Focusing on the films of Gaspar Noé, Lukas Moodysson and Michael Haneke, this chapter explores shifting categorizations of contemporary European cinema in newspaper, magazine and online reviews. It analyses classifications of the films in relation to changing perceptions of quality and considers how these perceptions correspond to implicit and explicit value judgements made concerning taste, pleasure and ethical morality. Underlying these considerations there is an additional aim, driven by the cultural emergence during the past decade of the term "new extremism", to investigate how recent categorizations have been framed by the growing association of European art-house cinema with extremism.