Pakistan started banning films in 1962, with restrictions tightened in 1979 when Muhammad Zia ul-Haq implemented an Islamization agenda and an even stricter censorship code. A ban on Indian films (which had been in place since 1965 but was not always strictly enforced) was lifted in 2008, with the compromise that cinemas in Pakistan must equally share screening time between Indian and Pakistani films, but was later enforced again in 2019.
Since February 2019, Pakistan has banned the screening of all Indian films amid border tensions between the countries.