Sex scenes between James Ballard and his secretary were filmed but cut because director David Cronenberg felt the actors' chemistry was too good, contravening the nature of all the other relationships in the film.
In a 2020 interview, David Cronenberg stated that he believed Francis Ford Coppola, the jury president at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival, was so vehemently opposed to Crash that other jury members in favor of the film banded together to present Cronenberg with a rare Special Jury Prize. So great was Coppola's distaste for the film that, according to Cronenberg, Coppola refused to personally present the award to the director.
Crash: Estranhos Prazeres (1996) premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, where it received the Special Jury Prize, a unique award that is distinct from the Jury Prize as it is not given annually, but only at the request of the official jury. When then jury president Francis Ford Coppola announced the award "for originality, for daring and for audacity," he stated that it had been a controversial choice and that certain jury members, "did abstain very passionately." As of 2021, the award has not been given since.
In the United Kingdom, The Daily Mail newspaper led the calls for the film to be banned with a front page headline reading, "Ban This Car Crash Sex Film." To cover themselves against possible prosecution, the BBFC consulted a QC to determine whether the film contravened the Obscene Publications Act, a psychologist to see if it could potentially incite copycat behavior, and a group of disabled people to see if the character played by Rosanna Arquette would be considered offensive to them. After all three consultations proved to be unsuccessful, the BBFC were able to pass the full unrated version completely uncut.
In the novel by J.G. Ballard from which this film derives, Vaughan's goal is to achieve sexual climax by crashing his car into the limo of Elizabeth Taylor and gruesomely killing her, a plot item not retained (obviously) for the film.