We explore some of Wikipedia’s oddities in our 6,286,766-week series, Wiki Wormhole.
This week’s entry: List Of Films That Most Frequently Use The Word “Fuck”
What it’s about: Fudge! For a long stretch of movie history, profanity was banned by the Hays Code, so it wasn’t until 1970 that M*A*S*H became the first (non-pornographic) American film to use the word “fuck.” Even then, the word was considered taboo and used sparingly. But here in the 21st century, we say whatever the fuck we want, and Wikipedia lists 138 movies that use the F-word 150 times or more (and tracks “fucks per minute,” ranging from .92 to ten times that amount (in fairness, that 9.2 score comes from Fuck, a documentary about the word itself and its place in the culture).
Biggest controversy: Astonishingly, impossibly, Samuel L. Jackson, the Bad Motherfucker himself, doesn’t make the top 30. He’s certainly on the list, appearing in Pulp Fiction (31), Do The Right Thing (33, although he doesn’t curse in the film), True Romance (39), and The 51st State (81), but somehow an actor for whom “motherfucker” is practically a catchphrase only appears four times. Part of that is the actor’s transition from hard-R indie films in the ’90s to the squeaky-clean MCU of the ’10s. Back in 1994, Pulp Fiction’s foul language was still shocking, and its 265 fucks ranked it only behind Reservoir Dogs and Goodfellas, but it’s been surpassed by a fuckload of movies in the years since.
Strangest fact: SpongeBob: Sponge On the Run ranks surprisingly high on the list. (Okay, we’re kidding.) The only mildly strange thing about the list is how many screenwriters decided to go for a round number, as 8 Mile, 22 Jump Street, A Bronx Tale, Dysfunktional Family, Skin, and This Is The End all apparently said “fuck” exactly 200 times.
Thing we were happiest to learn: Four-letter-words are the great equalizer. Era-defining hits like Goodfellas, direct-to-streaming B movies like The Outpost, stand-up concert films like Eddie Murphy Raw, goofy comedies like Hot Tub Time Machine, respected arthouse flicks like Magnolia—saying “fuck” every 45 seconds is the one thing that brings us all together.
Thing we were unhappiest to learn: The MPAA ratings are just as arbitrary as you think they are. While PG-13 movies are famously allowed exactly one “fuck,” the ratings board will bend that rule if the film portrays historical events, like the presidential debate in which Martin van Buren invited William Henry Harrison to “shut the fuck up, you fucking geriatric pig-fucker.” (Don’t get mad at us, this is the historical record speaking.) But filmmakers can and do appeal the ratings board, “because their target audience might avoid an R-rated film.” So, essentially, you can’t use more than one “fuck” in a PG-13 movie unless you really want to.
Also noteworthy: The movies at the top of the list aren’t exactly putting up a fair fight. As we mentioned, the documentary Fuck is high on the list, but it’s actually second to Swearnet: The Movie, a 2014 comedy in which Trailer Park Boys stars Mike Smith, John Paul Tremblay, and Robb Wells play themselves, and decide to create what Wikipedia describes as, “a fully uncensored internet network.” What an “internet network” is and why saying “fuck” would be considered shocking on the vast pornography archive that is the internet is not explained, but the film received both an NC-17 rating from the MPAA and an 18 out of 100 on Metacritic, so clearly whatever they were going for didn’t succeed at anything beyond getting them the top spot on this list. (Take this movie and the documentary out of the running, and Martin Scorcese’s The Wolf Of Wall Street is the king, with 569 fucks).
Best link to elsewhere on Wikipedia: For those of you who are middle school students just reading Wikipedia so you can underline all the dirty words and snicker, there’s a whole category for sexual slang. It’s an odd collection of slang terms for various body parts and sexual maneuvers, but also baseball metaphors, profanity in Mandarin and Georgian and no other languages, phrases like “mile high club” and “Netflix and chill,” and George Carlin’s list of Seven Dirty Words You Can’t Say On Television.
Further Down the Wormhole: It should come as no surprise that Quentin Tarantino once ruled this list, as in 1994 the top five were Goodfellas, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Do The Right Thing, and True Romance (which Oliver Stone directed, but Tarantino wrote all the “fucks” (and other less important words of dialogue) for. But Tarantino actually directed two and a quarter films on the list, as Four Rooms, a 1995 film made up of four vignettes set in the same hotel, ranks at No. 100. The other segments were directed by fellow ’90s indie film luminaries Robert Rodriguez, Alexandre Rockwell, and Allison Anders. Anders’ segment, “The Missing Ingredient,” concerns a coven of witches convening in the hotel, uses the “Theme From Bewitched” as part of its score.
Bewitched has recently re-asserted itself into the national consciousness as one of WandaVision’s main influences, but the classic sitcom is old enough to have started its run in an era (1964), when TV shows were still beholden to only one or two advertisers. Bewitched’s only commercials were for Chevrolet and Quaker Oats, both of which got prominent product placement. Half a century later, Chevy is still GM’s flagship brand, while Quaker is now part of the PepsiCo empire. Pepsi also owns Frito-Lay, Gatorade, Tropicana… and lasting resentment from a 1992 contest that awarded its grand prize to 800,000 people. We’ll catch Pepsi Number Fever next week.
77 Comments
Tony Scott directed True Romance, Oliver Stone directed Natural Born Killers, for fucks’ sake.
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Dammit, I got those two confused, and I was so sure of myself I didn’t even check.
It was a confusing Tarantino mania back then. Hollywood was sprinkling Quentin seasoning all over! I mostly wanted to make a fuck joke after this fun article!
Wow. Kinja platform totally sucks & only gets worse, daily (mail!). Fact. <-- add FU? Nah 🙂
Addenfum: Prev. comment had nothing to do w/wkly Mike Vago wkly column/av club column. Think he’s a good writer. Tried to post photo pic. Kinja won’t let me post photo orctwo. My attention span is getting much sborter. Maybe was never literate. Anyways, Am angry & drunk on beer.
Prolly for better (or worse).When is next GBV release? Man, sorta sux MES of Fallnet is dead. Okay, Over/Out. If ever see Hammie Spammerfella, ceo of Deafspin & related sites will.. physically assault. Fact.I agree Kinja is awful. The link button is broken.
Mike Vago – “His sixth book, The Planets Are Very, Very, Very Far Away is due in fall 2021.”“Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
That’s actually a pretty good summary of the book! It’s a scale model of the solar system based on the premise that you’ve never seen a scale model of the solar system — the model you’re used to seeing, with the neat concentric circles and the planets nearly bumping into each other, is a lie. This book unfolds to six pages wide (around 5 feet) to give you a real sense of how small the planets actually are compared to the vast distances between them.
One positive side-effect of the restrictions on using the f-bomb has been the sometimes extremely successful strategic deployment of the linguistic Tsar Bomba from the filmmaker’s arsenal. First Class even set up an excellent follow up to this scene in Days of Future Past.(What more could you ask for than being scored to Gnarls Barkley or M83 as you set one of these off on top of everything else?)Please add your favourites in the replies!
Fuck seems so ubiquitous in film, and in general, that it barely registers as an insult anymore, which is how I remember hearing it first it as a kid. Now it comes across more as an expression of anger, surprise or shock. Perhaps that’s just me when driving and someone doesn’t use their indicator. This means it’s less memorable in movies but two uses spring to mind.From Payback, an okay film I saw once, on release, 22 years ago?! I’ve no idea why this stuck in my head but it’s at about 2.37 mark:And from South Park movie it is, of course:Which, I hadn’t remembered, also released in 1999. A fucking impressionable year for me apparently.
I also just use it to be angry at things— mostly debugging fucking software as my employment entails, but also fucking frustrating video games. At this point in my vocabulary “fucking” just is mostly a non-vulgar empathizer like “super,” “very,” etc. The actual insult is whatever I append it too.Glad to see I’m not the only one who immediately queued up “Uncle Fucker” in their head upon seeing this article.
Same for me. I’m pretty good at censoring myself in professional situations or around kids, but sometimes one will start to slip out, and then I’ll either have to try and come up with something polite that starts with F or, if there’s no alternate F-word, just say, “Ffffffffff” and try playing it off as a stressed out sigh.I’m not fooling anyone, but it’s probably the effort that counts.
At this point in my vocabulary “fucking” just is mostly a non-vulgar empathizer like “super,” “very,” etc. The actual insult is whatever I append it too.I do the same and I do it on here all the time without thinking about it. Sometimes people mistake it for anger, when it’s really just how I talk and I don’t mean anything by it.
Shoot Em Up has a great rant about driving without signalling that has been my ethos behind the wheel. That movie burned my ears off with it’s fair share of F-bombs back and forth between hero and villains. Surprised it didn’t make the list.
This movie is of course full of glorious swearing, but this is my favorite, and has become a family joke.
Already did it in a separate post but it’s so powerful, I feel it’s worth mentioning again:
This fuck has an Academy Award!Also:Also also:
With the high amount of f-bombs in the Deadpool movies, oddly one of the best f-bombs is from Francis when he says “Wade Fucking Wilson.” Very nicely delivered.
“Fucked if I know, mate.”“Awww, get fucked…I SAID ‘GET FUCKED’ YOU GREAT BEER-SODDEN SACK OF SHIT!”If you do manage to track this movie down, be warned it’s an Ozploitation movie so you WILL see John Jarrat penis.
Pour one out for the Motherfuckin’ Shore Patrol – when The Last Detail came out all the way back in ‘73, it had by far the highest number of “fucks” of any American movie (around 80), now it doesn’t even make the list (Columbia infamously tried to get Ashby and Towne to cut the number of “fucks” from 80 to 40, to give the film broader appeal).Also Ashby related, his first film as a director, The Landlord, also released in ‘70, just a few months after MASH, includes the word “fuck” as well, in a scene that I think is a lot more thrilling than that film’s football game.
Now, could you imagine the number of f-bombs in an odd-couple buddy movie with Jenifer ‘muthafuckin’ Lewis and Bear Claw (aka Josh Gad), where a lot of their dialogue is improvised?Exhibit A:
Speaking of Ms Lewis, the most soulful deployment of f-bombs I know is in her ‘In these streets’ anthem:
The Woody Woodpecker laugh capping the song was the icing on the fuck cake.
Ha – that was so random! There’s another version that ends with about a dozen people (including the Great Debbie Allen) doing that laugh in unison …
Volume is one thing, but delivery is the key. Two words: Clarence Beeks.
Volume alone just makes people sound like idiots. A lot of extra syllables with the only extra information being “This guy is an idiot”.
Well you’ve certainly demonstrated the versatility of the word.
Anyone here has watched the History of Swear Words series with Nicolas Cage on Netflix. Not especially mindblowing, but entertaining enough, and the first episode is about the word Fuck (of course it is).
It was entertaining from beginning to end. Probably the most interesting part is where one of the linguists points out that young people generally consider slurs much worse than profanity. When you consider that a couple generations ago using racial slurs on TV (in a critical context, granted) was less controversial than using profanity in movies, that’s a really dramatic change.
Does it explain why it was such a taboo for Hollywood scissor wielders that MASH was the first even after nudity hit the screens? I’m pretty sure my conservative grandparents would have been more shocked by movie nudity than goldarn fudge words.
I was surprised they shied away from (and I censor it here for U.S eyes) C**t, although in the US its a gendered insult I guess , whereas its not in the UK , Ireland , Australia etc .In fact the only person to even mention it in passing on that was a UK comic. It kind of makes me wish there was a UK (or Irish) version of the show , also ‘damn’ as a swear word? Americans are weird
‘damn’ as a swear word? Americans are weirdA very, very mild one, such that a movie can use it and still get a G rating (e.g., Planet of the Apes (1968) and The Secret of NIMH).And really, is that any weirder than having “bloody” as a swear word?
“Damn” is only considered to be a swear word by prudes in the US. Most of the population doesn’t consider it insulting.
How could this article not even mention “Casino”? 422, and with “Wolf of Wall Street”, Martin Scorcese is pretty much the “King of Fucks”.
Sam jackson is in Goodfellas, so he does make the top 30. I think he even manages to get a “fuck” in before Tommy plugs him.
My vote for the most adorable f-bomb in movie history:
I have to ask: where’s that from?
GIS says it’s from Jerry Maguire.
historical events, like the presidential debate in which Martin van
Buren invited William Henry Harrison to “shut the fuck up, you fucking
geriatric pig-fucker.” (Don’t get mad at us, this is the historical
record speaking.)
You missed a great opportunity to reference Former Wiki Wormhole Favorite Rutherford B. Hayes here. 😉
Middle name: “Birchard”
His son, Webb C. Hayes, was a real son of a Birchard
Oh, believe me, I considered it, but his opponent, Samuel J. Tilden isn’t that memorable. But van Buren and William “I Died in 30 Days!” Harrison cursing each other out just felt like comedy gold.
“shut the fuck up, you fucking geriatric pig-fucker.” beautiful
Obligatory Movies On The List That I’ve Seen Post: The Wolf Of Wall Street
Summer Of Sam
Casino
Martin Lawrence Live: Runteldat
Goodfellas
The Big Lebowski
Jarhead
Reservoir Dogs
Pulp Fiction
Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back
Do The Right Thing
The Departed
True Romance
The Devil’s Rejects
Eddie Murphy Raw
Zack And Miri Make A Porno
American History X
The Original Kings Of Comedy
Hot Tub Time Machine
Scarface
8 Mile
22 Jump Street
This Is The End
Born On The Fourth Of July
Monster
Belly
Superbad
Pineapple Express
Bad Santa
Grindhouse
Boogie Nights
Snatch
Magic Mike
The Blair Witch Project
Bad Boys II
Clerks II
Forget what you read in film history books, what really ushered in the era of the Hays Code was Paul Muni dropping over 200 f-bombs in Scarface.
I was surprised to see Midnight Run doesn’t make the list. I thought it used to be on top, but with Platoon where it is that couldn’t be. It clocks in at a mere 119. In my teens, my family and I counted them once, our second or third viewing.
Clearly, it’s time for the Academy to create an Oscar (or at least a Rory?) for the most gratuitous use of the word “fuck” in a serious screenplay.
As others have mentioned, it’s not how many times you drop the ‘F-bomb’, it’s how you use it. Scorcese and Tarantino are essentially the ‘I Am Groot’ of the ‘F-bomb’ but it only takes one, well-placed and well-meant ‘Fuck’ to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.
This is very different in tone than Breaking Bad, obviously, but I can’t think of a PG-13 movie that used their one allotted “fuck” more effectively than Anchorman.
Greatest use of “fuck” in a movie
Oliver Stone did NOT direct True Romance, for fuck’s sake.
The word Fuck really was as incendiary as that scene in “A Christmas Story.” It was the scorched earth cuss word. Upon reaching adulthood, one could say damn, goddamn, bitch and even shit in front of one’s parents but fuck was the one word you never dropped. I think I was a junior in high school before I started using the word among my friends but it still took a couple of years before I became relatively unconscious of saying it. By the time I was in my 30s I’d grown so tired of using and hearing fuck, it had lost all its edge, I’d all but quit using it and when I do now it’s only out of lazy habit. Hearing “Fuck you, you fuckin’ fuck” and all its subsequent variations in movies, was all the proof I needed that the word was dead of exhaustion. When I hear the word now it’s just verbal dead wood. It’s anti language. I remember an interview with Matt Weiner just before the premiere of “Mad Men” where he was asked if the language restrictions on AMC were a burden and he replied, god no, it was a relief. He could start writing good dialogue again. Some people complain that they can’t watch old movies because the lack of swearing makes them unrealistic. I feel just the opposite and revel in the wealth of sharp writing.
I work in a kitchen, so the word is obviously ubiquitous to me, but I agree about the over-indulgence in film/TV. I remember a Limp Bizkit song where he says “In this song I say ‘fuck’ 82 times!” A lot of things remind me of that, and I find you can tell when the language is organic, or when they’re shoving through f-bombs to essentially treat an R rating as if it were a literal budget. I get that it is, essentially, but it’s the old ‘Just because you can doesn’t mean you should’. A lot of times it comes off as lazy, clunky and forced. (Nudity can be similar at times, but different conversation.)
Breaking Bad is another great AMC example of not being able to do this with abandon and being richer for it. When I was showing it to a friend of mine, at one point he mentioned that there really isn’t a lot of swearing in it, and he meant it in a positive, sort of surprised way. He wasn’t a prude or anything, but it’s odd how something simple like that can creep up on the viewer, and I don’t think anyone would argue that the dialogue on that show is “too PG”.
It really depends on how it’s written. Watching Titans, it seems like they feel obligated to throw in swear words because they can. It often comes off as gratuitous and clunky. But in other shows, it’s an organic to how the characters would talk. It’s kind of like nudity. Are you putting it in because just you can, regardless of context (looking at you, Game of Thrones), or are you putting it in because it’s an important part of the story you want to tell, like in Sense8?
Bojack Horseman only allowing themselves one use of “fuck” per season is a good example of that. When it hit, it was powerful every time.
Funny you should call the f-word “verbal dead wood”, since Deadwood used it over 1.5 times a minute and was known for its eloquent dialogue.
Funny you should call the f-word “verbal dead wood”, since Deadwood used it over 1.5 times a minute and was known for its eloquent dialogue.
And, of course, using “Fuck” (or “cocksucker”) in that setting is anachronistic. If they’d have used authentic frontier swearing, it would’ve sounded like Yosemite Sam or a bunch of prudish grandmothers. Lot’s of “goldarn” and “dagnabbit”.
https://robertbrucecarter.com/writing/2013/12/anachronistic-profanity-in-deadwood/
There’s also something worth exploring in that piss/shit/fuck-type “swear words” have become less taboo over the last 25 years or so, but slurs directed at any particular demographic have become more taboo. You can’t convince me that’s a bad thing on either side of the equation.
I was surprised to see Dominique Provost-Chalkley as Waverly drop several vehement f-b0mbs on the Wynonna Earp finale this weekAlso Kaley Cuoco as Harley Quinn makes them countMy favorite and most creative user of her signature f-bombs however is Dana DeLorenzo as Kelly on Ash vs Evil Dead
Season 4 got moved to 10 PM so it could run uncensored. They’ve been swearing up and down Purgatory this year.
My favorite inappropriate F-bomb was in the blooper reel for The Good Place when Jameela Jamil screwed up a line and went on a swearing tear . . . then realized someone’s kids were watching the taping and listening to everything she said. (8:03 if the timestamp doesn’t work)
I’m happy it made the top 100 list but I could have sworn The Commitments had more fucks.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Commitments_(film)The most precise swearbomb though was probably Woody Allen(yeah I know ,but he was only an actor in this) in The Front , as its basically near the end of the movie where he rather politely tells an anti-American activities comitte to go fuck themselves . Mainly as if I remember rightly the movie was pretty much swear free , and Allen doesnt usually drop F bombs much in movies.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Front
It’s an Irish movie, so it’s probably on the list for most “fecks”.
I remember that the Paul Newman movie, Slap Shot, was in the running for the most fucks for quite awhile. Newman told the story on how using the word constantly rubbed off on him, as at his first dinner at home after he finished filming with his family, he asked one of them to, “Please pass the fuckin’ salt.” He then said that Joanne and his daughters eventually broke him of the habit, but it took a couple of weeks for him to do so.
Brick is an excellent example of a film that uses the absence of swearing to heighten the mood, and does so in a way that would not have been nearly so effective in the past, before screenwriters decided that making every other word begin with the letter f was a reasonable alternative to writing memorable dialogue.
Brick is the singular reason I became aware of Rian Johnson and JGL before they got big. It was one of the first movies I ever watched with my psycho ex-gf, and is probably the only thing I can thank her for, aside from a year of therapy.It probably helped that I’m also a big Chandler and Hammet fan, and Brick really captures the feel of both of them.
The 80’s were weird. You could machine-gun “fucks” in a heartwarming holiday classic, if your were doing it for comic effect:
At some point, Harlem Nights was in the running for movies with high numbers of f-bombs, especially as a comedy. (133, according to IMDb)All I remember is that I was 19, with my mom, grandma, aunt, uncle and all of these younger cousins watching Harlem Nights and if it was possible to die from cringing, I would have already been dead because the same aunt took me, her kids and her mom to see Reform School Girls, but sitting through Harlem Nights with a bunch of little kids was odd. Almost as odd as them letting us stay and watch Robo-Cop 2.
I don’t think Quaker Oats got any product placement in “Bewitched” as that was basically verboten back then. Auto manufacturers somehow got a pass as long as they got acknowledged in the closing credits. (But a good article.)
I fall into the camp that using “fuck” sparingly has a greater impact. I have never met anyone who uses it to a ridiculous extent like some characters, and it tends to make the dialog sound forced, lazy and fake if a character (or cast of characters) seemingly can’t say a single sentence without mixing in at least one “fuck” into it. I thought swearing a lot was cool when I was 12.
I happened to rewatch the underrated They Came Together the other day, and Paul Rudd has a couple great ones that slip through his heightened romcom shtick. One’s at about two minutes in this clip, although the best one doesn’t seem to be on Youtube – in response to some unexpected white supremacy talk from his girlfriend’s dad, a quick elided “Um, whadafa?”
But Tarantino actually directed two and a quarter films on the list, as Four Rooms, a 1995 film made up of four vignettes set in the same hotel, ranks at No. 100.Make that two and three quarters. Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, half of Grindhouse, a quarter of Four Rooms.
I think if all the f-bombs were removed from Uncut Gems there would be no movie left.