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.
