Film critic Andrew Sarris famously called Freaks "one of the most compassionate films ever made." That is certainly true, but it's also one of the most misunderstood films ever made. Audiences and critics alike rejected it at the time of its release, dismissing it as nothing more than an exploitative geek show — it was even banned for decades in parts of the world. But now many consider it to be Browning's finest film, and one of the greatest American movies.

That Freaks remains classified as a horror film is not a disservice to the film's subject matter but rather it demonstrates the breadth of the genre. Just as science fiction often uses the future to examine issues of the present, horror uses the unknown and unfamiliar to examine ourselves. Freaks pushes this one step further, using real-life oddities instead of monsters, directly challenging the viewer in a way not possible with imagined monsters and grotesques.

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