Case Studies
Welcome to the SBBFC Case Studies! They are written by BBFC staff and give you detailed information about how and why works were passed, cut or banned, reported in the papers, complained about or praised. They’ll tell you why we did what you did and offer background information you won’t find anywhere else.
Some like A Clockwork Orange or Manhunt 2 are works you will definitely have heard of. Others like Victim or Freaks are lesser known but important films. And some are films like Juno and Fight Club that you might have seen but had no idea they caused a stir when submitted to the BBFC.
NSFW Case Studies
The BBFC are proud to be an active participant in Film Education’s annual National Schools Film Week. NSFW is the biggest event of its kind in the world and in 2010 took 400,000 children to see 250 films at 2,000 screenings in 550 locations throughout the UK! The focus of these events is on education and the BBFC’s presentations offer both secondary and primary students the opportunity to find out about classification decisions surrounding current movies. The films selected for 2010 include 4.3.2.1, Precious, Fish Tank and An Education. On this page you can find case studies for all of these and all previous NSFW films.
Click here to find out how your school or college can participate in this year’s NSFW - www.nsfw.org
Games Case Studies
Why did the BBFC take the controversial decision of rejecting ‘Manhunt 2’ and what saved ‘The Punisher’ from the same fate? SBBFC’s Games Case Studies section covers some of the key moments in games classification history. Use the scroll-bar to find the case study you want or use the search facility to search by issue or year.
We regularly update the Case Studies but email us if you would like to read more about a film or game that isn’t featured.If you are researching a specific title and would like access to the BBFC's paper file archive this may be possible depending on the age of the work.
Please click here to contact us.
Whether you are researching for an essay, looking for general info or trying to resolve a friendly dispute over whether Heath Ledger´s joker is better than Jack Nicholson, we have the facts.