Decider After Dark

Too Hot to Censor: The Best NC-17 Movies

By Brett White @brettwhite

Published Nov. 16, 2018, 9:00 p.m. ET

They're naughtier than R-rated movies, but not quite as raunchy as X-rated ones. Say hello to the Best NC-17 movies of all-time!Photos: Everett ; Illustration: Dillen Phelps

Couple in Blue is the Warmest Color — **Blue is the Warmest Color**
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%
This French erotic drama between an aspiring school teacher and an up and coming artist won the prestigious Palme d'Or at Cannes-and it also contains some of the most explicit lesbian sex scenes ever put on film. Sure the film used fake genitalia at times to simulate sex, but it's lengthy lovemaking scenes still earned it the adults-only rating that got it on this list.
[How to watch *Blue is the Warmest Color*]©IFC Films/Courtesy Everett Col

MATADOR, Antonio Banderas, Assumpta Serna, 1986 — **Matador**
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%
Pedro Almodovar (no stranger to NC-17 fare) directed this 1986 drama starring Antonio Banderas a retired matador who gets off watching slasher movies. The film earned its explicit rating with its depiction of several grisly topics, including rape and murder.
[How to watch *Matador*]Photo: Everett Collection

Helen Mirren in The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, Her Lover — **The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, & Her Lover**
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89%
This taut crime thriller stars Helen Mirren as the trophy wife of a powerful mobster. Set primarily in a restaurant, the film tracks the growing tensions between the criminal (Michael Gambon) and the chef who loathes him, as well as Mirren's Georgina and the man she's having an affair with. The film made waves in 1989 due to its nudity and even scatology, but it's the violence and cannibalism (yep, cannibalism!) that put it over the top.
[How to watch *The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, & Her Lover*]Photo: FilmStruck

LA MALA EDUCACION, (aka BAD EDUCATION), Gael Garcia Bernal, 2004. ©Sony Pictures Classics/courtesy Everett Collection — **Bad Education**
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 87%
Another Almodovar joint, this film stars Gael Garcia Bernal as a trans woman and drag artist that gets caught up in a moviemaking and murder mystery plot. The film was given the NC-17 rating due to a particularly intense sex scene as well as sexual abuse and drug usage. Also the MPAA has always had an uneasy relationship with LGBTQ content (track down the doc *This Film Is Not Yet Rated*), so prominently featuring a trans woman was probably enough to get this an NC-17 in 2004.
[How to watch *Bad Education*]Photo: Everett Collection

MYSTERIOUS SKIN, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Brady Corbet, 2004, (c) Tartan Releasing/courtesy Everett Collection — **Mysterious Skin**
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 85%
Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as a teen prostitute named Neil in this dark drama about the ramifications of childhood sexual abuse. After being abused by their Little League coach, Neil turns to prostitution while his teammate Brian (Brady Corbet) grows up haunted by dreams of alien abductions. The film's frank depiction of traumatic sexual situations caused it to be released in the United States without a rating, which the studio preferred after the MPAA slapped it with an NC-17.
[How to watch *Mysterious Skin*]Photo: Everett Collection

INSIDE DEEP THROAT, movie poster, 2005, (c) Universal/courtesy Everett Collection — **Inside Deep Throat**
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 83%
You never thought you'd see a documentary on a list like this, did you? But when that doc tells the true tale behind the infamous and revolutionary porno *Deep Throat*. Narrated by Dennis Hopper, the film features interviews with everyone from John Waters and Hugh Hefner to Wes Craven and Dr. Ruth. Oh-and it also features some of the most explicit excerpts from the original porno!
[How to watch *Inside Deep Throat*]Photo: Everett Collection

Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider in Last Tango in Paris — **Last Tango in Paris**
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 81%
Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider star as an American and a Parisian engaging in a fraught sexual relationship in Paris. The film was originally rated X back in 1972, but that didn't stop it from making close to $100 million. The film still stirs up controversy today around its graphic rape scene; in 2016 it was revealed that director Bernardo Bertolucci and Brando conspired to film the scene without letting Schneider in on it, so as to capture her genuine humiliation.
[How to watch *Last Tango in Paris*]Photo: United Artists

Matthew McConaughey having sex in Killer Joe — **Killer Joe**
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 79%
Matthew McConaughey stars in what the film's movie poster calls "a totally twisted deep-friend Texas redneck trailer park murder story." That really tells you everything you need to know, doesn't it? The film got on this NC-17 list because director William Friedkin refused to remove the film's beyond explicit sex scenes and "graphic disturbing content."
[How to watch *Killer Joe*]Photo: Voltage Pictures

Shame starring Michael Fassbender — **Shame**
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 78%
It's possible that Shame has the most sex-per-minute of any movie on this list, no surprise considering Michael Fassbender plays an obsessive and aggressive sex addict. If you want to see Magneto masturbate constantly, have threesomes with strangers, and get fellated in a gay bar, then this is the movie for you. Just don't expect a good time while watching him do any of those acts, because this movie is intense.
[How to watch *Shame*]Photo: See-Saw Films

Harvey Keitel in 'Bad Lieutenant' (1992) — **Bad Lieutenant**
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 74%
While *Bad Lieutenant* has its fair share of graphic sexual content, this film landed an NC-17 because of its violence and rampant drug use. As the titular naughty cop, a jacked Harvey Keitel does everything from cocaine to crack and heroin in this '90s neo-noir film. Also the Nicolas Cage *Bad Lieutenant* from 2009 has absolutely nothing to do with this one, just FYI.
[How to watch *Bad Lieutenant*]PHOTO: Aries Releasing

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When a movie gets sexy and dirty, it gets an R rating. But when a movie gets raunchy, scandalous, even scatalogical, the MPAA rewards it with the rarely-assigned NC-17. These are the movies that have too much sex, too much violence, and too much violent sex to be seen by just anyone with a guardian present. Toss in abuse and drug use and you’ve got movies that were just too much for general audiences.

But just because a film earns the harshest rating from the MPAA doesn’t mean it’s aiming for low-brow shock value. No, a lot of these films take the naughty and make it cinema. There’s a reason these scenes weren’t cut out of these films: these lewd acts integral to the plot, the characters, the ambiance and the artistry. You’re not gonna get the kind of sleazy, frisky fun found in a camp classic like Showgirls on this list. No, the sexual acts on this list are there to make you really think and really feel–and in the case of a movie like Shame, make you feel really uncomfortable.

Here are the 10 way mature movies that critics loved because of all the hot topics.