Dominique Swain as Lolita in Lolita

(Adrian Lyne, 1997)

The unknown Dominique Swain was only in her mid-teens when Fatal Attraction director Adrian Lyne made his adaptation of Lolita, and her youth lent the film an extra degree of darkness.

Brooke Shields as Violet in Pretty Baby (Louis Malle, 1978)

Shields was even younger than Foster — just 12 — when she played a child prostitute, in Malle’s tale of a New Orleans brothel. Her almost complete nudity film makes this one of mainstream cinema’s most enduringly controversial turns.

Jodi Foster as Iris in Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)

Foster was barely in her teens when she played the 12-year-old prostitute in Scorsese’s grim masterpiece. Her very presence in the film, and in such a role, was shocking enough. But her performance took on a sinister new notoriety when it emerged that John Hinckley — who in 1981 attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan — was obsessed
by it.

Sue Lyon as Lolita in Lolita (Stanley Kubrick, 1962)

In Kubrick’s version of Nabokov’s novel, censors required Lolita’s age to be increased from 12 to 14, although Lyon, who played her, was in fact 21. The film caused a stir when it was released and boasts a typically strong performance from James Mason as erudite monster Prof. Humbert Humbert.

Mark Monahan (The Daily Telegraph)