Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson
The Court struck down a New York law that let state censors ban films as "sacrilegious," ruling that motion pictures are a form of speech protected by the First Amendment.
The decision reversed the state's revocation of a license for the Italian film "The Miracle" after religious protests, and it overturned the Court's own 1915 ruling that had treated movies as mere commercial entertainment outside free-speech protection.
“We hold only that under the First and Fourteenth Amendments a state may not ban a film on the basis of a censor's conclusion that it is "sacrilegious."”
The Court's central holding striking down New York's sacrilege-based film censorship standard.
How it got here: New York's Appellate Division and Court of Appeals both upheld the license revocation over dissents; the distributor appealed directly to the Supreme Court.
The Case in Depth
What happened
A distribution company owned the U.S. rights to an Italian film called "The Miracle," about a poor, delusional woman who believes she conceived a child by a saint. New York's education department licensed the film, but after religious groups protested it as blasphemous, the state's Board of Regents held a hearing, watched the film, and revoked the license for being "sacrilegious."
The question before the Court
Could New York pull a movie's license just because state officials decided the film was "sacrilegious"?
Why it matters
Film distributors and theater owners gained real constitutional protection against government censorship boards for the first time, reshaping how states could regulate movies. Vague moral or religious standards used to yank licenses became constitutionally suspect, opening the door for more controversial films to reach audiences without prior government approval.
What changes now
The case is a final merits decision reversing New York's revocation of the film's license, meaning the state could no longer enforce its "sacrilegious" standard against motion pictures. The ruling did not create a general rule against all movie censorship — it left open whether states could still restrict films under a properly drawn obscenity law. Future disputes over movie censorship would need to rely on narrower, more clearly defined standards.
What this does not decide
The Court expressly declined to decide whether a state could censor films under a clearly written obscenity statute, or whether a licensing system for movies could exist at all. It struck down only the vague "sacrilegious" standard, leaving other possible censorship approaches unresolved for future cases.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Reed
Justice Reed agreed the license revocation violated the First Amendment but would not go as far as the majority in assuming movie licensing systems are generally permissible. He stressed that each license refusal must be examined on its own facts to see whether First Amendment principles were honored, and found this particular film did not warrant exclusion.
Concurrence — Justice Frankfurter
Justice Frankfurter, joined by Justice Jackson and also joined by Justice Burton, concurred only in the judgment rather than adopting the majority's broader reasoning. He argued at length, using dictionaries and historical sources, that the term "sacrilegious" was unconstitutionally vague because it had no settled, workable meaning across America's many competing religious traditions, making it impossible for censors or filmmakers to know what was forbidden.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court first addressed a threshold question left open by its 1915 ruling in Mutual Film Corp. v. Industrial Comm'n, which had said movies were just a profit-making business, not part of the press entitled to free-speech protection.
- The Court concluded that movies are a significant medium for communicating ideas, comparable to books, newspapers, and magazines, and that being sold for profit or having entertainment value does not strip a medium of First Amendment protection.
- Having decided movies count as protected expression, the Court then applied the settled rule against prior restraint — advance government permission required before speech can be published — which the Court has treated as especially dangerous to free expression since its 1931 decision in Near v. Minnesota.
- Because New York's system required officials to approve a film's content in advance, the state bore a heavy burden to show this was one of the rare, exceptional situations where such advance licensing is allowed.
- The Court examined the term "sacrilegious" as defined by New York's courts and found it so broad and undefined that a censor enforcing it would inevitably end up favoring some religious views over others and suppressing minority religious viewpoints.
- The Court concluded that protecting religious groups from offensive viewpoints is not a legitimate government interest strong enough to justify banning speech in advance, so the sacrilege standard could not survive First Amendment scrutiny.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Overrules Mutual Film Corp. v. Industrial Comm'n (236 U.S. 230)
Rejected the 1915 view that movies were pure business, not press, and so unprotected by free-speech guarantees.
Reaffirms Near v. Minnesota (283 U.S. 697)
Relied on this 1931 case's rule that advance government censorship of speech is especially disfavored.