Was it the scene in which the monk, possessed by a powerful love potion, pursues a giggling harlot around the kitchen table? Or perhaps the wonderful scene in which a coven of women, flushed from moonlight frolics with demons, queue up to kiss the Devil’s bum? Something upset the censors mightily about Häxan, Benjamin Christensen’s silent dramatised documentary about witchcraft. The film was banned in every European country outside its native Sweden on its release in 1922. So could Häxan be the earliest movie to face such a ban?

Apparently not: The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906), generally agreed to be the first feature-length film, faced bans in Benalla and Wangarratta, Australia, in 1907, and then again in Adelaide in 1911, the charge being that the film glorified criminals. Then in 1918, in Manitoba, Canada, the film-censor board imposed a blanket ban on all comedies because they made audiences “too frivolous”.

But as Sue Clark, the spokeswoman for the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), observes, any controversy attached to a film raises awareness of it and can serve to make it more interesting to audiences. In 1969 Häxan was restored to its original running time and rereleased as Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages, with commentary by Wiliam Burroughs and a jazz score. The original version is screened at the Barbican on Sunday, accompanied by a new score by Geoff Smith. It will also be released on DVD in late July.

Häxan’s longevity has probably as much to do with its forbidden status as with its merits – evidence that the act of banning a movie can often result in a broader audience than the film could ever have hoped for otherwise.

The urge to view a film which has been placed out of reach is nowhere better exemplified than the case of Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, removed from British screens by a self-imposed ban by the director himself, effective until his death in 1999. As a teenager, I watched A Clockwork Orange on a stretched and scratched bootleg VHS before I saw any of Kubrick’s other films, and I doubt that I’m alone in that.

The criteria that might result in a film facing a ban have evolved and in Britain to-day a film would never be banned on political grounds. However, Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin (1925) faced one of the longest bans in British cinema history – being passed only in 1954 – for fear that it might stir up unrest in the workers.

In the past, films have been banned simply because the powers that be didn’t like the look of them. The Marx Brothers’ Monkey Business (1931) was banned in Ireland because censors feared that it would encourage anarchic tendencies in impressionable audiences.

Religious concerns have also proved a sticking point. The director Pier Paolo Pasolini was actually imprisoned in his native Italy for his section of the portmanteau film RoGoPaG (1963).

Drugs are equally contentious. Roger Corman’s psychedelic exploitation flick The Trip (1968) was banned in Britain until the mid1990s. And Paul Morrissey’s Trash (1970) ran into trouble over fears that the film’s scenes of heroin abuse might prove to be instructive.

But the main issues now are sex and violence. The last cinema film banned by the BBFC was Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III in May 1990 for concerns about the sadistic violence. It has since been passed 18 uncut on DVD. “We would not normally cut violence at 18 now unless it was sexual or sexualised violence,” Clark says.

But even more respected cinema remains banned. Monte Hellman’s acclaimed Cockfighter(1974) was scheduled to be shown at the Edinburgh Film Festival last year but was prevented at the last minute. Clark explains that the film, which contains numerous scenes of illegal cockfighting, falls foul of the Cinematograph Films (Animals) Act 1937.

Shane Danielsen, the director of the festival, says: “ Cockfighter was a case of a film’s reputation preceding it and the idiotic and unfortunately successful attempt by various animal rights nuts to have it banned.

“What were they trying to achieve? Was it a denunciation of the practice of cock-fighting? Few, including the film-maker, would have disagreed. Were they trying to prevent the slaughter of these animals? If so, they were 33 years too late.”

As usual, the ban backfired, as the first thing many audience members did – including me – was to track down a DVD copy of the film. RoGoPaG, Trash, El Topo and Häxan are or will shortly be available on Tartan DVD. Häxan is shown at the Barbican, EC2 (020-7638 4141), on Sunday.

Wendy Ide’s favourite banned films

The Wild One (1953)
Marlon Brando on a motorcycle was considered too much for British audiences until 1969.

A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Stanley Kubrick’s self-imposed ban made it a must-see, by whatever means. It’s a film that takes your breath away.

Freaks (1932)
Tod Browning’s movie tells of the circus performers who exact revenge on their oppressors. This is avant-garde proto-horror.

Explore Film

• Film Reviews

• DVD

• Oscars

• Bollywood

Editor's choice

• Here comes summer: our cultural must-sees
• Friends reunited: Sex and the City
• New country for old men