NC-17 to R: How 14 Movies Made the Cut(s)

It might not be surprising that the MPAA initially gave an NC-17 to this teen sex comedy. But reportedly, the main bone of contention wasn’t the film’s naughty language or the climactic devirginification montage — it was the sequence where protagonist Jim has a moment with an apple pie. The filmmakers were instructed to trim a few pie thrusts. (Wouldn’t you love to read an MPAA memo?) —Darren Franich

An erotic thriller about a bisexual (Sharon Stone) suspected of murdering her lover with an ice pick, this Paul Verhoeven film was pressured to tone down its violence and an extensive love scene that intimated oral sex. Verhoeven reluctantly made the cuts — which amounted to only about a minute of film time — and anyone who’s seen the movie can attest that they left plenty hard-R scenes intact. —Jeff Labrecque

The tragic true story of a Midwestern teen who lived her life as a boy was initially hit with an NC-17 rating for ”an intense depiction of a rape and a sex scene.” The sex scene? Turns out Chloë Sevigny’s orgasm — at the hands of Hilary Swank — was simply too long. ”Who’s ever hurt by female pleasure, I argued,” said director Kimberly Peirce, who reluctantly made the cut and paved the way for Swank to win her first Oscar. —JL

Reportedly, the ratings board wasn’t happy with a couple of sex scenes featuring Kevin Smith regular Jason Mewes and former pornographic actress Katie Morgan. After twice being stamped with an NC-17 rating, Smith appealed the rating on the grounds that the sex in the film was comedic… and wound up with an R. Lesson: Funny sex is okay, but sexy sex is a no-no. Sorry, Fassbender. —DF

The film’s subtitle may be a bit of a misnomer, considering Matt and Trey were forced to make a number of cuts to satisfy the (pretty arbitrary) whims of the MPAA. Luckily for them, the film was produced by Paramount, one of the studios that comprise the ratings organization, and they eventually managed an R. Their previous film, Orgazmo, was independently financed and was stuck with the NC-17. Thankfully, it’s not as much of a problem on Broadway. —Keith Staskiewicz

If you were the prosecutor in the case against Madonna’s film career, this Razzie-winning Eszterhasian thriller manqué might be your Exhibit A. (Exhibit B would then have to be Swept Away.) Audiences were smart enough to stay away, even though two minutes had been snipped from the film to earn it an R-rating. Perhaps they had already gotten to know the Material Girl’s material well enough from her photobook, Sex, which had been released only months earlier. —KS

Director Louis Malle’s film, about a British Parliamentarian (Jeremy Irons) who finds himself sexually entangled with his son’s fiancé (Juliette Binoche), went from an NC-17 to an R after Malle begrudgingly cut a single shot of the naked actors intertwined in a doorway. But as EW noted while reviewing the unrated home video release of the film, the shot in question is rather, well, ”ludicrous”: ”The lovers…flop about as if engaged in a game of naked Twister…[s]uggesting Monty Python more than mounting passion.” —Adam B. Vary

Pubic hair. Mario Bello’s pubic hair. That — and the hint of female pleasure — is what landed this Vegas drama, about a walking bad-luck charm (William H. Macy) who finds his glass half-full when he falls for a pretty girl (Bello), in NC-17 purgatory. Director Wayne Kramer pleaded his case to the MPAA, but the board held out until he edited the scene — two whole seconds worth of cuts. —JL

Writer-director James Toback’s three-hander follows a lothario (Robert Downey Jr.) who’s confronted by his two ”exclusive” girlfriends (Heather Graham, Natasha Gregson Wagner) in his spacious duplex. An orally fixated sex scene between a clothed Downey and Graham gave the MPAA such pause that Toback submitted close to 10 cuts of the scene before they changed the rating from an NC-17 to an R. ”I don’t think you’d be able to know the difference,” Toback told EW at the time. ”The length of the shots has been trimmed, but not a single shot was taken out.” —Adam B. Vary

This distaff teen sex comedy followed three high school girls keen on having their first orgasm. A scene in which one of the characters uses a Jacuzzi jet stream for happy fun times — a scene shot from the shoulders up, with the girl in question in a bathing suit — initially caused the film to be slapped with an NC-17 rating, and had some wondering if the film’s female-centric story line (and indie financing) earned it more scrutiny than the male-centric shenanigans in the studio-backed American Pie, which hit theaters around the same time. —Adam B. Vary

The South Park guys once again ran afoul of the MPAA with their satirical marionette jingofest. This time, the problem was sex — specifically, the extended love scene between the male and female protagonist. Apparently, the ratings board drew the line at the golden shower. —DF

Kevin Smith’s underdog Sundance hit was nearly derailed by the MPAA, who slapped an early cut with the dreaded NC-17 rating for… get this: ”Strong language.” Miramax hired Alan Dershowitz to plead its case. After all, you couldn’t just snip three seconds of full-frontal exposure in this case — the potty mouths permeated the entire film. After an appeal, though, the MPAA reversed course and granted Clerks an R rating. Snoochie boochies! —JL

The adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ controversial novel was loaded with nihilistic violence, like the scene where Christian Bale murdered a rival with an axe. But the MPAA instead had an issue with his threesome with two prostitutes. (Or maybe it was his character’s obsession with Phil Collins. Hard to tell.) Director Mary Herron snipped a few seconds from the scene, and the board lowered the rating to R. —JL

Last year proved that the MPAA is not against oral sex on a woman. They’re only against oral sex on a woman by a man. While Black Swan coasted to an R-rating despite an intimate scene between Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis, Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling’s tale of a fractured marriage was flagged for a much less gratuitous scene. After public criticism, the board reversed its ruling without forcing the film to make any changes. —JL