Taboos of the World: Mondo Movies and Other Documentaries Designed to Shock Hardcover – March 29, 2025

The documentary format has been used extensively throughout the history of cinema to circumvent censorship. This book is an exploration of documentary movies that pushed the boundaries of what was considered acceptable during their time. Footage of nudity and violence, which was impossible to show in conventional cinema, was often tolerated by the censors if presented as being educational. This phenomenon was exploited to the fullest in the Sixties, where a wave of so-called ‘Mondo movies’ hit the cinema screens to titillate and shock an unprepared audience. Hated by the establishment and by most film critics, these films are now largely forgotten but represent a fascinating chapter in exploitation cinema. Finally we have the first truly comprehensive study of such films. The book’s primary focus is on Italian mondo movies, but it also deals with shocking and controversial documentaries from across the globe. Well over 500 films are covered and the book is illustrated with a dazzling array of lobby card and poster reproductions – many of which are unlikely to have been published before. ‘Taboos of the World: Mondo Movies and Other Documentaries Designed to Shock’ is a must for anyone remotely interested in exploring what is perhaps cinema’s darkest and most under-researched topic.Over 500 taboo-breaking and controversial documentaries coveredInformation on cannibal movies influenced by the mondo genreContaining hundreds of rare pictures scanned from author’s personal collection of posters and lobby cardsFull colour throughoutFantastically researched and often correcting past misinformation on the subject Read more