Movie ratings have been practiced since the Golden Age of Hollywood, beginning with the introduction of the Motion Picture Production Code or the Hays Code. The Motion Picture Association designates explicit, sexual, and pervasive films with an NC-17 rating. The acronym stands for No Children or No One 17 and Under Admitted. The films aren't strictly pornographic, but the MPA recognized that they needed to qualify the maturity of their audiences.
NC-17 films are for adults only and deal with serious subjects. Their controversial release border on candid exploration and distasteful exploitation. Such a fine line even leads these films to be removed and receive a re-rating by the MPA rating system. NC-17 films are the black sheep of cinema that shy away from self-censorship and bare all in a raw display of crass, counter-current credence.
8 Bad Lieutenant (1992)
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Bad Lieutenant stars Harvey Keitel as the titular character. The NYPD lieutenant's first act of debauchery begins shortly after he takes his kids to Catholic school. He engages in a drug exchange, smoking crack cocaine in the process, which he confiscated from a crime scene and shared with an unrelated drug dealer. Next, he has a threesome followed by him peeping on a sexually assaulted nun's examination; a crime he was incapable of preventing.
The crooked, drinking lieutenant goes on to pull over teenage girls only to pleasure himself in front of them. Taking advantage of his authority and gambling the little money he has, the change for redemption reaches an unsavory conclusion. Instead of bringing the rapists to justice, he bribes them with his money to never come back to New York. The graphic depictions of drug use and sexual violence gave this film a bad name.
7 The Devils (1971)
The Devils is a historical drama about Roman Catholic priest Father Urbain Grandier (Oliver Reed) who is accused of witchcraft. The accusations originated from Sister Jeanne des Anges (Vanessa Redgrave) who is a sexually repressed nun. Jeanne is attracted to Urbain, but she is aware of his affairs. In a jealous fit, Jeanne accuses him of possessing her, which leads the town to believe he has bewitched her convent.
The nuns claim the same, engaging in a naked exorcism that devolves into an orgy. After a sacrilegious scene with a crucifix, the sexual release spares the nuns and condemns Grandier to burn at the stake. Jeanne then desecrates Grandier's charred femur by pleasuring herself with it.
6 Man Bites Dog (1992)
Man Bites Dog follows a group of documentarian filmmakers recording the crimes of a serial killer still at large. The longer they study the criminal's violent streak, the sooner they become his accomplices. Psychological yet sociopathic reasoning behind his killings keeps the film crew involved as they help him nonchalantly commit crimes. Together they revel in the heinous deaths of their victims until karma presents itself in the form of a vengeful underworld. After the serial killer's family is killed, he and the crew members are shot and killed one by one.
5 Happiness (1998)
Happiness is about three families with a dark underbelly of humanity. One family man is secretly a pedophile who is obsessed with his son's classmate. When the student is invited for a sleepover at their home, the husband drugs and sexually assaults him. One woman removes the genitals of a man who sexually assaulted her and another, a teacher, has an affair with one of her students. These deep-seated albeit twisted needs show how society's modern life or status quo can influence an eye-for-an-eye and desperate mentality, the worst parts of human nature.
4 Perfect Blue (1997)
Perfect Blue is a Japanese animated psychological thriller that follows a J-pop singer transitioning to an acting career while being stalked. Her throes with fame, both as a Japanese idol and actress, lead her to confuse reality with fantasy. Her split stage personas are in conflict with each other as she faces paranoia, delusions, and expectations from the studio.
Her first role was a sexual assault scene; a far cry from her previous image. Subsequent murders of her fellow actors and actresses show evidence incriminating her as the culprit, including the murder of a pornographer. She discovers that a crazed fan from within killed everyone in a plot to kill her and assume her identity as the singer she once was. The physical and emotional violence combined with the manipulation and identity crisis were jarring to the senses.
3 The Evil Dead (1981)
The Evil Dead is an infamous splatter film for its graphic gore and violence. Five students stay the night in a demonic, Tennessee cabin. The group find the Book of the Dead, also known as the Necronomicon with a tape recording of incantations. Upon playing the tape and releasing the demon, one woman is raped by possessed trees. Two other women become possessed and are decapitated shortly afterward. A headless woman tries to rape her boyfriend, but bleeds out and dies. The boyfriend is the only survivor, who throws the Necronomicon into the fireplace as he watches his friends decompose before him.
2 Midnight Cowboy (1969)
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Midnight Cowboy depicts two strange bedfellows, a Texas cowboy male sex worker, and a con man. They become hustlers in New York, selling sex while squatting in the city. The reason the sex worker dresses as a cowboy is because of the time he was sexually assaulted by a gang of cowboys. The con man grows unbearably ill and grotesque in his squalor, inside and out. The two make their way to Florida to turn over a new leaf, but the con man doesn't live to see it. The trauma of homosexuality and sexual assault in the film was a controversial truth.
1 A Clockwork Orange (1971)
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A Clockwork Orange follows a dystopian crime spree by a gang of sociopathic delinquents. The rogues, or droogs as they call themselves, are desensitized to violence, sexual assault, and other atrocities. Unlawful acts are their entertainment. The original release of the film received an X rating for its sexual violence. It was also pulled from British theaters due to it being a possible incitement of copycat crimes.
When a film makes sane people crazy and makes the crazy people sane instead, there's a hidden silver lining, a better nature among the morally offensive content turning its victims into far-gone heathens. A film like this holds up a mirror to its audience as a warning, oftentimes a carnival mirror of horrid images and experiences.
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