Motion pictures, as a form of artistic expression, are protected by the First Amendment. Decided May 26, 1952 (argued April 24, 1952). Opinion of the Court: Thomas Campbell Clark → go there Applied: the First Amendment → go there Applied: the Fourteenth Amendment → go there Topic: Freedom of speech and of the press. Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U.S. 495 (1952), also referred to as the Miracle Decision, is a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court that largely marked the decline of motion picture censorship in the United States. It determined that provisions of the New York Education Law that had allowed a censor to forbid the commercial showing of a motion picture film that the censor deemed "sacrilegious" were a "restraint on freedom of speech" and thereby a violation of the First Amendment. Wiki link