Challengers, director Luca Guadagnino’s bisexual tennis movie starring Zendaya, may not be particularly explicit in its sex scenes, but it follows in the footsteps of other recent films like Saltburn, Anyone But You, and Poor Things—movies that put sex front and center. It’s promising that movies for adults are carving out space at box offices that were once in the grip of sexless superhero movies, whatever your thoughts on the virtues of any particular film. They’re also all movies that have managed to avoid an NC-17 rating in favor of the more theater-friendly R. Have we lightened up about sex? Remains to be seen.
It’s true that an NC-17 rating can make it difficult for a film to make money at the box office; major chains often won’t even carry them, seeing them as a like-for-like with the X rating it was introduced to replace. While that seems less of an issue in the streaming era, NC-17 still carries a stigma.
The thing is, NC-17 (and the X rating before it) was never intended to signal a movie was basically porn, but that it was thoroughly adult in content; classic examples include A Clockwork Orange, Midnight Cowboy, Nicholas Roeg’s Performance, and Lindsay Anderson’s if…, all of which were initially X-rated yet critically acclaimed (Midnight Cowboy even won the Best Picture Oscar). Unfortunately, eventually someone in the porn industry decided “X” was a good marketing hook, and it became common practice for pornos to self-rate (the meaningless “XXX: soon entered the lexicon), and the rating came to be associated with exclusively naughty films.
Eventually the MPAA introduced the NC-17 label as a way to reboot the system, with the 1990 Henry Miller/Anaïs Nin docudrama Henry & June being the first to get the new stamp. Thereafter followed a brief renaissance in adult-oriented films as, for a time, the NC-17 rating removed some of the stigma associated with films decidedly not meant for children, and even became an art-house badge of honor. Of course, an NC-17 in no way guarantees quality, but the following films are deserving of both their critical reputations and their restrictive ratings. (Note: Some of these films pre-date the NC-17 rating, having initially been rated X, but they’ve all had their official rating updated since.)
Blonde (2022)
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This Marilyn Monroe biopic comes from director Andrew Dominik, and is based on Joyce Carol Oates’ highly fictionalized novel of the same name. The Netflix-produced film received an NC-17 rating, a fact that reportedly caused some consternation for Netflix management, which apparently expected a straightforward biopic from the same artsy director who turned the story of Jesse James into a slow-paced, elegiac tone poem (but with Brad Pitt!). Though many, myself included, weren’t thrilled with the film’s rather singular focus on Marilyn as a victim of her own sexuality, many (including Oates) were thrilled with it, and there’s no question that Ana de Armas gives a stellar performance, even earning multiple Best Actress award nominations, including at the Oscars.
Where to stream: Netflix
Bent (1997)
Though the film certainly earns a high maturity rating for a few relatively tame sex scenes and moments of shocking violence (a large stretch of the film being set at the Dachau concentration camp), the NC-17 is hard to fathom—until we consider that queer content has traditionally judged much more harshly by censors and ratings boards than straight material. The film’s key love scene involves two men who aren’t able to touch themselves or each other, making this a solid example of film ratings run amok.
Where to stream: Peacock, Tubi, Pluto TV
Matador (1986)
Pedro Almodóvar, to whom we’ll return, considers Matador to be among his weakest films, but I’ll take the director’s worst over the best of most others—to put things in perspective, this movie still has a 93% Rotten Tomatoes score. The NC-17 (which replaced the original X in 2005, nearly two decades after the film’s release) here is probably not entirely unreasonable: the erotic thriller deals in rape, bondage porn, and snuff videos, while opening with a scene of unsimulated sex. It’s also a rather brilliant satire on the dangers of sexual repression.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Bad Lieutenant (1992)
The indelible image here is Harvey Keitel’s naked, crying, penis-swinging dance, so much so that the image features prominently in much of the movie’s advertising art—though extra shadows have been superimposed for modesty, of course. Director Abel Ferrera’s neo-noir stylings (and background in explicit porn) made him, briefly, one of the big names during the erotic boom of the late 1980s and early 1990s—movies like this one, China Girl, and Dangerous Game serving as examples of exploitation done right, turning sleaze into something like art. If this isn’t quite his masterpiece (that’d be Dangerous Game) it’s certainly his best known. The original NC-17 rating was attributed to “sexual violence, strong sexual situations and dialogue, graphic drug use”…that last bit being unique in that drug use alone isn’t typically a criteria in assigning an NC-17. An R-rated version was hastily assembled for Blockbuster, so if you’re looking for the uncut movie (with bonus Harvey Keitel masturbation!), you’ll want to look for the 96-minute version.
Where to stream: Prime Video, The Criterion Channel, Tubi
Bad Education (2004)
As mentioned, Pedro Almodóvar’s Bad Education wasn’t the first of his films to receive an NC-17 rating, but was, instead, the last. Which probably says more about the standards of the certification board than it does about Almodóvar’s films, which frequently deal with sex but rarely include anything particularly pornographic (though I suppose that depends on your point of view). Given that the movies tend to be unapologetically queer and sex positive (at least when that sex is consensual rather than abusive), the ratings are more to do with attitude and orientation than actual content. This highly stylized murder mystery, with its depictions of substance abuse and sex abuse by Catholic priests, is among the director’s darker films, but it’s also one of his best.
Where to stream: Max
The Evil Dead (1981)
Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, and company made The Evil Dead with absolutely no concern for ratings or censorship, and likely with little expectation the movie would receive the kind of distribution where any of that would make a difference. Subsequent decades saw a remake-cum-sequel, a straight-up sequel, a reboot, a TV series, a musical, several games, endless comic books, and, of course, a porn parody called Evil Head, so things turned out fine for the Lovecraftian franchise that began here. Served with an X rating for its gory and goopy violence (and reclassified as NC-17 in 1994), the movie actually did just fine in the U.S., but found more trouble in the U.K., where crusades against “video nasties” were rampant. The film’s 2013 reboot was initially primed for a similar rating, before a few judicious edits put it at a more cinema-friendly R.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Female Trouble (1974)
Pink Flamingos is the one everyone talks about but, for my money, Female Trouble is peak John Waters. Divine stars as middle-aged juvenile delinquent Dawn Davenport, whose innocent wish for a pair of cha-cha heels puts her on course for a life of crime and also beauty (same thing). It’s John Waters, so the movie’s X rating is mostly fair (anything less would probably be insulting), with an early trash-dump sex scene leaving little room for doubt. It was officially re-rated NC-17 in 1999, but has since been subject to a 4k restoration and a Criterion release, proving that one era’s cinematic trash is another’s treasure.
Where to stream: Digital rental
In the Realm of the Senses (1976)
An utterly unique bit of filmmaking, Nagisa Ōshima’s provocative psychosexual story blends eroticism (which, in this case, includes a fair bit of unsimulated sex) with hints of horror in its tale of love and murder, based on the true story of geisha, sex worker, and unlikely folk hero Sada Abe (flawlessly played by Eiko Matsuda). Unfolding like a tone poem, it’s a beautifully hypnotic and appropriately titled film that culminates in a genuinely shocking act of violence. The filmmakers got around Japanese prohibitions during filming by listing it as a French production and shipping the footage to that country for processing and development. The X rating was updated to an NC-17 in 1991.
Where to stream: The Criterion Channel
Santa Sangre (1989)
Santa Sangre is the best film from cult director Alejandro Jodorowsky, a filmmaker as beloved as he is (justifiably) controversial. There’s very little point in describing the plot of this surrealist horror jaunt, though it involves Fenix (played by Jodorowsky’s son Axel) reminiscing about his childhood in a shabby Mexican circus, and the murder/suicide that left his father dead and his knife-throwing cult leader mother without arms. In the present, Fenix fills in as his mother’s arms, helping out with a variety of tasks up to, and including, murder. There’s much here that’s hard to stomach, but buried within are interesting and thoughtful ideas about the joy of escaping the past. An edited alternate version was created to secure an R rating, but the movie never received a proper stateside release anyway.
Where to stream: Shudder, Tubi, Free
Shame (2011)
Describing the movie’s NC-17 stamp as a “badge of honor,” distributor Fox Searchlight made no effort to dispute the rating, though I’m not sure it’s entirely well earned. The story of the rather grim life of sex addict Brandon Sullivan (Michael Fassbender), it naturally involves a fair bit of sexuality, but none of it is shot to make it look particularly appealing (it’s possible to see in the movie both an honest look at addictive behavior and a rather prudish take on sexuality in general). Still, the performances from Fassbender and Carey Mulligan make it well worth experiencing.
Where to stream: Digital rental
A Dirty Shame (2004)
John Waters’ most recent film is hardly one of his best, but it’s a lot of goofy fun with a great cast lead by Tracy Ullman and including Selma Blair, Johnny Knoxville, Chris Isaak, and, of course, Mink Stole. There’s a fair bit of nudity in this story of a war between the puritanical residents of Hartford Road and the regions various gleeful sex perverts, but the NC-17 probably has as much to do with the language, with a surprisingly emotional moment centered around the confession: “I’m a cunnilingus bottom.” Given that it’s all in good fun, the NC-17 feels excessive, and even a little shocking, unless you’re one of the prudes that the movie takes aim at. The unnecessary rating also sank the movie at the box office, and has made it tough for Waters to get anything made since.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Killer Joe (2011)
After a decade or two of disappointments, the great William Friedkin ended strong with Killer Joe, his penultimate film preceding the similarly great, but posthumous, Caine Mutiny Court Martial. The film stars Matthew McConaughey as the titular hitman with a disturbing crush on Juno Temple’s Dottie, the younger sister of a drug dealer. The NC-17 was primarily for the violence, specifically: “graphic disturbing content involving violence and sexuality, and a scene of brutality,” a rare case in which sex wasn’t first and foremost when it came to a rating like this. The film did pretty poorly at the box office, and the NC-17 rating certainly didn’t help.
Where to stream: Prime Video
Wide Sargasso Sea (1993)
Adapting Jean Rhys’ feminist, anti-colonial take on Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea tells the story of that novel’s “madwoman in the attic,” here a West Indian Creole heiress who enters into an ultimately unhappy marriage with Mr. Rochester, and in the process finding herself isolated and alone in England, even more adrift than she had been in the Jamaica of her birth. The movie is damn sexy, which earned it that NC-17, though not everyone agreed it had reached its lofty ambitions (the Washington Post called it, “coffee-table pornography with sound effects.”)
Where to stream: Digital rental
Arabian Nights (1974)
Several of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s films received X ratings upon their initial American releases, though his most notorious work, Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, skipped the rating process entirely, as though there was no rating sufficient to do justice to that film’s imagery. Though perhaps his best known, it’s not nearly the director’s best; his typically horny but less characteristically joyous Arabian Nights has a better claim to the top spot. The film’s 16 vignettes pull from the latent (and not-so-latent) eroticism of the source material while throwing in plenty of slapstick humor. Though there was some very mild controversy over the film’s “obscenity” in some locations, for the most part audiences were willing to have fun with it. The X became an NC-17 in 1990.
Where to stream: Prime Video, Tubi, MGM+
Last Tango in Paris (1972)
Last Tango in Paris was wildly controversial upon its release in 1973 and remains no less so to this day, albeit for very different reasons. Here was the legendary Marlon Brando, just months after the release of The Godfather, starring in a film that drew literal mobs condemning the filmmakers as perverts while many (but not all) feminist critics saw something deeply retrograde in the central relationship between the 19-year-old Maria Schneider and the nearly 50-year-old Brando. In later years, Schneider described feelings of humiliation and rage regarding her on-set treatment (a dramatic TV series about the film’s production, Tango, is reportedly in development), making the already fraught sex scenes tougher to watch. Still, having become the highest-grossing import of its time, it represents an incredibly important moment in both American acceptance of foreign films and of depictions of frank sexuality. It’s complicated legacy notwithstanding, both Schneider and Brando give career-great performances. Its X rating was officially changed to NC-17 in 1997.
Where to stream: MGM+
Blue is the Warmest Colour (2013)
Blue has lost a bit of its luster in the years since its release, as the elements that made it particularly unique and memorable (and earned its NC-17 rating) have also made it controversial. Working conditions on the film under director Abdellatif Kechiche have been a topic of contention, and the explicit sex scenes have been viewed very differently by different audiences. To some, its frank sexuality is among its greatest strengths; an essential element of the taboo-busting lesbian romance. Others see a director’s very male gaze directed at two women, whose sexuality takes on a lurid quality. Still, the performances from Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos are outstanding and, if the film’s sexuality is a bit overdone, I suppose it’s merely bringing a bit of parity with the long history of films with straight sex of questionable necessity.
Where to stream: AMC+, Mubi
Inside Deep Throat (2005)
Thanks, in part, to the release of Andy Warhol’s Blue Movie in 1969 (good timing, that), explicit sex had a real moment in global cinema, with porn movies actually being taken seriously, at least in certain circles. The sexual revolution and the feminist movement opened the way for a slightly more broad-minded approach to the genre, even if the movies themselves weren’t always particularly good porn, nor good cinema, and were often exploitative. This Dennis Hopper-narrated documentary explores much of that, but focuses on the making of the 1972 film that entered the zeitgeist in surprising ways; Hopper, having himself been a figure of the counterculture who swung to the other end of that particular spectrum later in life, is a smart choice for a film about the rise and fall of the legitimate sex film. Inside Deep Throat earns its rating largely in presenting period footage, but a more prudish approach would have felt compromised.
Where to stream: AMC+, The Roku Channel, Mubi
Showgirls (1995)
There are many approaches to viewing Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls, all of them valid. For some, it’s a very ‘90s nostalgia piece that places Saved By the Bell’s Elizabeth Berkley in an era-appropriate erotic drama; for others, it’s a so-bad-it’s-good guilty pleasure; for still others, it’s a sly (if problematic) All About Eve-esque satire. Whether more out of genuine affection or plain notoriety, Showgirls remains one of the highest-grossing NC-17 releases in history, and a cult classic par excellence.
Where to stream: The Criterion Channel, Tubi, MGM+
Lust, Caution (2007)
The sexuality in Lust, Caution is in no way incidental. Set in Hong Kong and then Shanghai during the Japanese occupation of China, it tells the story of Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei), recruited to insinuate herself into the circle of Mr. Yee (Tony Leung Chiu-wai), a recruiter for China’s puppet government; she’ll seduce him and lead him to his eventual assassination. Lee fought hard to keep the movie’s eroticism intact, feeling that it was all essential to the story. The result was also one of the highest-grossing NC-17 dramas in American box office history.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Crash (1994)
Not the 2004 Paul Haggis Oscar winner. David Cronenbgerg’s 1996 film stars James Spader and Holly Hunter as a pair whose lives become entangled after a car crash leaves them both with a uniquely cinematic fetish. Merging sex and our cultural love affair with cars, Crash deals with the intersection of sex and violence that informs many other American films, but rarely with such explicit, squirmy style. It proved controversial at every stage of its life; Cannes viewers reportedly stormed out, and the movie was banned by theaters in many parts of the world. It’s currently not streaming anywhere, and it remained hard to come by even on DVD until the venerable Criterion Collection released a definitive version of it in late 2020. Given I can’t say the same about the likes of The Human Centipede, I’d call this injustice.
Where to stream: Nowhere, at present—sadly common among NC-17 films, even decades later
Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1989)
One more from Pedro Almodóvar, if you’ll indulge me. I suppose it’s taken filmgoers a while to warm up to the writer/director, and this comedy/horror film divided audiences at the time of its release, which was right around the switchover from X to NC-17, and became part of that debate. The story of a psychiatric patient who kidnaps an actress with the hope of romance, it’s as offbeat and weirdly funny as you’d expect. The rating is for an extended sex scene, mostly, but also because the movie shows people on the toilet peeing, an apparently shockingly aberrant act. The film was intended to be released unrated following its initial X classification, but instead accepted an NC-17 when that became an option.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel
Man Bites Dog (1992)
In an early example of what we’d later come to call “found footage,” Belgian mockumentary Man Bites Dog involves a film crew following around a serial killer, documenting his crimes and atrocities. Initially attempting to maintain an air of dispassionate observation, the crew inevitably become caught up in the darkness that surrounds their subject. The violent content remains shocking and effective, but the movie also succeeds in making broader points about our willingness to disassociate ourselves from the brutality that constantly surrounds us, both at the movies and in our daily lives.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel
Passages (2023)
One of the most recent movies to receive an NC-17 from the American Motion Picture Association is also a good example of the politics around the NC-17: distributor Mubi decided it was better to release the film with no rating than with the NC-17, seen as deadly in all but a few instances. The film involves a love triangle between Tomas (Franz Rogowski), Martin (Ben Whishaw), and Agathe (Adèle Exarchapoulos), who comes into the lives of the established couple and turns things upside down. Director Ira Sachs has stated strongly that the film’s sex scenes are anything but gratuitous, while reminding us that queer content almost always leads to a more restrictive rating than the same type of scenes involving straight people. He’s not wrong!
Where to stream: Mubi