Movie News

Ali G: Who Iz I? is a 2026 UK/US comedy by Sacha Baron Cohen
Starring Sacha Baron Cohen, Morgana Robinson and Stewart Rodeheaver

Hip-hop journalist Ali G returns after 20 years to make a documentary with real people. Cameras follow him for over a year as he takes classes, walks the streets, and appears on shows, often with his pregnant girlfriend.

It's been a while since anybody has called for a movie to be banned in UK cinemas but an obscure group is campaigning against Ali G: Who iz I? claiming that it is enforcing racist stereotypes.

The Amazon MGM film is due for release in cinemas on October 23.

Baron Cohen released the first trailer for Ali G: Who Iz I? last week, marking his return to the satirical character after a 20-year absence. The actor, in his directorial debut, filmed the movie secretly over the course of a year with the mockumentary following his character's life since the world went to crap, alongside his pregnant girlfriend, played by Morgana Robinson.

A day after the trailer's release, NewsCord, a UK news comparison and media monitoring platform, started a campaign urging cinemas around the world to refuse to screen the film. The campaign group have said they have emailed 15 major chains globally. As of Sunday, the campaigners claim they have been instructed to send 41,000 emails on behalf of its website readers. The campaign group said:

Ali G is a cover to laugh at Jamaican culture. The character enforces harmful stereotypes of how a Jamaican man behaves in society.

Ali G smokes weed, is a misogynist, and does nothing meaningful in life. He does this because he thinks this is what a Jamaican does.

The world laughs at Ali G. But the real butt of the joke are Black people and specifically Jamaicans, they added. This is evident in a number of Baron Cohen's films, where a race or religion is the victim of the "joke".

Phil Clapp, head of the UK Cinema Association, told Variety in response to the campaign:

Cinemas are there to engage and entertain the widest possible audience. They are not there to act as censors or arbiters of public taste.

So where a film has been given a certificate by the BBFC, they will decide whether or not to play it solely with the likely response of their audience in mind.

A defiant Baron Cohen himself also addressed the growing backlash, writing on X:

In an age where a comedian's career can be ended by a single un-PC joke, I thought I'd play it safe and bring this guy back.

 

Comment: The Ali G haters are the dumbest people alive

1st September 2026. See article from spiked-online.com by Brendan O'Neill

 

The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) is a 2011 Netherlands/UK horror by Tom Six.
With Laurence R Harvey and Ashlynn Yennie.      

Famously banned in the UK for 2011 DVD but later passed 18 after heavy cuts.

Also temporarily banned in Australia before later being passed R18+ with cuts. An uncut version was again banned in 2026.

In June 2026, Umbrella Entertainment announced an uncensored 4K UHD Collector's Edition of THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE TRILOGY would be released on 22 October.

In July, the uncut version was awarded an R18+ (High impact themes, blood and gore, violence, sexual violence, nudity and sex scenes) as an Accredited Classifier Decision.

The Classification Board are able to revoke and overturn a decision made by a classification tool or accredited classifier if it believed it would have determined a different rating or the consumer advice was misleading, incorrect or grossly inadequate. This is what has now occurred, with the R18+ being replaced by an RC on 21 August. It is the first time a film has been banned in such a way since the March 2024 introduction of Accredited Classifier system.

A cut version was released in the US Unrated by the MPAA. Later it was released in the uncut version which is now cheekily tagged as the Director's Cut, still MPAA Unrated. The film was also banned in New Zealand.

Summary Review: Sick Fantasy

Inspired by the fictional Dr. Heiter, disturbed loner Martin dreams of creating a 12-person centipede and sets out to realize his sick fantasy.

This is the type of movie you will either like or hate, I doubt there will be much in between. The film is quite shocking, but not the most outrageous of the genre.

Actor Laurence R Harvey is masterful as Martin yet doesn't utter a single word of dialogue.

Thriller: A Cruel Picture is a 1973 Sweden action thriller by Bo Arne Vibenius (as Alex Fridolinski).
Starring Christina Lindberg, Heinz Hopf and Despina Tomazani.

The Original/Festival Version including director approved hardcore inserts was banned by the Swedish films censors for cinema release and was subsequently significantly cut to obtain a cinema release. The film was also heavily cut in the US for an MPAA R rating. This US Version was banned by the BBFC from a 1974 cinema release. Heavy cuts were then made to obtain an X rated UK cinema release in 1976. The Original Version was submitted to the BBFC in 2026 but the BBFC cut the hardcore inserts for a cut 18 rated Blu-ray release. There are several other versions featuring a mix of material from the above versions.

UK: The Original Version was BBFC 18 rated for sexual violence for sexual violence after BBFC cuts:

• 2025 Screenbound Pictures Blu-ray (rated 28/07/2025)

The BBFC commented in board meeting minutes [pdf] from darkroom.bbfc.co.uk :

The Classifiers discussed Thriller: A Cruel Picture, a Swedish crime drama, from 1973, in which a woman is forced into prostitution and later seeks violent revenge against her abusers

The film was previously submitted to the BBFC, in a pre-cut version, for cinema release in 1974 and found unsuitable for classification. It was resubmitted in 1975 203 following a change in BBFC leadership 203 and classified X in 1976 after further cuts were made to scenes of violence and sexual violence. It has not previously been classified for home video release

The film has now been submitted for a video rating, in its original uncut version.

The Classifiers focused in particular on two scenes of sexual violence, which depict the protagonist participating in sex work with male and female clients while under the control of a pimp who has forcibly addicted her to heroin. The scenes include explicit images of unsimulated masturbation, vaginal and anal penetration, and ejaculation.

The BBFC supports adults' right to choose their own entertainment as long as it remains within the law and is not potentially harmful. However, where a film or video raises issues or concerns that cannot be addressed by classification at a particular category, we may require cuts or other changes as a condition of classification.

Our Classification Guidelines state that such cuts may be required to portrayals of sexual violence that make rape, other non-consensual sexually violent behaviour or sadistic violence look appealing.

The Classifiers noted that the volume and detail of the real sexual activity in Thriller: A Cruel Picture far exceeds previous, and very rare, precedents for unsimulated (or apparently unsimulated) sexual activity during scenes of sexual violence in films classified by the BBFC. They unanimously agreed that the nature and quantity of the explicit and unsimulated images, in the context of scenes of sexual violence, is such that their effect is to eroticise rape in a manner that poses a risk of harm to viewers under the Video Recordings Act 1984.

The Classifiers determined that the scenes breached the BBFC's Guidelines and policy on depictions of sexual violence, and that cuts were therefore required to remove all explicit imagery in order to make the film suitable for classification at 18.