There is a widespread belief on the Internet that the biographical black comedy “The Wolf of Wall Street” directed by Martin Scorsese is the most obscene film in the world according to the Guinness Book of Records. We checked whether such a record was actually recorded and which film it belongs to.

The most popular version of the statement looks like this: “The most swearing film in the world, according to the Guinness Book of Records (2015), is Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street. It contains 687 swear words, an average of 3.81 per minute.” There are many similar posts on VKontakte, so you can find them for 2015, And 2016, And 2017, And 2018, And 2019, And 2020, And 2021 years. The earliest record we have found is published September 23, 2014, and on September 22 the same information posted on the Rosbalt website. Popular post for August 10, 2015 about the film’s “obscene” record There is and on Pikabu. There is also a short version post, which does not mention that the Guinness Book of Records is 2015 edition.

The premiere of The Wolf of Wall Street took place in December 2013, and the film reached Russian film distribution only in February 2014. The film is based on the memoir of the same name by Jordan Belfort, a former successful New York broker who created a large brokerage firm in the late 80s, but ended up in prison for financial crimes. The main character, played by the then-not yet Oscar-winning Leonardo DiCaprio, takes part in a bunch of wild parties, has promiscuous sexual relationships with prostitutes, uses a lot of drugs - it is clear that all this is accompanied by copious amounts of swearing.

And the film actually set a world record according to a special commission of Guinness World Records. So, September 3, 2014 on the Guinness World Records website appeared a small announcement of achievements in the field of entertainment that were included in the 2015 anniversary collection (in honor of the 60th anniversary of the publication; the first book with records came out in 1955). Among other things, the achievement of The Wolf of Wall Street is mentioned there - “The largest amount of obscene language in one film” (apparently, only works of art released in cinemas were counted). The record description read: “No less than 687 swear words were used in the film from DiCaprio and Scorsese - an average of 3.81 swear words per minute.” Everything is just like in the previously mentioned posts.

Image: page screenshot and cover. Source

However, then an unexpected situation occurred: The Wolf of Wall Street’s record was broken just a few days after the start of sales of the 2015 edition of the book (it began publication in the period 9 By 11 September 2014). Already on September 12 in London the commission confirmed, that in the film “Sram-TV” (Swearnet: The Movie, if the title is literally translated into Russian, it will be something like “Swearnet: The Movie”) contains 868 swear words. If you consider that the movie runs 112 minutes including credits, you get approximately 7.75 swear words per minute.

This Canadian comedy directed by Warren P. Sonoda came out in theaters at the end of August 2014, and in September in the United States, where received highest age rating: NC-17 (persons under 18 years of age are prohibited from viewing). According to synopsis, tired of the censorship imposed on them, Robb Wells, Mike Smith and John Paul Tremblay decided to launch their own channel on the Internet, where they can do whatever they want.

As a result, it turns out that “The Wolf of Wall Street” was an obscene record holder for a very short period of time, losing its title to another comedy - “Sram-TV”. However, due to the low popularity of the new and still existing record holder, the Internet continues to honor his predecessor.

Image: Still from The Wolf of Wall Street