The 8 Most Fun R-Rated Movies of All Time, Ranked
A New York native, Joe graduated from an avant-garde theater school upstate, where he was obsessed with sketch comedy. There, he and his lunatic friends founded The Sketchies — which still lives on at Skidmore College today. Living in New York City, a screenwriter friend of his then taught him how to write for film. This awakened a new passion in Joe. Since then his scripts have garnered over 200 festival selections, nominations, and wins all over the globe (including the BlueCat Best Feature award). Several of his screenplays have been made into feature films — some of them not that bad! Overall, he loves to create unique, hilarious, touching, and bizarre stories.
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Sometimes it’s good to be bad, right? That’s surely the attitude of all the filmmakers listed here, who delivered highly consumable, riotously funny movies that pushed the boundaries of common decency to the absolute limit. Most comedies shoot for a PG-13 rating, so that they can have a little bite while still appealing to as wide an audience as possible. The films listed here simply said “*%$# it!,” and didn’t censor one iota of hilarious, riveting, raunchy FUN.
Most of the flicks listed here are deemed “fun” because of their highly comedic and wildly entertaining content. Only eight made the list, so some very fun classic R-rated 80s comedies like Caddyshack and Planes, Trains and Automobiles were left out, along with a bunch from the rash of early 2000s R-rated comedies, like Superbad, The Hangover, and Old School. As you can plainly see, this is one competitive category. Now, brace yourself for some ferociously fun films, all crammed with as many expletives and racy sight gags as cinematically possible (…hey, nobody wants the dreaded “X” rating).
8 'Zombieland' (2009)
Ah yes, the ever-tricky sub-genre, the horror-comedy. It’s quite difficult to find the right blend of the two seemingly disparate genres, with most horror-comedies skewing too far in one direction (either too goofy or too gory). Director Ruben Fleischer not only found the ideal balance in Zombieland, with oodles of sequences that are as funny as they are nail-biting, but he delivered a film that is bursting with brain-lusting fun.
The story is centered on an unlikely band of post-apocalyptic survivors, each with their own unique, valuable skill set key to battling the ubiquitous, roving undead. Jessie Eisenberg plays Columbus, the nerd who lives by a strict code, Emma Stone is Wichita, the bad-ass, street-savvy beauty, the tough-as-nails little kid component is Abigail Breslin as Little Rock, and the always grin-spurring Woody Harrelson is Tallahassee, the wildcard maniac cowboy. There are so many gruesomely awesome scenes in this movie, all buoyed by the amazing cast. Throw in a cameo by Billy Murray as himself (correction, as his zombie self), and you’ve got one of the most fun horror-comedies ever conceived.
7 'Blazing Saddles' (1974)
Only Mel Brooks could get away with Blazing Saddles — and in the 70s no less. Brooks dared to confront some of the most taboo issues of the time, right smack in the face, and present them in the most blatantly offensive manner possible (yet, as we all know, ironically so, since he was holding up a mirror to ridiculous prejudices and relentlessly mocking them). With a really clever premise and a wildly committed cast, Blazing Saddles is one of the most fun and funny cinematic efforts of all time (it was even nominated for three Oscars).
The basic storyline is of a mendacious state attorney general, Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman), who wants to uproot the residents of a small 1874 town that stands in the way of a new railroad. What better way to expel them than by bringing in a Black railroad worker named Bart (a man with perfect timing, Cleavon Little) as the new sheriff. Lamarr, and the dumb dumb Governor Le Petomane (the legend himself, Mel Brooks) soon learn that the hopefully racist Old West residents of the sleepy burg are quickly charmed by Bart and his sidekick, the constantly inebriated Waco Kid (the sweet-faced comedy icon Gene Wilder). Brooks pushes the envelope in every manner conceivable, and the end result is an astoundingly fun comedy classic (that culminates in a gloriously meta fashion).
6 'Scary Movie' (2000)
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Everybody loves a good parody film, going way back. Classics like The Naked Gun, Hot Shots, Spaceballs, and Airplane! all made audiences laugh with unbridled delight. Yet, despite all those chuckles, one of the more modern classics stands out above the rest in terms of R-rated shenanigans. The Wayans Brothers are clearly geniuses when it comes to comedy in general. With Scary Movie, they satirized not only the massive horror hit Scream, but also I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Shining, The Blair Witch Project, The Usual Suspects, and even The Matrix. Now that’s one fun list of references to keep track of (just imagine how many are covered in the entire franchise...)
The compiled storyline focuses on a crew of high schoolers who are stalked by a seemingly dim-witted mystery killer after they are involved in a hit-and-run. The group consists of the virgin, Cindy Campbell (the brilliant Anna Faris, who was launched into the comedic zeitgeist with this role and never looked back), the cheerleader, Buffy Gilmore (Shannon Elizabeth, shining her brightest here), the jock, Greg (Lochlyn Munro, a very under-appreciated comedic talent), the closeted jock, Ray (the uber-committed Shawn Wayans), the trashy kid, Bobby Prinze (Jon Abrahams), Cindy’s bestie, Brenda (the laugh out loud funny Regina Hall), and the lunatic stoner, Shorty (Marlon Wayans). With Keenen Ivory Wayans at the helm, with a script penned in part by Shawn and Marlon, this movie is one of the best parodies ever, and is so packed with fun set pieces and gags it should be illegal (the reboot, however, eh…).
5 'Deadpool & Wolverine' (2024)
That fact that a film is high-grossing doesn’t necessarily make it fun, at all. Not the case with the second highest grossing R-rated movie of all time, director Shawn Levy’s Deadpool & Wolverine. The genre blend here of action-comedy hits all the right marks, satisfying comic book enthusiasts, action lovers, and pure comedy fans alike. The sugar and spice combo of Hugh Jackman’s salty Wolverine and Ryan Reynold’s loveably snarky Deadpool is the perfect mash-up of characters as well, as this love-hate duo is sublime onscreen.
After a host of films were released that featured Wolverine, and two stand-alone Deadpool flicks came out, it was only natural that the two (arguably) most beloved Marvel Comics characters should team up and share the screen. The insanely complex story can be broken down into one simple statement: Wade Wilson, aka Deadpool (Reynolds, who also co-wrote the script) has retired from super-hero-dom but is brought back in by the “Time Variance Authority” because his “earth” is in jeopardy of being erased, and he needs a (surly) version of Wolverine to patch things up. The plot isn’t that important in this one, as the audience that came in droves really just wanted to see Reynolds make dirty puns and watch Jackman shred people with his claws. All in all, super fun.
4 'EuroTrip' (2004)
Some scripts are so good that basically zero star-power is needed to make the subsequent film a rousing success. With the exception of Michelle Trachtenberg, who had plenty of notoriety from playing Dawn Summers on the hit series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the rest of the cast was made up of relative unknowns (except, of course, one of cinema’s best cameos ever: Matt Damon playing a shaved-headed, punk band singer who has an affair with the lead character’s girlfriend). Indeed, writer-directors Jeff Schaffer, Alec Berg, and David Mandel’s EuroTrip script is a winner, with a story that exploits all the funniest parts of the entire continent of Europe, that when coupled with some incredible performances, takes this puppy to the next level of downright dirty fun.
Scotty (Scott Mechlowicz) doesn’t know…that his girlfriend is cheating on him. When he finds out, he’s determined not to let this information ruin the European vacation that him and his best buds have planned. Scotty’s ultimate goal is to reach his pen pal “Mieke” in Germany, and along the way, he, Cooper (Jacob Pitts), Jamie (Travis Wester) and Jenny (Trachtenberg) get into some of the funniest hijinks ever captured on film (for reference, two of the main characters unwittingly make out…who are siblings). All bets are off when they hit the nude beach in France, face off against British soccer hooligans, and nearly get assaulted on a train in Italy. There’s hardly a single line that misses in this movie, and it’s really, really fun to watch the zany culture shock unfold. Indeed, laughing at other countries' idiosyncratic tendencies is pure fun (until you get to “Eastern Europe,” of course…).
3 'Borat' (2006)
Has anyone immersed themselves in a character more than Sacha Baron Cohen as the titular character in Borat? Probably, but who cares? Nobody was as fearlessly funny, though, that’s for sure. Cohen’s first major feature film is indeed funny at every turn, and only made the more hilarious by the fact that the majority of the other people in the movie didn’t have the slightest clue that they were being very, very played. Before the release of Borat, Cohen was known in the U.K. for his comedy show, Da Ali G Show, where he played three reoccurring characters: Ali G, Brüno Gehard, and Borat. Thankfully, Borat got the call first — for his big American debut.
The “story” is of Borat (Cohen, duh), a lusty yet strangely principled man from Kazakhstan who travels to the United States to find his bride, none other than Pamela Anderson. In a variety of unscripted scenes (like in Curb Your Enthusiasm), Cohen interacts with a bunch of random people (yet, unlike in Curb, these unwitting “performers” have no idea that Borat is a fictional character). He eventually finds Pamela (who was allegedly the only person in the movie in on the joke), and things…go about as well as one would expect. The very fact that the audience knows what’s up and the people in the movie don’t is really the most fun aspect — and Cohen and his director, humor maven Larry Charles, exploit this to the max. As Ben Stiller quipped, this just may be the “funniest movie of all time,” and it definitely is in contention for the funnest, too.
2 'Step Brothers' (2008)
Sophomoric humor has never been more delicious. Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly prove to be one of the best comedy duos in cinema history in Step Brothers, Adam McKay’s masterpiece in mind-boggling, surreal set pieces and brilliantly imagined toilet humor. From the opening credits to the epic operatic climax, this is a disgustingly fun, funny film. Reilly and Ferrell wrote the script with McKay, so you know they were all-in on every lunatic line uttered.
Brennan Huff (Ferrell) is a 40-year-old ne’er-do-well who lives with his mom, Nancy (the luminescent Mary Steenburgen, who even gets to emphatically spew out some F bombs in this one). Dale Doback (Reilly) is a 40-year-old loser who lives with his dad, Dr. Robert Doback (Richard Jenkins, also shooting for the rafters here). When Nancy and Robert get hitched, and Dale and Brennan are forced to coexist, they become fast…enemies. The excessively childish pranks they play on one another (i.e., Brennan placing a certain part of his anatomy on Dale’s prized drum set) really push the limits of decency, and, obviously, are a joy to watch unfold. Yet it’s not until Dale and Brennan become “best friends!,” that things really take off. With two of the best supporting characters in movie history — Brennan’s insanely narcissistic/borderline sociopathic brother, Derek (Adam Scott, at his funniest when playing a villain), and Derek’s wife, Alice (Kathryn Hahn, in the role that first let movie-goers know that she is a fearless comedic force to be reckoned with), who becomes obsessed with Dale — Step Brothers is elevated to one of the funnest, funniest (albeit, dumbest) movies of all time.
1 Bridesmaids (2011)
Bridesmaids deserves inclusion on this list simply because this movie introduced the comedy goddess Melissa McCarthy to mainstream audiences. The fact that it contains one of the funnier scripts ever written and a collection of the best comedic performances ever only adds to the fun. Director Paul Feig truly hit humor gold with this layered exploration of adult women's friendships, all under the guise of an at times witty and other times gross-out gag-laden story (“It’s happening!).
Annie (the unfairly talented Kristen Wiig, who also co-wrote the script) is best friends with Lillian (the magical Maya Rudolph, Wiig’s former SNL cast mate). Lillian is getting married and Annie is obviously the maid of honor…but then things in Annie’s life begin crumbling, and her friendship is put in jeopardy — aided, of course, by Annie’s foil, the seemingly all-too-perfect Helen (Rose Byrne). When McCarthy shows up (as Megan) and offers up some bachelorette party ideas, such as “female fight club,” the movie jumps to even higher heights of hilarity. Chocked full of some of the genre's best quotes, this expletive-packed love letter to female friendship is one for the ages.
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