Focus Features

Transvestism, black market babies, cannibalism, animal crushing, furniture licking, transgender sex, public indecency, the heroin trade — when it comes to the depiction of taboo subject matter, John Waters’ Pink Flamingos has it all. In fact, the film is an outrageously exhaustive catalog of shocking acts, a no-budget classic whose screenplay logic is largely based on one-upping the scene that came before. Premiering March 17, 1972 in Baltimore, Maryland, Pink Flamingos was Waters’ third picture, and the combination of its so-shocking-it’s-funny sensibility, the star power of Divine in the lead role and one scene in particular, it became one of the best known cult movies ever made. That scene? Possibly the most famous — and certainly the most stomach-wrenching — single take shot in cinema history, it features Divine, a dog, and… Well, let’s just say that in the ensuing cult movie madness, audiences chomped on chocolate bars along with the on-screen action.

Transvestism, black market babies, cannibalism, animal crushing, furniture licking, transgender sex, public indecency, the heroin trade — when it comes to the depiction of taboo subject matter, John Waters’ Pink Flamingos has it all. In fact, the film is an outrageously exhaustive catalog of shocking acts, a no-budget classic whose screenplay logic is largely based on one-upping the scene that came before. Premiering March 17, 1972 in Baltimore, Maryland, Pink Flamingos was Waters’ third picture, and the combination of its so-shocking-it’s-funny sensibility, the star power of Divine in the lead role and one scene in particular, it became one of the best known cult movies ever made. That scene? Possibly the most famous — and certainly the most stomach-wrenching — single take shot in cinema history, it features Divine, a dog, and… Well, let’s just say that in the ensuing cult movie madness, audiences chomped on chocolate bars along with the on-screen action.