknownst to any of these students, Alex and Eric are planning an attack on their school. We see them have a short sexual encounter in the shower, as well as flashbacks of them ordering weapons online and planning their onslaught. On the day of the shooting, Alex and Eric enter the school armed and encounter John, who they tell to leave. Realizing what's going to happen, John attempts to warn others but is mostly ignored.

  When the propane bombs Alex and Eric planted in the cafeteria fail, they begin shooting indiscriminately, killing almost all the teens shown earlier. The two take a seat in the cafeteria and, surrounded by half-eaten lunches and deceased students, they discuss who they’ve shot. Alex kills Eric mid-sentence. The film ends with Alex discovering two students hiding in the freezer, to which he tauntingly says, “Eenie, meenie, minie, moe,” while deciding who to kill first. The film cuts to the credits before the decision is made.

  Elephant brings a unique sense of realism in that it employs inexperienced actors and introduces each character without bias, something critics have praised it for. Despite the compassionate way in which it addresses school shootings, it was still a polarizing film - critically it was well-received, but the difficult subject matter left many viewers uncomfortable.
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  (#11) Megan is Missing

  • April Stewart, Tammy Klein, Jennifer DiBella, Amber Perkins, Peter Renaud, Lauren Leah Mitchell, Andrew Doebbler, Paula Allen, Nikki Christie, Dean Waite, John Frazier, Marcus Dreeke, Yvette Bartosik, Josh Samson, John Maalis, Jon Simonelli, Rudy Galvan, Jay Gragnani, Craig Stoa, Earl Ledebur, Ali Sadiq, Jael Elizabeth Steinmeyer, Carolina Sabate, Brittany Hingle, Rachel Quinn, Kara Wang, Trigve Hagen, Tia Streaty, Caleb Wells

  Revived by horror lovers on TikTok, Megan Is Missing tells its story in a found-footage format, using a mixture of home movies, web-chat videos, and news reports chronicling the disappearance of 14-year-old best friends Megan Stewart and Amy Herman. Megan is a popular honors student with a difficult relationship with her mother due to her drug addiction, while Amy holds onto her childhood with her collection of stuffed animals and is the target of bullying. 

  In an attempt to better fit in, Megan invites Amy to a rave party, but the night ends in discomfort as Amy is assaulted after refusing sex with a man at the party, only to find Megan performing oral sex on the party’s host in exchange for drugs.

  Megan is given the social media handle for a supposedly 17-year-old boy named Josh, who claims his webcam is broken, keeping him hidden from sight. Megan becomes infatuated with him despite obvious red flags and inconsistencies. After not showing up when they planned to meet at a party, Josh convinces her to meet again, only this time it’s behind a diner. Next, we see news reports about Megan’s disappearance and footage of her being grabbed by a man on the security cameras of the diner. 

  Amy talks online with Josh, and when it’s clear she suspects him, he threatens her, and graphic pictures of Megan being horrifically tortured start appearing on fetish forums. Amy is later kidnapped as well while recording a video diary, and investigators later find her camera in the trash. Within the footage, Josh is unlocking the door to a BDSM chamber where Amy is chained to the wall and begging for her teddy bear. After assaulting her and forcing her to eat from a dog bowl, Josh tells her he will release her if she gets into a large plastic barrel, but within it, she finds Megan’s decaying body. Josh forces Amy inside with Megan’s body, and she begs for her life as he buries the barrel in the woods and walks away.

  Officially banned in New Zealand, Megan is Missing was marketed as an educational film to bring attention to child online safety, but many found the over-sexualization of the young girls to be objectionable and the graphic content to be too disturbing. While director Michael Goi’s intentions were to educate and save lives, many maintain that it's little more than exploitative torture porn.
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  (#7) Battle Royale

  • Beat Kitano, Chiaki Kuriyama, Kou Shibasaki, Aki Maeda, Ai Maeda, Anna Nagata, Minami Hinase, Tatsuya Fujiwara, Taro Suwa, Takashi Tsukamoto, Masanobu Ando, Yūko Miyamura, Sousuke Takaoka, Kanako Fukaura, Taro Yamamoto, Satomi Hanamura, Takashi Taniguchi, Sayaka Kamiya, Eri Ishikawa, Yūki Masuda, Reiko Kataoka, Ai Iwamura, Takayo Mimura, Nanami Ohta, Yukihiro Kotani, Michi Yamamura, Aiko Nogami, Yutaka Shimada, Akihiro Ugajin, Yasuomi Sano, Yukari Kanasawa, Mai Sekiguchi, Satomi Ishii, Tomomi Shimaki, Ren Matsuzawa, Asami Kanai, Hirohito Honda, Sayaka Ikeda, Tamaki Mihara, Tsuyako Kinoshita, Misao Kato, Gouki Nishimura, Ryou Nitta, Takako Baba, Haruka Nomiyama, Shigehiro Yamaguchi, Shigeki Hirokawa, Satoshi Yokomichi, Osamu Ohnishi, Shin Kusaka, Junichi Naitou, Daisuke Yazawa, Hajime Yoneda, Nobuki Baba, Hideaki Kojima, Hideaki Kawashima, Takashi Komori, Kazuhiro Yokokura, Naoki Iwasawa, Shigeki Homma, Gou Ryugawa, Yousuke Shibata, Tetsu Masuda, Suzuka Tonegawa, Kôji Tokuhisa, Tomu Asakawa, Tsuguharu Niizaki, Ryôji Sugimoto, Kenzô Shirahama, Ryôta Nakamura, Kazuo Araki, Hiroshi Kitagawa, Kiyoyuki Matsumoto, Kanji Okumura, Takeyuki Hirai, Umiji Tasaki, Mitsuaki Tachikawa, Akira Yoshizawa, Gôshi Matsuhara, Hidetsugu Okumura, Shôji Takano, Jun'ichi Nashiki, Shirô Gô, Mikiya Sanada, Kazutoshi Yokoyama, Yôichi Murakami, Kotaru Kamijou, Ken Nakaide, Yûya Nakahara, Ayana Noguchi, Hirobumi Seki

  The film Battle Royale defined a genre that would later influence stories like Hunger Games and countless other movies, TV shows, and games with a fight-to-the-death premise. In fact, it's now the name of its own genre, in which a select group of people is made to kill one another until only one survivor remains. 

  Based on Koushun Takami's 1999 Japanese dystopian novel, Battle Royale takes place after a major recession, prompting the Japanese government to pass legislation to deal with juvenile delinquency, resulting in the creation of the annual Battle Royale. For three days on a remote island, students outfitted with explosive collars that will detonate should they not comply must fight to the death until only one victor remains.

  Given rations, a map, and a random weapon, the violence begins with 12 students dying within the first six hours, four of them by suicide. Loyalties change and betrayals ensue as some students enter pacts to protect one another, while others, like Mitsuko Souma and Kazuo Kiriyama, begin killing without remorse. On the final day, with only three students remaining, one of them manages to hack the collars and tricks the teacher running the Battle Royale into believing he killed the other two survivors. The last three students confront the teacher face to face, killing him and leaving the island together on a boat.

  The Japanese film was banned in the US for over a decade, but that didn’t stop it from becoming a cult classic around the world. To the Japanese public, the film was scandalous, but it still managed to gross over 3 billion yen (about $30 million), ranking third-highest behind Spirited Away and Pokémon 4Ever. While the story itself is both brutal and controversial, many of the actors reflect fondly on their experience on set, saying it felt almost like being at school where they gossiped together and went to karaoke in the evenings.
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  (#13) River's Edge

  • Crispin Glover, Keanu Reeves, Dennis Hopper, Ione Skye, Roxana Zal, Daniel Roebuck, Tom Bower, Constance Forslund, Leo Rossi, Jim Metzler

  Deemed by some as the darkest teen film of all time, River’s Edge follows a group of teens Layne, Matt, Clarissa, Maggie, Tony, and John. While hanging out, John tells the group that he killed his girlfriend, Jamie. Clarissa and Maggie assume he’s joking, but John takes Layne and Matt to the river where Jamie’s body is. The sight deeply disturbs Matt, but Layne seems more concerned with covering up his friend’s crime. 

  Later that night, the whole group gets back together to see Jamie’s body, the two girls seeing that it is indeed not a joke. Layne then pushes Jamie’s body into the river and arranges for John to hide out at his friend Feck’s house while Matt shows the police Jamie’s remains.

  When Layne, Clarissa, and Matt go to Tony’s house, they’re chased away by his father, who is armed with a shotgun. After an argument with Layne that gets them kicked out of his car, Matt and Clarissa talk about their conflicting feelings about Jamie's murder while John and Feck drink beer at the river’s edge along with Feck’s blow-up doll, Ellie. Feck reveals that he murdered his own girlfriend years ago, provoking John into bragging about how he strangled Jamie, displaying a delight that scares Feck. 

  As the sun rises, Feck shoots a sleeping John in the head and returns home. Police later break down Feck’s door and arrest him as the teens return to the river and find John’s body. The film ends with Matt, Clarissa, Tony, and Maggie attending Jamie’s funeral and crying as they see her for the last time.

  Based on a real-life case from 1981, River’s Edge provoked controversy, along with good box office numbers. Many have remarked that it’s hard to know which characters to empathize with - the teens show indifference towards the senseless death of Jamie, and John himself had no real purpose for killing her, sympathetic or otherwise. It seems that Feck, while also a murderer, had the most conscience in the film, as he kills John for what he did. 

  The combination of black comedy, intense violence, and teenage apathy certainly make it a film that will continue to divide viewers for years to come.
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  (#5) Menace II Society

  • Tyrin Turner, Jada Pinkett Smith, Vonte Sweet, Larenz Tate, MC Eight, Ryan Williams, Too $hort, Samuel L. Jackson, Charles S. Dutton, Glenn Plummer, Bill Duke

  Set in the Watts and Crenshaw neighborhoods of LA, Menace II Society follows the story of Caine and his best friend, O-Dog, as they're rushed to pay and leave a liquor store as the cashier suspects the boys are there to steal something. When the cashier makes the mistake of saying, “I feel sorry for your mother,” O-Dog fatally shoots him and his wife, robs the cash register and wallets, steals the surveillance tape, and runs off with Caine. O-Dog later shows off the surveillance tape of his crimes to friends, despite Caine’s irritation and warnings.

  When Caine and his cousin, Harold, are carjacked while on the way home from a party, Caine is injured and Harold is killed. Caine learns the location of the carjackers, and with the help of O-Dog and their friend A-Wax, they hunt them down and avenge Harold’s death. Caine and O-Dog continue their entanglement with crime and drugs, eventually leading to a fateful incident in which the cousin and friends of the woman Caine impregnated and dropped do a drive-by shootout that fatally wounds Caine. As he slowly dies, he recalls his grandfather asking if he even cared should he live or die, and in those final moments, Caine realizes he does care, but it’s too late.

  According to directors and twin brothers Albert Hughes and Allen Hughes, the movie was made to let white people know what was really going on in the inner city. Critics responded well to it, claiming it was a gritty, unforgiving look into the complicated and violent world that people are still living in.

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