This week, Maya & Samar director Anita Doran clapped back at the MPAA for slapping her lesbian romance with the dreaded NC-17 rating, pointing out the organization’s double standards when it comes to penalizing queer sex on screen.
Receiving an NC-17 rating is often seen as a commercial kiss of death, making it difficult to distribute or screen the film. The choice filmmakers face is often to compromise their artistic vision or risk disappearing into obscurity.
While it’s infuriating, it’s hardly new. In fact, the very first film to ever receive the dreaded and highly limiting rating was the queer film Henry & June in 1990. Since then, many queer films that have frankly depicted sexuality have faced the same fate. Some filmmakers chose to release their films unrated—like Shortbus or Y Tu Mamá También—to avoid being hit with an NC-17, while others were forced to make cuts, including Boys Don’t Cry and But I’m a Cheerleader, in order to secure an R rating from the MPAA.
But others bravely forged ahead, accepting the rating. Here are nine LGBTQ+ films that were released with an NC-17 rating—and where to watch them.
Passages (2023)
Passages (2023)
Mubi
The most recent film to be slapped with an NC-17 rating is Ira Sachs’s Passages, which follows a gay German filmmaker named Tomas (Franz Rogowski), whose marriage to Martin (Ben Whishaw) begins to crumble when he enters into a sexual relationship with a young woman (Adèle Exarchopoulos). The film received the rating for “explicit sexual content,” which included both straight and gay sex scenes.
Where to watch: MUBI
Bad Education (2004)
Bad Education (2004)
Sony Pictures Classics
Pedro Almodóvar is, and has always been, a daring filmmaker—as seen in both Y Tu Mamá También and Bad Education. While he opted to release the former unrated, Bad Education first received an NC-17 rating for “explicit sexual content and mature themes involving abuse.” The film follows a filmmaker (Fele Martínez) whose life begins to spiral when his former lover Ignacio (Gael García Bernal) reappears with a screenplay based on their shared history at a Catholic boarding school.
Where to watch: Rent on Prime Video
Blue Is the Warmest Color (2013)
Blue Is the Warmest Color (2013)
Sony Pictures Classics
Sapphics tend to have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Blue Is the Warmest Color, in part because of the explicit and prolonged sex scenes that earned it an NC-17 rating. The film follows the romantic and erotic awakening of a French student, Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos), as she embarks on a relationship with a blue-haired butch artist named Emma (Léa Seydoux).
Where to watch: Tubi
Showgirls (1995)
Showgirls (1995)
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Now seen as a true camp queer classic, when Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls hit theaters in the 1990s, it was controversial to say the least. The film follows an aspiring Vegas showgirl named Nomi Malone (Elizabeth Berkley) as she makes her way through the erotically charged and cutthroat world of Las Vegas show business. The MPAA rated the film NC-17 for strong sexual content and nudity.
Where to watch: HBO Max
Bent (1997)
Bent (1997)
Sony Pictures Classics
This utterly devastating film from Sean Mathias stars Clive Owen as a gay man arrested and sent to a concentration camp during WWII, where he meets and falls for a fellow prisoner (Lothaire Bluteau). The film not only received an NC-17 rating for sexual situations, but also for graphic violence and disturbing historical content.
Where to watch: Roku
Henry & June (1990)
Henry & June (1990)
Universal Pictures
The queer film that started it all, Henry & June is based on the real-life sexual and romantic love triangle between writer Henry Miller (Fred Ward), his wife June (Uma Thurman), and author Anaïs Nin (Maria de Medeiros) as they intermingle in 1930s Paris. The film was the first ever to receive an NC-17 rating rather than an X and was given the rating for explicit sexual content.
Where to watch: Roku
Female Trouble (1974)
Female Trouble (1974)
New Line Cinema
When John Waters’s Female Trouble was originally released in 1974, the NC-17 rating had not yet been invented, so it was instead slapped with an X rating. It was later reclassified as NC-17 for explicit sexual content, violence, and (our favorite) transgressive humor. The film, which starred Divine, saw the queer icon playing a teen delinquent turned homicidal criminal.
Where to watch: Rent on Fandango
Pink Flamingos (1972)
Pink Flamingos (1972)
New Line Cinema
Like Female Trouble, John Waters’s Pink Flamingos was originally hit with an X rating, only to be later changed to an NC-17, which it received for extreme sexual content, nudity, and shocking acts of gross-out performance art. If you’ve seen it, that’s hardly a shock. In Pink Flamingos, Divine stars as Babs Johnson, the self-proclaimed “filthiest person alive.”
Where to watch: The Internet Archive
Trois (2000)
Trois (2000)
Rainforest Films
Trois, an erotic film from director Rob Hardy, follows a successful businessman named Jermaine (Gary Dourdan) who becomes entangled in a steamy and ultimately dangerous ménage à trois with his wife Jasmine (Kenya Moore) and another woman (Gretchen Palmer). The film was given an NC-17 rating for explicit sexual content and nudity.
Where to watch: Tubi
