List of films portraying paedophilia or sexual abuse of minors

This article presents a list of films portraying paedophilia or sexual abuse of minors. The attraction or abuse may be to a single specific individual or to several children. The pedophilic attraction or sexual abuse may be central to the plot or incidental.

Both children and adolescents

0-9

• 8 mm, 1999, directed by Joel Schumacher, starring Nicolas Cage, Joaquin Phoenix, and James Gandolfini.

The main character (private investigator Tom Welles, played by Nicolas Cage), is hired to research the authenticity of a snuff film depicting a teenage girl being raped and tortured by a masked man, as well as the girl's apparent murder.

A

• "American Beauty"

The protagonist is motivated to change his life after become infatuated with his daughter's classmate.

• "An American Haunting"

A young girl is raped by her father. Decades later, another girl living in the same house is haunted by the formers ghost, prompting her mother to question the relationship between her daughter and her ex husband.

• American Me

Depicts several acts of rape performed by the prisoners on other prisoners.

• Animal House
• Antwone Fisher

"Pinto" sleeps with Mayor's 13 year old daughter.

Born in a jail, Antwone faces years of mental, physical and sexual abuse.  Joins the Navy later in life.

• A Time to Kill

Depicts a young African American girl being raped by two white men, and her father (Samuel L. Jackson) is put on trial for their subsequent murder.

• Atonement (film)

A teenage girl is raped by an older man, another man is falsely accused.

Angry Dogs

B

• The Basketball Diaries

Jim Carroll (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) is a 16-year-old junkie. At the end of the film he prostitutes himself once in order to get money for buying drugs.

• Bastard Out of Carolina, 1996

A young girl from Carolina is sexually abused by her stepfather and eventually raped on screen.

• The Butterfly Effect

A boy discovers (over time) that his best friend is being sexually abused by her father, and eventually remembers that he was made to perform with her in videotaped child pornography.

• Black Snake Moan, 2007

A promiscuous young woman (Christina Ricci) tries to change her ways, and faces the fact that she was sexually abused by her mother's boyfriend when she was a child.

C

• Chinatown, 1974, directed by Roman Polanski, written by Robert Towne

A woman has an incestuous relationship with her father, resulting in a daughter by him.

• Christiane F. - Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo

A 13-year-old falls into heroin addiction and is forced to prostitute herself in Berlin in order to buy her dose.

• Chuck & Buck , 2000, directed by Miguel Arteta , written by Mike White

• The Color Purple

A girl gives birth to two children by a man she believes to be her father.

:*The Country Teacher, 2008

A male teacher boards with a family and molests a teen boy.

D

• Deliver Us from Evil, 2006, directed by Amy Berg

The true story of Catholic priest Father Oliver O'Grady who abused both boys and girls.

• Devil in a Blue Dress
• Donnie Darko

After Donnie burns down a local celebrity's house, a safe containing child pornography is found within the burned walls.

• Doubt, 2008

A nun suspects the priest of her school is abusing a boy.

• Dreamchild, 1985, directed by Gavin Millar

Developed from the television play Alice by Dennis Potter, based on the life of 'Charles Dodgson' (Lewis Carroll).

E

• Eban and Charley, 2000, directed by James Bolton

A 29-year-old man forms an intimate relationship with a 14-year-old-boy.

• Eve's Bayou

A young girl tells her younger sister that she was raped by their father after she attempts to seduce him and is rejected.

• Evilenko

A film based on a true crime case. In the beginning sequence, the film's chief character, Andrej Romanovic, holds back a young girl in his class for detention and then attempts to rape her.

• The Exterminator, 1980

John Eastland as "The Exterminator" raids a child prostitution ring, killing the ringleader and a state senator from New Jersey while setting a young boy free who was bound to a bed.

F

• Fat Girl

A young overweight girl is raped onscreen in the woods by a man who murdered her mother and older sister. She is also depicted nude onscreen.

• Flashbacks of a Fool the down

A fading Hollywood star looks back at the days of his teenage youth when his mother's friend raped him, eventually playing a part in her young daughter's death.

• Fierce People

A teenage boy is raped and beaten out of hate and jealousy.

• For a Lost Soldier, see Voor een verloren soldaat.
• Forrest Gump

Gump's childhood sweetheart is abused by her father in a brief plot line, and some later suffering can be inferred from the earlier trauma.

• Freeway (1996 film)

A young girl (Reese Witherspoon) who is sexually abused by her stepfather, faces foster care when her mother (Amanda Plummer) is arrested for prostitution. She runs away and encounters a serial child rapist / murderer (Kiefer Sutherland')

• From Dusk till Dawn

Richie Gecko (Quentin Tarantino) has an on screen sexual fantasy about a young teenage girl (Juliet Lewis)

G

• Georgia Rule

A young woman confesses to her family that her stepfather molested and raped her from age 12 to 14.

• Get Out Your Handkerchiefs

A married woman takes a 13-year-old boy as her lover.

• The Girl Next Door (2007 film)
• The Goddess of 1967
• Gone Baby Gone

A young girl from a rough neighbourhood in Boston disappears. A convicted pedophile is under suspicion by the police and the movie's protagonists, Patrick Kenzie and Angelica Gennaro.

• Gothika
• Gardens of the Night
• Gummo
• Girl, Interrupted

One of the patients is involved in a sexual relationship with her father, who lavishes her with gifts and favors. These include prematurely removing her from treatment and setting her up in her own house, where she later commits suicide after another patient confronts her about the relationship.

H

• Happiness, 1998, directed by Todd Solondz

A respected psychiatrist and family man is a predatory abuser of his young son's friends.

• Hard Candy, 2006, directed by David Slade starring Patrick Wilson and Ellen Page

A young woman poses as a 14-year-old to track down pedophiles who sexually solicit children in internet chat rooms.

• The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, 2004, directed by and starring Asia Argento.

The young protagonist is raped by one of his mother's boyfriends.

• Higher Ground (TV series) starring Hayden Christensen, A. J. Cook, ...

The series is about troubled teens in some sort of 'help camp'. Scott (Christensen's character) is being sexually abused by his stepmother and Shelby (Cook's character) by her stepfather.

• The Hills Have Eyes

A girl is raped by a mutant in her family's trailer.

• Hannibal Rising (film)

• Houndog (film)

A preteen girl is raped by her male friend's older brother after being promised tickets to a concert, and she suffers depression.

I

• In a Dark Place

J

• Jet Boy
• Jaago

A 10 year old schoolgirl (Hansika Motwani) is raped by three men in a train.

K

• Kill Bill

As a child, the character O-Ren Ishii kills her parents' murderer by exploiting the fact that he was a pedophile.

Kids - 1995

Directed by Larry Clark, the film follows a group of teenagers around New York City for a day. In the final scenes of the film, the character of Casper rapes Jenni, who he is unaware has just tested positive for the HIV virus. She has only ever slept with Telly, Casper's best friend, who sleeps with two other virgins in the film.

• King of Thieves

A 13-year-old Ukrainian girl, Mimma, is raped and forced into prostitution, after she and her brother are sold by their family to a thief.

• Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

• The Kite Runner (2007)

In one scene a boy is depicted being raped by an older boy. In a later scene, the rapist, (perhaps now a 40-year-old) Taliban activist, is said to have periodically taken young children from an orphanage, including a young boy who is revealed as a sort of pet slave, forced to dance for this man and presumably being sexually abused.

• Karla

Made in 2004 depicting the crimes of Karla Homolka and husband Paul Bernardo. The two raped and killed 4 girls, one girl being Karla's younger sister Tammy. The film shows many rape scenes, all with teenagers.

L

• L.I.E., 2001, directed by Michael Cuesta

Howie, a 15-year-old boy, discovers that his best friend, a hustler named Gary, is a boy prostitute to Big John, a retired military officer. After Gary and Howie rob Big John's house, Big John proposes that Howie can pay for the stolen items by having sex with him; however, Big John apparently changes his mind and they don't have sex. Big John is killed by another teenager with whom he had had a sexual relationship.

• Lipstick, 1976 film, starring Mariel Hemingway

After her music teacher has raped her older sister and gets subsequently acquitted in court, a young girl is hunted down and raped by the man as well.

• Little Children, 2006 film

One of the main plot lines of this film concerns the release from prison of a pedophile and the effects of this event in his community.

• The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, 1976, directed by Nicolas Gessner

Rynn is a 13-year-old, whose neighbor Frank, a pedophile, tries constantly to seduce her.

• Lolita, 1962, directed by Stanley Kubrick, starring James Mason and its 1997 remake, directed by Adrian Lyne, and starring Jeremy Irons
• Life As A House

An older woman (Mary Steenburgen) begins an affair with her younger daughter's friend. Also, a teenage boy, (Hayden Christensen) prostitutes himself to older men for marijuana.

• The Last House on the Left

Two girls are held captive by a gang, who proceed to rape and kill them.

• Let the Right One In, 2008 film, directed by Tomas Alfredson

In the novel on which the film is based, the character Håkan is a pedophile. In the film, his relationship to the child vampire Eli is left open to interpretation.

Les Amities Particulier (ROGER PEYREFITTE) paru en 1951

M

• La Mala Educación, released in English as Bad Education, 2004, a Spanish film directed by Pedro Almodóvar

Two boys fall in love and are also abused by a priest at their school.

• Madea's Family Reunion

A character's daughter reveals that she was raped by her sister's father as a child.

• Marian, Again, 2005

• Mark of the Vampire (1935)

In the original Script (recorded media) Count Mora was supposed to be involved in an incestuous relationship with his daughter Luna, and to have committed suicide. After the filming began, however, all references to the crime were cut out of the script by MGM, and so the character played by Béla Lugosi is seen with noticeable, unexplained bullet hole on the side of his forehead. Because director Tod Browning’s previous film, Freaks, had been a box office disaster, Browning was unable to object to any changes made by the studio.

• Melissa P

A 2004 italian film about a 15 year old girl's sexual exploits, starring an actual 15 year old girl

• Mikres Aphrodites (In English "Young Aphrodites")

A Greek film (1963) directed by Nikos Koundouros. It is set in ancient Greece, about 200 B.C. The movie focuses on a wandering band of shepherds. They arrive in a small village where there are no men because they are away fishing. Two romances develop including pre-teens/early teens, with sexually explicit scenes presented in an elegant way. Two of the shepherds (a man and boy) fall in love with a man and a girl from the village.

My Own. Private Idaho

Acclaimed 1991 film about two teenage hustlers, played by River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves who turn tricks in order to support themselves and travel.

• Mysterious Skin 2004 directed by Gregg Araki, from the novel of the same name by Scott Heim

Two adolescents molested as young boys have very different memories of their experiences.

• Mystic River

One of the film's central characters, Dave Boyle, is kidnapped, locked in a cellar and sexually abused for several days by two men.

N

• Notes on a Scandal

A married art teacher has an affair with one of her 15-year-old students.

• Nuts

A high-priced prostitute charged with manslaughter was molested as a child.

O

• Oude Tongen, (Old Tongues), 1994 in film, directed by Gerardjan Rijnders
• Oldboy, directed by Park Chan-Wook
• Old School (film)

Mitch Martin sleeps with High School student Darcie Goldberg

• Osama (film), directed by Siddiq Barmak in 2003. Tells a story about a 12-year-old girl who disguises herself as a boy to survive under the Taliban regime in Afganistan. At the end of the movie she is abused by a senior cleric figure obsessed with washing the genitalia of children to remove ritual impurity.

P

• Palindromes

The 13 year old protagonist, Aviva, has intercourse with an adult truck driver.

• Platoon

Depicts a Vietnamese girl being raped by American soldiers during the Vietnam war.

• Pretty Baby, 1978 directed by Louis Malle and starring Brooke Shields

Violet, a 12-year-old girl, is arranged to have her virginity sold before prostitution is made illegal.

• Precious

The titular character is sexually abused by her father and gives birth to two children, one of whom has Down Syndrome.

• Priest, 1994 British film

The protagonist becomes aware that a young member of his parish is being sexually abused by her father.

• Provoked, directed by Jag Mundhra and starring Aishwarya Rai

The film is based on the true story of Kiranjit Ahluwalia who killed her abusive husband.

• Primal Fear: directed by Gregory Hoblit, starring Richard Gere and Edward Norton.

Norton portrays a murder suspect who was sexually abused by an archbishop.

• Princess Aurora starring Uhm Jung-hwa
• Prisoners , 2013, starring Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal

two children are upducted, two former survivors of captivity and abuse are revealed

Soo-jung's daughter was raped and killed by a man.

Q

• The Quiet

A 17-year-old girl has an incestuous relationship with her father. Although never clarified, the abuse seemed to start from a young age, but they did not start having intercourse until she reached puberty.

R

• Rainbow Bird and Monster Man

• The Reader, 2008

A woman has a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old boy.

• Running Scared, 2006, directed by Wayne Kramer

• Running with Scissors. 2006

A teenage boy named Augusten Burroughs befriends Neil Bookman, a grown adult male and the two begin a sexual love affair.

S

• Salo
• Scusa ma ti chiamo amore (2008 Italy) film directed by Federico Moccia.

A 17-year-old girl falls in love with a 37-year-old man. He gives up his family to marry the girl.

• Sin City, (2005) based on the graphic novel

Among the many separate stories, one features a scion of a powerful political family who is also a child molester and serial killer of young girls. Eight years after he is denied 11-year-old Nancy Callahan, he decides to track her down to finish the job.

• Sleepaway Camp

In a brief scene, a cook at a sleepaway camp is thwarted in his intention to molest a young girl

• Sleepers, 1996 film directed by Barry Levinson, based on the book Sleepers by Lorenzo Carcaterra
• Soft Like Me (1996, by Jeffrey Erbach)

A short movie depicting boys enslaved by men on a farm.

• Something About Amelia

Story of a young girl sexually abused by her father.

• Speak

A freshman in high school is raped by an upperclassman at a party. This causes her to lose her friends and rarely speak.

• Summer of '42

Coming of age film

• Sybil

Hollywood drama of a young woman suffering from multiple personality disorder. She discovers in therapy that her illness is the result of having been sexually abused by her mother.

• The Sweet Hereafter

It is implied that a young girl has incestuous relations with her father.

T

• Taxi Driver
• The Prince of Tides

Tom and Savanna Wingo are raped as children by escaped convicts.

• The Tin Drum
• Tommy

Pete Townshend's rock opera and 1969 double-album by The Who, adapted to film in 1975 by Ken Russell, whereby teenage Tommy (Roger Daltrey) is raped and sexually abused by his “teen-sitter”, his ‘wicked’ Uncle Ernie (Keith Moon).

• Total Eclipse

Leonardo DiCaprio plays a 16-year-old poet, who has an older man as a lover.

• Towelhead
• Trade
• Treasure Island

In the German adaptation from 2007 17-year-old Jim Hawkins is seduced by an adult female prostitute.

• Trust

A teenage girl is targeted by an online sexual predator.

• Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
• Twist of Faith, 2004, directed by Kirby Dick

Tony Comes survives sexual abuse by a Catholic priest.

• Two Women, 1960, directed by Vittorio De Sica

An Italian adolescent girl and her mother are raped by Moroccan Goumier soldiers during the Marocchinate war rapes in World War II.

• The Lovely Bones, 2002, directed by Peter Jackson

Centers on a young girl who has been murdered and watches over her family - and her killer - from heaven. She must weigh her desire for vengeance against her desire for her family to heal.

U

Un enfant dans la foule In 1944, Paul, 13 years old, is the evil liked by his family. In search of human warmth, it discovers homosexual relationship, on war bottom, and realizes that he can pick up the attention of certain men who bring him a sensual disease but always escaped... Un film de Gérard Blain avec Jean-François Cimino, César Chauveau, Annie Kovaks (France) Genre : Drame - Duree : 1H25 mn Editeur DVD : Eklipse Vidéo Sortie à la Vente en DVD le 18 Février 2004 Année de production : 1976

V

• V for Vendetta, an Archbishop in the Church of England shows the intent to have sex with an underage girl before he is murdered by V.
• A Very Short Life, released in Hong Kong, 2009, tells the story of a young girl who was sexually assaulted by her mother's boyfriend. During her interrogation, the mother is physically forced to watch a videotape of them having sex. Child pornography is depicted in the film, but shown off-screen.
• La virgen de los sicarios, released in English as Our Lady of the Assassins, 2000, directed by Barbet Schroeder

An old writer has a sexual relationship with a young hitman in Medellín.

• Voor een verloren soldaat, 1992 Dutch film, released in the USA as For a Lost Soldier from the novel by Dutch author Rudi van Dantzig

A 12-year-old boy falls in love with a Canadian soldier in Europe during World War II. The relationship becomes sexual; it's unclear if the soldier is in love with the boy.

W

• The War Zone
• The Watchmen

Rorshach tracks down a missing girl and discovers the man who raped and killed her.

• Water
• Woman Thou Art Loosed

A woman named Michelle is a crack addict who was sexually abused and raped as a child by her mother's boyfriend Reggie.

• The Woodsman, a 2004 film directed by Nicole Kassell

The movie stars Kevin Bacon as a pedophile who must reintegrate into society after twelve years in prison for molesting two under aged girls.

• Wicked (film)

A young girl seduces her father after trying to replace her own mother.

Criminal investigations and true stories

• The Boys of St. Vincent, 1992, directed by John N. Smith and its sequel
• The Boys of St. Vincent: 15 Years Later, 1993, directed by John N. Smith

The two films chronicle abuse by priests at an orphanage in Canada and are based on true events. See Congregation of Christian Brothers

• Capturing the Friedmans, 2003 documentary directed by Andrew Jarecki

The controversy surrounding the conviction of a father and son for the abuse of children who came into their home for computer classes.

• Deliver Us from Evil, 2006, directed by Amy Berg

The true story of Catholic priest Father Oliver O'Grady, who abused both boys and girls.

• Do You Know the Muffin Man?, 1989, directed by Gilbert Cates

Ritual satanic sexual abuse and child pornography at a day-care centre.

• Gacy, 2003, directed by Clive Saunders

The story of John Wayne Gacy, a serial killer who preyed on young boys.

• I Know My First Name Is Steven, also released as The Missing Years, 1989, directed by Larry Elikann

The true story of Steven Stayner, who was abducted by Kenneth Parnell at age 7 and sexually abused for seven years before being reunited with his family.

• Indictment: The McMartin Trial, 1995, directed by Mick Jackson

The true story of the McMartin family who were wrongly accused of molesting preschool children.

• Judgment Day: The Ellie Nesler Story, 1999, directed by Stephen Tolkin

Ellie Nesler shoots her son Willy's alleged molester during his trial.

• Just Ask My Children, 2001, directed by Arvin Brown

The story of wrongfully accused parents from the Kern County child abuse cases.

• Just, Melvin: Just Evil, 2000, documentary directed by James Ronald Whitney

A grandfather sexually molests a number of family members.

• M, a German 1931 classic by Fritz Lang

About the hunt for a child molester and serial killer, played by Peter Lorre. The character is allegedly based on Peter Kürten. American remake in 1951.

• Menendez: A Killing in Beverly Hills, 1994, directed by Larry Elikann and Honor Thy Father and Mother: The True Story of the Menendez Murders 1994, directed by Paul Schneider

The story of the Menendez brothers who murdered their parents then claimed they had been abused as children.

• Our Fathers, 2005, directed by Dan Curtis from the book by David France

Boys have been abused by John Geoghan and other priests. See Roman Catholic sex abuse cases

• Pure Fiction, 1998, directed by Marian Handwerker

About a child sex abuse ring in Belgium.

• Sex Crimes and the Vatican (2006)

A documentary filmed for the BBC Panorama documentary series which detailed how the Vatican has used something called "Crimen sollicitationis" or secret documentation to silence allegations of sexual abuse by priests and how it was enforced for 20 years by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger before he became Pope Benedict XVI.

• Stevie, 2002, directed by Steve James

A documentary about Stevie Fielding, an abused boy who became an abuser himself.

• Unspeakable Acts, 1990, directed by Linda Otto and featuring Joseph Mazzello, based on the novel Unspeakable Acts by Jan Hollingsworth

Sexual abuse at a Dade County daycare center; based on a true story.

See also

• List of books portraying paedophilia or sexual abuse of minors
• List of songs portraying paedophilia or sexual abuse of minors
• List of works for the theatre portraying paedophilia or sexual abuse of minors

Further reading

• Coming of Age: Movie and Video Guide by Don Lort. Companion Press, 1997. ISBN 1889138029
• The Moving Picture Boy: An International Encyclopaedia from 1895 to 1995 by John Holmstrom. Michael Russell Publishing, 1996. ISBN 0859551784
• Children in the Movies, by Neil Sinyard: a study of how childhood has been portrayed in films. Palgrave Macmillan, 1992. ISBN 031207574X

External links

• The Internet Movie Database
• Most Controversial Highlights in the 1962 Ottaviani Directive (English)