Do you remember the first R rated and or NC-17 rated movie you watched?

[BlueSkies]

I've been having a lot of nostalgia of late due to buying a set of baseball cards recently I never got as a kid.  It made me think of this topic.

 

I know I saw Terminator 2 and Major League on TV as a kid but a lot of the curse words and what not was edited it out.  I think it was probably My Cousin Vinny for me.  My dad wouldn't let me watch as a kid but my mom was the cool one and rented it for me.  Still pretty funny.  

 

For NC-17 it was Body of Evidence with Madonna when I was old enough to rent movies on my own.  She gave still the most appealing/hottest performance to me in that film of anything I watched in my life.  

 

Those movies raised me in a way lol.  

[proserpina65]

The first R-rated movie I can remember seeing in the theater was Used Cars with Kurt Russell.  I was not quite 15 and saw it at the drive-in with my parents.  Although the movie was quite funny, the experience was embarrassing because of my parents being there.

There were probably things I saw on TV before that but of course they were heavily edited.  The Godfather springs to mind.  My father really liked that movie.

[Ohiopirate02]

Growing up we had HBO and my dad was big on allowing my older brother and I to self-censor, ie. he was going to watch whatever movie was coming on at 8pm and we could choose to watch it with him or choose to go to another room to play/read a book/etc.  I have no idea which movie was my first R rated movie. I was going to say that my first R rated movie was something like Poltergeist, but a quick look up shows that was only rated PG?!? 

I know the first R rated movie that I saw in theatres was Interview With the Vampire in 94 because it took some skill buying the tickets at 14.  The law in my state was a big vague on allowing those under 17 into R rated movies, and there was one woman working at the theatre who gleefully chose to interpret the law in the strictest fashion.  I remember staying in the longer line being staffed by some college kid who didn't look twice at who was buying the tickets versus getting into her much shorter line and not being able to see the movie I actually wanted to see.  

[Ceindreadh]

The first one I remember seeing in the cinema was Monty Pythons Life of Brian.  It was about 20 years after it had originally been realised but it had previously been banned so this was the first time it was being shown here.

I was actually not quite 18 but IIRC, I don't think they were making too much of a fuss about checking IDs.

[festivus]

Purple Rain. 

I remember going to see Saturday Night Fever when I was like 13 and wondering how the hell did we get in that one. Turns out there was a PG version released in 1979 and that's the one I saw. I saw the R rated one later and wished I didn't.

I also remember my first PG movie. My mom used to only take us to G rated Disney movies but when Jaws came out I begged her to take me and she did. I had already read the book and I just had to see it. 

[Sarahsmile416]

7 hours ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

Growing up we had HBO and my dad was big on allowing my older brother and I to self-censor, ie. he was going to watch whatever movie was coming on at 8pm and we could choose to watch it with him or choose to go to another room to play/read a book/etc.  I have no idea which movie was my first R rated movie. I was going to say that my first R rated movie was something like Poltergeist, but a quick look up shows that was only rated PG?!? 

I know the first R rated movie that I saw in theatres was Interview With the Vampire in 94 because it took some skill buying the tickets at 14.  The law in my state was a big vague on allowing those under 17 into R rated movies, and there was one woman working at the theatre who gleefully chose to interpret the law in the strictest fashion.  I remember staying in the longer line being staffed by some college kid who didn't look twice at who was buying the tickets versus getting into her much shorter line and not being able to see the movie I actually wanted to see.  

First R-Rated movie in a theater - Bride of Chucky at 17.

First R- rated movie period - Interview with the Vampire - I was 11 or 12 lol. 

[Shannon L.]

The first one I saw in a theater was An Officer and a Gentleman when I was 14. It was special because my mom and dad were a bit strict (not terribly strict, but stricter than some parents), so getting permission to see an R-rated film was tough.  But I expressed how much I wanted to see it, so they went and saw it first. My dad was in the Navy and they felt that the depiction of what Navy training and living on a base was like was fairly accurate and that the sex/nudity wasn't gratuitous, so they agreed to let me see it.  My mom brought me and I was glad because I loved it. 

I don't recall the first one I saw without their permission on a friends HBO.  It was either Stripes, Fast Times at Ridgemont High or Caddyshack.  I saw them all behind their backs, but my gut says the first was Stripes.

[Bastet]

The first R-rated movie I saw was probably Kentucky Fried Movie.  For some reason my friends and I were really into that movie as kids.  I watched it recently and have no idea what we were thinking.  It may very well have been that all the stuff which got it the R rating was forbidden to us.

The first X-rated (which is what they were called back then) might have been Midnight Cowboy.  (It later got reclassified as R, but it was originally X).  Or maybe Last Tango in Paris.

[BlueSkies]

On 2/1/2023 at 7:26 PM, festivus said:

Purple Rain. 

I remember going to see Saturday Night Fever when I was like 13 and wondering how the hell did we get in that one. Turns out there was a PG version released in 1979 and that's the one I saw. I saw the R rated one later and wished I didn't.

I also remember my first PG movie. My mom used to only take us to G rated Disney movies but when Jaws came out I begged her to take me and she did. I had already read the book and I just had to see it. 

Haha yeah.  I saw the TV version of Saturday Night Fever before the uncut one.  Couldn't believe how many mentions of the c word were in the later 

[Raja]

The one blaxpotation film that I saw before the VCR. Three the Hard Way. I don't know why my parents decided to take us to that one. It wasn't Jim Brown's first film, maybe the karate of Jim Kelly was the lure.

[Terrafamilia]

Alien. My dad took me as a belated 16th birthday present.

[Kel Varnsen]

I saw Die Hard 2 in theatres with my parents in 1990 so I guess I would have been 12. Not sure I can remember seeing anything R in theatre before then (although I did see Terminator 2 the next year). As for home I can remember my birthday a year or two earlier having some friends over and renting a bunch of action movies like RoboCop and I think Commando. So I would have been 10 or 11.

[AgathaC]

My parents were easy-going about most things, but strict on what we watched. Occasionally, we could watch an R movie, but we had to leave the room or cover our eyes when told.

When I was 12, my church youth group had a lock-in and one of the high schoolers brought Pretty Woman. (Obviously, my church was pretty liberal!) Wanting to be around the high school kids, I sat in that room with them. My dad volunteered as a counselor and was there that night. At one point, he came through that particular room to get a snack and saw 12-year-old me watching an R-rated movie… and grinned at me and walked out. Never said a word. That moment confirmed to me what I’d always suspected: my dad was awesome.

So, pretty memorable first full R movie for me.

[Kel Varnsen]

So this is probably the best place to ask about this, but I remember when I saw R rated movies in theatres as a kid, like T2 there was always these little like maybe 30 second cartoons at the start reminding people that the movie was R rated and kids weren't allowed without an adult. Does anyone else remember this? Was it only a Canadian thing? I tried googling but you only get results about actual R rated animated movies.

[Raja]

1 hour ago, Kel Varnsen said:

So this is probably the best place to ask about this, but I remember when I saw R rated movies in theatres as a kid, like T2 there was always these little like maybe 30 second cartoons at the start reminding people that the movie was R rated and kids weren't allowed without an adult. Does anyone else remember this? Was it only a Canadian thing? I tried googling but you only get results about actual R rated animated movies.

I never saw that in  Los Angeles

[proserpina65]

19 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

So this is probably the best place to ask about this, but I remember when I saw R rated movies in theatres as a kid, like T2 there was always these little like maybe 30 second cartoons at the start reminding people that the movie was R rated and kids weren't allowed without an adult. Does anyone else remember this? Was it only a Canadian thing? I tried googling but you only get results about actual R rated animated movies.

I don't remember anything like that back when I was a 16 year old watching R-rated movies in the theater with my also not yet 17 year old friends.  In the US, so maybe it was just a Canadian thing.

[kiddo82]

I don't specifically rember but I think the first R rated movie I ever saw was The Good Son at a sleepover.  It came out in 1993 so I must have been 11 or 12 depending.  I remember all the intrigue about it in my age group at the time because Macaulay Culkin was the biggest star in the world to us and seeing him as a bad seed was a big deal.  It was the first "grown up" movie that felt like if you didn't see it you were left behind.

First R movie I ever saw in a theater was probably Jerry Maguire.  I went with my older sister and her then boyfriend.

First R movie I ever got kicked out of was Wishmaster in 1997.  I still haven't seen it but maybe they did me a favor?

Earlier this year I was going to see Cocaine Bear and I was very amused by the dad who was trying to buy tickets for a group of teen girls but not himself.  He was telling the ticket scanner that he gave permission for the girls to go in but they still wouldn't let them unless he went too.  Ah, memories.  

[Kel Varnsen]

When I was 7 my cousin who was a teen was going to take me to see Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Weirdly it was only rated PG-13 but for some reason the ticket person thought that PG-13 meant kids under 13 couldn't see it without a parent (although PG-13 was only around for a year at that point for years I thought it was R). So she wouldn't sell us tickets and we went to see Pee Wee's Big Adventure at a different theatre. Weirdly I have never seen Beyond Thunderdome to this day, but Big Adventure is my favourite movie.

[KWalkerInc]

The other day I typed an entire post about how my mom and sister made me go to Beastmaster when I was 6 because my father had a meeting and they didn't want to pay for a sitter, only to look it up and find out that movie was PG.  The first R movie I saw in a theater then may not have been until Terminator 2, though I'd seen a lot on cable.  Stripes may have been the first.  Most of the early R movies I saw were rated R more because of language, etc. than violence.  At a young age, I would get upset when the previews even at some PG movies were for horror movies, so those weren't for me.

[EtheltoTillie]

Ah you’re all too young!  The first R film I saw was Easy Rider, in 1969, at the dawn of the ratings system. I was under 17, but my friends and I could get in to one neighborhood theater without ID or parent.  At that time these movies wouldn’t be shown on broadcast TV without lots of bleeping and editing. 

We also saw Bonnie and Clyde unaccompanied when it came out, in 1967, but it was not rated R, surprisingly. Those ratings didn’t exist yet. It deserves an R. 

Edited October 28, 2023 by EtheltoTillie

[EtheltoTillie]

We also saw Rosemary’s Baby around then, also unrated at the time.

[AgathaC]

13 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

Ah you’re all too young!  The first R film I saw was Easy Rider, in 1969, at the dawn of the ratings system. I was under 17, but my friends and I could get in to one neighborhood theater without ID or parent.  At that time these movies wouldn’t be shown on broadcast TV without lots of bleeping and editing. 

We also saw Bonnie and Clyde unaccompanied when it came out, in 1967, but it was not rated R, surprisingly. Those ratings didn’t exist yet. It deserves an R. 

Once something came up on TV about Bonnie and Clyde and my mom told me all her friends went but her parents wouldn’t let her. Like you say, it wasn’t the rating or lack thereof. Her parents were older (she was an oops baby) and they remembered the real people and their rampage from the news. They were very much against anything glorifying or romanticizing “thugs and murderers.”

[Raja]

14 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

Ah you’re all too young!  The first R film I saw was Easy Rider, in 1969, at the dawn of the ratings system. I was under 17, but my friends and I could get in to one neighborhood theater without ID or parent.  At that time these movies wouldn’t be shown on broadcast TV without lots of bleeping and editing. 

We also saw Bonnie and Clyde unaccompanied when it came out, in 1967, but it was not rated R, surprisingly. Those ratings didn’t exist yet. It deserves an R. 

Although I know it was 1974's Three The Hard Way that I posted about earlier reading your post made me think about Steve McQueen's The Getaway  in 1972 featuring a kidnapped wife falling for the hood who was shown repeatedly raping her in front of her husband, a scene that I think was removed from the remake and thinking that even when PG-13 came around it still should have been rated R instead of PG.

Edited October 28, 2023 by Raja

[EtheltoTillie]

@Raja I have never seen The Getaway.  Now I'm pretty sure I don't want to.

[kiddo82]

On 10/27/2023 at 8:35 PM, EtheltoTillie said:

We also saw Bonnie and Clyde unaccompanied when it came out, in 1967, but it was not rated R, surprisingly. Those ratings didn’t exist yet. It deserves an R. 

Even by today's standards, the violence in Bonnie and Clyde is no joke.

[EtheltoTillie]

59 minutes ago, kiddo82 said:

Even by today's standards, the violence in Bonnie and Clyde is no joke.

Yes, but it was considered an artistic breakthrough by some.  This is the (very long) review by Pauline Kael in The New Yorker.  I don't know if it will be behind a paywall.  https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1967/10/21/bonnie-and-clyde

I don't share the breathless adulation for Pauline Kael.  Sometimes I think she just droned on and on about minutiae in a film to make herself sound deeply serious.  But this is interesting. 

[Epeolatrix]

My first R-rated film was probably High Plains Drifter. I was a small child, taken to the drive-in because my uncle was babysitting me instead of going out with his wife. Their idea of a good compromise was a trip to the drive-in, figuring I'd just sleep through everything. I didn't. For years all I could remember about the movie was the town being painted red; in my bad dreams afterward, it was blood and not paint.