Dirty Pictures is a 2000 American docudrama television film directed by Frank Pierson, written by Ilene Chaiken, and starring James Woods, Craig T. Nelson, and Diana Scarwid.

The film focuses on the 1990 trial of Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center director Dennis Barrie (Woods), who was accused of promoting pornography by presenting an exhibit of photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe that included images of naked children and graphic displays of homosexual sadomasochism.

As time passes, they become the targets of ongoing harassment and ridicule, are ostracized by their friends, offered a substantial bribe by the shady spokesman for a right-wing organization, and bullied by Monty Lobb, leader of the conservative group People for Community Values, but also find themselves receiving a great deal of support from not only the art community at large, but local citizens as well.

As his marriage begins to disintegrate and the prospect of a jail sentence looms before him, he finds himself torn between his devotion to his family and his determination to defend the doctrines of the First Amendment.

Via an epilogue we learn his marriage eventually ended in divorce and, despite his legal victory, his experience and the wide publicity it received consequently impacted on other museum curators and boards who opted to avoid presenting potentially controversial exhibits in their venues for fear of a similar backlash.

Throughout the film, scripted scenes intermingle with archival interviews with George H. W. Bush, Jesse Helms, Patrick Buchanan, Barney Frank, William Buckley, Susan Sarandon, and Salman Rushdie.

In his review in the San Francisco Chronicle, John Carman said the film "labors to apply a semigloss coat of dramatic entertainment to a thorny social issue .

"[2] Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly called the film "titillatingly titled but artistically timid" and added, "Chaiken and Pierson drain Dirty Pictures of engaging drama by denying the opposition any believability; they present Barrie's persecutors as hostile idiots and hopeless prudes .

But they might also feel the way the jury does here: condescended to, as if we aren't capable of grappling with disturbing images without an art expert guiding us through them like a therapist.

In purely dramatic terms the most powerful moment comes right at the end and the stark conclusion goes a long way to redeeming the film's inadequacies, even if the events that inspired it are profoundly depressing.

[it] lifts off from its factual origins to deliver a major plea for tolerance and minority understanding, and against political censorship in culture generally.