Explores extremity in films and its ethical, theoretical and film-philosophical implications Provides a framework for understanding controversial and extreme films A theory of transgressive film that responds to theories of transgression, accounts for multiple contradictory viewer perspectives Offers an approach that incorporates micro- and macro-scale analysis of films Provides a reflection on the ethical and political stakes of scholarly engagement with images of sex, violence, and sexual violence Transgressive Art Films offers a holistic approach to the way we consider controversial and extreme cinema not just as individual or grouped texts for analysis but as artefacts that ought to be considered within a complex network of social factors. This book provides a rigorous framework for understanding some of the most controversial films of the past twenty-five years. The term 'transgressive art film' designates the phenomenon of a small number of controversial films recuperated each year by the cinema art world as part of an expansion of the definition of film art. Rather than seeing controversial films as aberrations, this book suggests that transgressive art films should be understood as a socio-cultural phenomenon and a central plank of cinema's need for newness, innovation, and renewal. By paying attention to all scales of cinema, from close analysis of individual frames, through the discourse constructed around them, up to global distribution and film-festival networks, Transgressive Art Films details how certain kinds of cinematic transgression gain wide-ranging institutional support rather than being ignored or forgotten.