The 10 Most Intense NC-17 Movies of All Time, Ranked
Jeremy has more than 2700 published articles on Collider to his name, and has been writing for the site since February 2022. He's an omnivore when it comes to his movie-watching diet, so will gladly watch and write about almost anything, from old Godzilla films to gangster flicks to samurai movies to classic musicals to the French New Wave to the MCU... well, maybe not the Disney+ shows.
His favorite directors include Martin Scorsese, Sergio Leone, Akira Kurosawa, Quentin Tarantino, Werner Herzog, John Woo, Bob Fosse, Fritz Lang, Guillermo del Toro, and Yoji Yamada. He's also very proud of the fact that he's seen every single Nicolas Cage movie released before 2022, even though doing so often felt like a tremendous waste of time. He's plagued by the question of whether or not The Room is genuinely terrible or some kind of accidental masterpiece, and has been for more than 12 years (and a similar number of viewings).
When he's not writing lists - and the occasional feature article - for Collider, he also likes to upload film reviews to his Letterboxd profile (username: Jeremy Urquhart) and Instagram account.
He has achieved his 2025 goal of reading all 13,467 novels written by Stephen King, and plans to spend the next year or two getting through the author's 82,756 short stories and 105,433 novellas.
Sign in to your Collider account
The NC-17 rating, in America, is given when a movie is deemed appropriate only for adults (anyone over 17… so, effectively, 18 and above). It’s not given all that often, because you can show and explore quite a lot visually while still getting the less restrictive R-rating, but films that push a little further do risk getting rated NC-17. And it is a risk, because certain cinemas in the U.S. just don’t show NC-17-rated movies.
There’s the option to release a movie unrated, and this has happened for lots of movies that would've otherwise gotten an official NC-17 rating. Or, sometimes, cuts are made to get something down to an R-rating, like what happened with The Wolf of Wall Street and Requiem for a Dream (though with the latter, it did later get released unrated – without those cuts from the R-rated version – after the theatrical run was over). So, it should go without saying that NC-17 movies usually get pretty intense, but the ones below, especially so.
10 'Bad Lieutenant' (1992)
The Lieutenant in Bad Lieutenant really is only known as The Lieutenant, and he’s not exactly the best of lieutenants, as that title also makes nice and apparent upfront. He does seem to be seeking some kind of redemption throughout the film, though, being tortured by the things he’s seen and done, all the while having a further personal crisis because of the confronting crime he’s been looking into.
It’s intended to feel like something of a descent throughout, with some resistance to the whole immortality and spiral giving Bad Lieutenant the tiniest bit of possible hope. Very little hope, though. And plenty of sequences that feel some combination of grisly, emotionally intense, and nightmarish. Bad Lieutenant is very striking and achieves what it’s going for, but because of that, it’s honestly hard to recommend to most people.
9 'The Evil Dead' (1981)
The mildest movie here is probably The Evil Dead, which was the first part of a great trilogy that got sillier with every movie. You had the comedic horror movie that was Evil Dead II, and then the outright fantasy farce that was Army of Darkness. All those were directed by Sam Raimi and starred Bruce Campbell, with the series since then not involving them as much (Raimi’s stayed on as a producer, and Campbell sometimes has voice cameos; that kind of thing).
Anyway, the first Evil Dead might not be as gruesome or intense as some of the post-Raimi ones, but for its time, it was a shock to the system. And the one kind of jarring thing about it now is that it does play pretty much everything for horror, and technically isn't as fun as its first two sequels were. It feels more worthy of a strong R-rating by today’s standards, rather than an NC-17 or X-rating, but it does still carry that NC-17 rating, and feels pretty tense/uncomfortable at parts, so here it is.
8 'Shame' (2011)
There isn't anything romantic about Shame, nor could you really call it steamy, despite the content that it does have. It’s not feel-good in any way, being about a man with a sex addiction and how it dominates his life. That particular addiction isn't explored as often as drug-related, alcohol, or gambling addictions, at least as far as other movies go, so that does make Shame stand out.
The idea of anyone watching Shame more than once is pretty wild… like, maybe it’s happened, but probably not very often at all.
It’s so oppressively bleak and hopeless throughout, though. You might not expect it to be all that intense, but the movie finds ways to make it so. The idea of anyone watching Shame more than once is pretty wild… like, maybe it’s happened, but probably not very often at all (and no, the editor, Joe Walker, does not count).
7 'Crash' (1996)
1996’s Crash should not be mixed up with that other film named Crash that somehow won Best Picture at the Oscars, and it also shouldn’t be mixed up with the Charli XCX album of the same name… which isn't the wildest thing to say, since the director of Crash (1996), David Cronenberg, featured on a Charli XCX song (the final track of 2026’s Music, Fashion, Film). Worlds colliding!
Anyway, trying to summarize the film would make it very apparent why it received an NC-17 rating, and also, a summary might not be appropriate for an article of this nature. It’s about a certain, uh, kind of sexuality? And the people who are drawn to it, and the unusual group dynamic it all forms. Everything is quite unusual, even by Cronenberg’s standards, with Crash being one of his more graphic and confronting films. And that’s saying something.
6 'Blonde' (2022)
For what it’s worth, the Joyce Carol Oates novel that Blonde is based on proves even more disquieting and intense than the 2022 movie. Neither makes for a pleasant experience, though, by any means, and in both cases, you’ve got a portrait of Marilyn Monroe’s life that doesn’t necessarily strive for accuracy the way some other biographical movies do (or try and sometimes fail to do).
It’s impressionistic, if that’s not too pretentious a word to use, and also, the tragedies in Monroe’s life are shown here (and focused on) to confront/depict misogyny and abuse against women within the film industry, and potentially beyond. Blonde uses a real person as a way to hammer home those things, which does make it more disturbing, but it’s a more important and artfully done film than many give it credit for.
5 'Man Bites Dog' (1992)
Man Bites Dog is somewhat entertaining, despite also being horrific. Part of that comes down to it being a dark comedy, and also feeling very creative, regarding what it wants to do as a mockumentary. It’s about people in a film crew following a serial killer and documenting what he does, and then slowly feeling temptation to join him and do more than just film/document.
The falling down a slippery slope thing has been done before, including in 2014’s Nightcrawler, which this has some other points of comparison to, but Man Bites Dog stands out for being extra startling and confronting with the subject matter at hand. Nothing’s really held back, and the level of violence paired with the (fairly consistent) dark comedy and satire makes for a rather dizzying and persistently tense viewing experience.
4 'In the Realm of the Senses' (1976)
There is the exploration of a relationship of sorts in In the Realm of the Senses, which might technically make it a romance film, but it has to be specified that it’s deliberately not “romantic” in the traditional sense. If you go in expecting something nice and/or inspiring about love, you're not going to find that, because this movie (which is still shocking after half a century) has considerably darker things on its mind.
The relationship here is shown to gradually get more intense, and eventually violent, but done in a way that keeps you feeling anxious about where it’s going before shocking you with the reveal of where it did indeed want to go. It’s deliberately done, and there are reasons why In the Realm of the Senses wants to be the way it is, but still, don’t go into it casually (or completely unaware of what you might be in for).
3 'A Serbian Film' (2010)
Easily the most difficult movie to talk about here, A Serbian Film does indeed have a well-earned reputation for being one of the most controversial and frequently banned horror movies in recent memory. It earns its NC-17 rating to a larger extent than most of the other movies here, and the plot is a bit like Crash, in that it’s hard to go into or summarize.
Actually, it’s harder to talk about A Serbian Film without straying into NSFW (not safe for work) territory, so maybe just treat it as one of those “the less I know the better” kinds of things, if you don’t know what the deal is with this one. If you are curious, then sure, you can find answers once you go looking, but do you really want to go looking? This is one of those films that’s largely known for being disturbing, and so it’s got the least by way of merit or artistic value of all the movies being mentioned here, too.
2 'Lust, Caution' (2007)
“Intense” is a little different to “disturbing,” though, and that’s why A Serbian Film isn't #1 here. Lust, Caution is more of a thriller, and it’s probably more intense in the traditional sense as a result. It’s also better overall, for what that’s worth, even if you're technically not going to be as shaken up once it’s over as you might post-A Serbian Film. You could still be pretty shaken up, though.
Lust, Caution is about an attempt to assassinate an official within a puppet government in the early years of World War II, with the assassination attempt carried out by a group of university students. They're inexperienced, and the plot involves one student getting romantically involved with the target, and that leads to a good deal of additional stress and turmoil. It’s a complex and unique sort of spy/espionage movie, and definitely one of the best movies to get hit with an NC-17 rating.
1 'The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover' (1989)
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover was released with an X rating in 1989, and then the NC-17 rating came into effect the following year, so in 1990, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover did technically become an NC-17-rated movie. It’s about a cycle of revenge involving the four characters referred to in the title, though the cook isn't as caught up in it all… though it’s his restaurant where most of the film takes place.
It’s got some violent and confronting moments, owing to how genuinely despicable its main villain is, but The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover is also extremely beautiful at times, as far as the visuals and music are concerned. While it’s an arthouse film in those regards, and challenging with some of its content, it’s approachable as far as the narrative and thematic things are concerned. So, as long as your stomach’s decently strong, it’s a must-watch.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.