6 NC-17 films which were nominated for the Oscars

It's not easy for an explicit film to break through, but these films have done.


Film notes are omnipresent today, but during the first five decades in the history of American cinema, They did not exist . During the era of the studio system, the films were not screened and evaluated after the release, but really written and produced to align with a set of self-imposed industry rules on the content they might represent, called The Hays Production Code . This changed in 1968, when the Hays code was replaced by the rating system that we know today, under which each film released in the United States receives a note from the Motion Picture Association of America (now known simply under the name of the Cinema Association ). Although it has lasted for decades, the system is far from perfect, because the MPA and the cinema studios have long shunned on how to classify films that cross the line in more adult territory, especially when the difference Between a note r and An NC-17 (Initially known as X) can be counted in millions of dollars in ticket sales, because major theater channels often refuse to book "explicit" films. However, a note X or NC-17 is not always taboo; In fact, some of these films deemed explicit by the AMP were Nominated for Oscars .

Read the rest for six films evaluated by adults who were for - and even won - Academy prices.

Read this then: 6 Oscar scandals that rocked Hollywood .

1
Midnight cowboy (1969)

Still from the Midnight Cowboy trailer
United artists

Written by Waldo Salt and produced by John Schlesinger , 1969 Midnight cowboy Entering the theaters a year after the AMP implemented the rating system. A powerful drama on a little town boy with starry eyes ( Jon Voight ) Who moves to New York by dreaming of a soft life as Gigolo and falls with Ratso Rizzo ( Dustin Hoffman ), a scammer who promises to help him discover life in the streets, his subject is certainly not for children. However, his representations of sex (heterosexual and not) and of drug use would not allow the public jaded in 2022 to beat an eye - but in the 60s, they obtained the film a note X, that the studio, United Artists , accepted, fearing the film potential to influence "young people", According to the book United Artists, the company that changed the film industry . It was barely a scarlet letter, when the film continued to win the best movie At the Oscars, the only film classified X to do so. (Salt and Schlesinger also won trophies for their efforts.) At the time of his reissue in 1971, the MPa had changed his rating guidelines, and Midnight Cowboy played in theaters with the note R that she is still wearing today ' Hui.

2
A watchmaking orange (1971)

Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange
Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images

Another early entry into the cannon of respected x classified films, Stanley Kubrick's Violently satirical outing of 1971 A watchmaking orange , based on the novel by Anthony Burgess , won his reputation in adulthood. After the exploits of the teenage cap Alex Delarge ( Malcolm McDowell ) And his gang of "droogs" while they shoot drugs and travel the streets in search of "ultra-violence", the film depicts scenes of rape and murder with supreme style and comic brutality. The film has always received a delighted reception of American critics, has become a success at the box office and was nominated for the best film, the best director and the best scenario adapted to the 1972 Oscars. Later that year, for the reissue of the film, Kubrick replaced about 30 seconds of sequences with alternative scenes which were less sexually explicit so that the film could be reclassified in redicting R. certainly A watchmaking orange generated greater controversy in the United Kingdom, where, after the media reported a certain number of crimes that undoubtedly felt those committed in the film, Warner Bros. removed it from the distribution At the request of Kubrick in 1973 - a quasi -ban which remained at the palace until the death of the director in 1999.

3
Last tango in Paris (1972)

Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider in Last Tango in Paris
United artists

An erotic thriller of the Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci ,, Last tango in Paris was released at a time when the studios did not fear that a note x condemned the commercial prospects of a film, even when it is titled by a star of Marlon Brando caliber - and indeed, he found himself The biggest successes at the box office . The Godfather Star plays an American widower who goes to Paris and begins an affair with a young French girl ( Maria Schneider , who was only 19 years old at the time of filming).

The film obtained its restrictive note for explicit cases of sexual violence, including a rape scene which has taken a more disturbing reputation when Schneider revealed later that she felt forced to the unicenized sequence. A reissued version obtained an R in 1981, and the original Cup - which was nominated for the best actor and best director of Oscars - was reclassified as NC -17 in 1997.

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4
Henry and June (1990)

Uma Thurman in Henry & June
Universal images

As Midnight cowboy Before that, the 1990s Henry and June seemed to realize the dream that a film with an explicit note - in this case, the newly created NC -17 could be taken seriously. It would certainly be difficult to argue that anyone under 17 would be the ideal public for a sexually explicit drama on the heavy and real relationship between Anaïs Nin ,, Henry Miller , and his wife June . The first film to wear an NC-17 note, it also became the first nomine for an Oscars, for Philippe Rousselot cinematography.

5
Blue Valentine (2010)

Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling in Blue Valentine
Weinstein company

Technically, this romantic drama of the writer / director Derek Cianfrance was noted R - But just barely. When it was initially screened by the MPA, a little two months before its planned release, it was stamped with an NC-17 for scorching scenes between the co-stars Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling , who plays a married couple who rushes towards a devastating divorce. According to Gosling, a particular problem was sexism inherent in the rating system. "You see so many movies with men at the end of sexual pleasure and that's good, but if a woman is at the reception ... It's pornographic , "Gosling said to Wnyc The point to take away Back in 2010. AE0FCC31AE342FD3A1346EBB1F342FCB

The result of the resulting media stimulated the board of directors Take a look at the movie , as reported by deadline. Blue Valentine was rewritten R for "strong graphic sexual content, language and a blow" - and ended up winning Williams a nomination for the best actress at the 83rd Academy Awards.

6
Blond (2022)

Ana de Armas in Blonde
Netflix

This year, Ana de Armas became the first interpreter of a film released with an NC-17 note to receive a appointment in a major actor category. In the film Netflix Blond , of the director Andrew Dominik And based on the novel by Joyce Carol Oates , she plays Marilyn Monroe . The fictitious vision of the star's life was presented at the start of the Venice Film Festival that has become the most notorious film of the year on a real person, largely because of its graphic scenes. Gq called Blond "" relentless in its brutality ," while Los Angeles Times critical Justin Chang wrote that the film "is not really on Marilyn Monroe", but " make her suffer "Physical violence, brutal sexual assaults and multiple visceral scenes representing monroe abortions were more than sufficient for the AMP attribute Blond An NC-17. Without concern to reserve the film in the big theater channels, Netflix did not bother to fight it, and with its appointment, of Armas made the history of the Oscars.


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