Paul Feig’s The Housemaid was the most complained about film to the BBFC in 2025 – but not, er, because of the feature film.
The British Board of Film Classification, the BBFC to its chums, has released its annual report, and as always, there’s much fun to be had reading the section on audience feedback it’s received. Specifically, who’s written in to complain to the BBFC about which film.
The most complained about film of 2025? Well, it was Paul Feig’s box office hit The Housemaid, starring Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney. But the thing is, it wasn’t the 15-certificate film itself that attracted the ire of correspondents. Instead, it was the trailer for it.
As the BBFC noted, it received 25 complaints regarding the film, but all of them surrounding the way it was promoted. Specifically, people took umbrage with a trailer for the movie playing before screenings of last winter’s Wicked For Good.
Wicked For Good, you might recall, carried a PG certificate, and the expectation from clearly that trailers would be roughly age-appropriate to that audience. As the BBFC argued in response to the grumbles, it actually classified three different trailers for The Housemaid. One was a PG, one was a 12A, and a third was a 15.
“The BBFC is not involved in deciding which specific trailers are screened before a given film. Cinemas may not screen trailers that are rated higher than the main feature”, it countered in its report.
Still, it’s an annual badge of honour to have the UK’s most complained about movie, and the prize thus goes to Paul Feig, and whoever both cut and scheduled the PG-rated trailer for his film.
Elsewhere, 11 people wrote in regarding The Roses, the 15-rated sort-of remake of War Of The Roses, starring Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch. Most of those weren’t happy with a scene in the film where one character withholds an EpiPen from another, whilst in the midst of experiencing an allergic reaction.
The violence and blasphemous language of Marvel’s Thunderbolts also had people scribbling in, and also people weren’t happy that the animated film Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Infinity Castle had been given a 15, meaning younger viewers couldn’t (legally, cough) go to the cinema to watch it.
Someone wasn’t happy with the smoking in Wake Up Dead Man, too, but didn’t write in enough times to dislodge The Housemaid from the top of the 2025 chart.
You can read the BBFC’s report for yourself right here…