Best R18+ Movies

This two-part film (with a large cast including Shia LaBeouf, Uma Thurman, and Christian Slater) centers on a self-proclaimed nymphomaniac who recounts her life story and sexcapades to a stranger who discovers her in an alley behind his apartment. It's pretty clear why this one — with scenes of both simulated and unsimulated sex — was rated NC-17.

For a movie completely about sex, Shame isn't exactly sexy. The dark drama follows the life of sex addict Brandon (played by Michael Fassbender), as he tries to get a handle on his problems.

Elles takes place during just one day — a day in which a French journalist delves into the world of female student prostitution. What she finds is something completely unexpected, which leads her to reevaluate her own life and sexuality. The movie is rated NC-17 for explicit sexual content.

Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams stunned in the critically acclaimed drama Blue Valentine about the dissolution of a couple's marriage. The film originally received an NC-17 rating because of the scene where Gosling's character performs oral sex on Williams's character, but Gosling called out the MPAA for sexism and misogyny, saying that if the roles were switched and the female was performing oral sex on the male, the film would have received and R rating. The rating was appealed and changed to R.

A sexually repressed piano teacher gives the illusion of normality and even rigidity, but underneath, she hides her sadomasochistic and voyeuristic sexual fantasies that play out in the form of an affair with a 17-year-old student.

Swimming Pool is a British-French erotic thriller about a crime novelist who goes to a house in Southern France to write her next novel, where tragedy, mystery, and lots and lots of sex occur.

This coming-of-age movie tells the story of Adèle, a young woman exploring and embracing her sexuality as she falls in love with an older woman. The film caused controversy due to explicit sex scenes between the two women, and had a limited release with an NC-17 rating in the US.

One of three NC-17 films ever to be nominated for an Oscar, Henry & June tells the sexy and dramatic story of writer Arthur Miller, his wife, and author Anaïs Nin's love triangle and bohemian lifestyle in Paris.

Tilda Swinton and Ewan McGregor star in Young Adam, a dark, moody film about a drifter who knows more about the death of a woman than he lets on, his lover, a sea captain, his wife, and the sexually charged relationships between them as the plot unfolds. Due to the explicit content, the film received an NC-17 — one Sony Pictures Classics were not happy about — but an R-rated version is now available.

The dark plot of Stanley Kubrick's erotic thriller follows a wealthy doctor and his single night of danger/adventure after discovering that his wife had an affair. He finds himself in the midst of a masked orgy organised by a secret society — and believe us, anything goes here. While an unrated version of the movie is now available, the particularly graphic orgy scenes were originally digitally altered by Warner Bros. so that the film would be rated R rather than NC-17.

This psychological drama is definitely not your average erotic thriller — David Cronenberg's Crash is about a group of people who take sexual pleasure from, you guessed it . . . car crashes.

Lust, Caution is an erotic thriller that takes places in 1940s Shanghai, which was occupied by Japan at the time. Directed by Brokeback Mountain director Ang Lee, the action-packed espionage drama follows a woman assigned to lure a special agent into a trap in order to murder him. The movie is rated NC-17 for graphic sex and full-frontal nudity, among other things.

This erotic historical drama was produced by men's magazine company Penthouse and was met with a lot of controversy when it was released in 1979. Actress Helen Mirren, who starred in the film, called it "an irresistible mix of art and genitals." Now marked as unrated or R, it was originally given a rating of X.

Not too much can be said for Showgirls — it was a box office failure and a flop critically — but there is a lot of sex and nudity. Among other things. The cult classic has a comically over-the-top plot, but is still one of the most notorious NC-17 films out there.

Just sex, no questions asked. That's the deal a man and woman make in Last Tango in Paris, when they decide to have an erotic affair without asking each other any personal information, even their names. The affair goes awry and is wrought with misplaced affection and abuse. Originally rated X, the film was eventually reclassified as NC-17 due to its sexual content.

Two men who grew up together at a religious Catholic school reunite as adults in Bad Education, a Spanish drama starring Gael García Bernal. Due to themes of sexual abuse within the Catholic church, transsexuality, explicit sex, and drug use, the film was given a rating of NC-17 by the MPAA.

The Brown Bunny gained a lot of attention due to an unsimulated (aka REAL) sex scene between Vincent Gallo and Chloë Sevigny. The movie follows a motorcycle racer as he drives across country and is plagued by the memories of his former lover.

The wife of a crime boss begins a secret romance with a patron of her husband's restaurant in this black romantic comedy that caused a rating controversy, due in part because of it's graphic violence and sex scenes as well as scatalogy. Miramax was given the choice of an X rating or going unrated and ultimately chose to go unrated (an X rating is more often associated with porn) and later released both the original and an R-rated versions of the film on VHS.

When an American student comes to Paris to study abroad, he befriends a sexually liberated brother and sister who share his love of film. The Dreamers is full of sex, nudity, and drama — all against the backdrop of the 1968 Paris student riots.

Tokyo Decadence is an erotic film that explores the life of an escort named Ai who plays out sexual fantasies for her clients. A large portion of the film graphically depicts these (often BDSM) fantasies, but the dark movie also follows Ai's unrequited love story and lonely existence.

Basic Instinct has one of the most famous scenes in film history. You know, the one where a panty-less Sharon Stone slowly uncrosses her legs while wearing a dress. The neo-noir murder mystery is full of intrigue, drama, and yes — a lot of sex. It was initially given an NC-17 rating but, after a few selective edits, was given an R rating. The uncut format is still available.

Originally rated X, Tropic of Cancer now holds an NC-17 rating for its (often funny) portrayal of various sexual fantasies and stories.

Created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone (the brains behind Southpark), Orgazmo is an over-the-top sex comedy about a superhero pornographic movie. Pretty self-explanatory how/why this one is NC-17.

This Spanish erotic drama has a layered plot of intertwining stories dealing with love, tragedy, sex, and death, all woven together by two women and their connection to a man named Lorenzo. The sexy (and dark) film can be viewed as R or NC-17.

In Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, a young psychiatric patient kidnaps a female actress in order to make her fall in love with him, leading to some pretty hefty Stockholm syndrome and an unexpected twist. The film was originally classified as porn and rated X, but Miramax filed a lawsuit against the MPAA. Though they lost, eventually the film's rating was lowered to NC-17.

When three impressionable young women move to LA and quickly fall prey to all the vices it has to offer them, things spiral out of control. Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is a film about their decline into excessive drug use and various affairs. The film originally earned an X rating for full-frontal nudity, graphic sex, and lesbian relations. It has since been rerated NC-17.

An erotic thriller about a journalist seeking to find answers about the disappearance of a woman in connection with a comedy duo (played by Colin Firth and Kevin Bacon), Where the Truth Lies was rated NC-17 in the US due to lesbian sex scenes and an intimate threesome scene.

One of three NC-17 movies to ever be nominated for an Oscar, David Lynch's Wild at Heart revolves around a woman and her lover on the run from her mom, who employees a gangster to track them down. The film was originally rated X due to extremely graphic violence and scenes of torture in addition to sex scenes but was edited down to an R rating in North America.