The Devils: Ken Russell's Possessed-Nuns Classic Restored at Last 2026

Ken Russell's The Devils is back in cinemas, restored and rereleased in its complete form after decades of censorship, and the possessed-nuns tale remains one of the most confrontational films ever released by a major studio. Oliver Reed stars as Father Urbain Grandier, the 17th-century French priest accused of witchcraft, in an adaptation drawn from Aldous Huxley's The Devils of Loudun and John Whiting's stage play. The restoration gives modern audiences a chance to see what censors spent years trying to bury.

The film arrives from an era when movies playing in high-street cinemas still had the power to shock, to place that shock inside polite cultural mainstream and to force serious argument about whether the shock, or a ban, was justified. That context matters. The Devils is not simply a provocation; it is a document of what mainstream film was once willing to risk.

What The Devils Is Really About

The story is based on a true case of politically directed mass hysteria. Grandier, a charismatic priest in Loudun, becomes a target of powerful interests, and the accusations of witchcraft against him are shown as instruments of authority rather than expressions of faith. Reed's performance gives the priest a stylish, sardonic defiance that anchors the film's frenzy.

Russell builds the hysteria deliberately. The possessed nuns, the exorcisms and the public spectacle are staged as a collision between religious theatre and political calculation. The film's most quoted line, delivered by Grandier, sets the tone: "I could never be Satan's boy. I haven't the humility."

Where the Obscenity Actually Lives

The film is often described as obscene, and Russell applies obscenity like glowing sulphurous paint to the canvas. But the obscenity does not reside in the sexualised images of the crucified Christ or the naked nuns. It resides in the violence of authority, which the film presents as the true source of horror.

The idea of martyrs and heretics burned at the stake has long been an accepted fact, recounted in U-certificate history lessons and surviving well into the European enlightenment. Russell shows what that punishment might actually look like, and that depiction is itself a confrontational assault on good taste.

Why the Restoration Matters

For years, The Devils circulated in cut versions, and the complete film was difficult to see legally. The restored release returns the material that censors removed, which changes how the film reads. What was once rumoured becomes visible, and the argument about the film can finally be had on the evidence.

That makes the rerelease more than a nostalgia event. It is a test of whether audiences still want difficult cinema in the mainstream, and whether distributors are willing to supply it.

• Restored and complete: the film returns after years of censorship in its full form.
• Source material: adapted from Huxley's The Devils of Loudun and Whiting's play.
• True-story foundation: built on a case of politically directed mass hysteria in 17th-century France.
• Central performance: Oliver Reed as Father Urbain Grandier.
• Core argument: the obscenity lies in the violence of authority, not in the bodies on screen.

The Devils at a Glance

Who Is Affected by This Release

Film historians and censorship scholars gain a complete text to study. Audiences who know the film only through cut versions can finally judge it. Distributors and cinemas carry the commercial risk of programming something genuinely confrontational rather than safely controversial.

The broader effect lands on the culture of film criticism. The Devils forces a distinction between images that offend taste and institutions that offend justice, and that distinction is as relevant now as it was in 1971.

What to Watch Next

Watch how the restored scenes change the film's argument. If the added material sharpens the contrast between Grandier's defiance and the machinery of authority, the case for the complete version makes itself. Watch, too, how audiences and critics respond to a film that refuses to soften its assault on good taste.

The rerelease also invites comparison with other confrontational works of the period and with the careers shaped by them. Reed's performance sits alongside the era's most committed screen acting, and the film's afterlife connects to broader questions about who controls a director's vision. Readers following how strong personalities reshape institutions may find a useful parallel in our look at Ken Hinkley: The Football Father and Coach Tasmania Devils, where another forceful figure takes charge of a struggling organisation.

There is a similar tension between reputation and control in the way a single appointment can define a project. Our analysis of Ken Hinkley Named Tasmania Devils' First Coach: What It Means examines what happens when authority is handed to one person and the public argument that follows.

Russell's film shows what can happen when that authority turns punitive. The same dynamic, in a very different register, runs through Ken Hinkley: The Football Father Tasmania Devils Need as First Coach, which considers how leadership is sold to a sceptical audience before results arrive. The background to this story is set out in Ken Oliver, Former Guardian Racing Editor, Dies at 86.

For viewers drawn to stories about contested legacies, the question of who gets to tell the official version is central. Our piece on Ken Hinkley Named First Coach of Tasmania Devils: What to Expect looks at the gap between expectation and reality when a high-profile figure takes over. A related thread runs through Celebrity: latest articles.