10 Surprising Movies That Were Originally Rated NC-17, But Were Edited Down To Rated R

Originally, the idea of an X-rated movie, now referred to as NC-17, was one that pushed the boundaries of taste too far, either sexually or with graphic violence. Through the years, certain tastes changed and in some ways, things that were at one time deemed inappropriate are not commonplace in many movies.

There are several movies that are mainstream classics today that were, when released at the time, X-rated. In some cases, it just took a few seconds of edits to make the movie suitable for the ratings’ board. Many of these movies stream today on the top services, from Prime Video and Netflix to HBO Max, and it might be hard to believe that they were, at one time, deemed worthy of the dreaded X-rating.

American Pie (1999)

• Available to rent on Prime Video and Vudu.

American Pie was a teen sex comedy made in the style of National Lampoon classics. However, whole many of the older movies that followed the same ground got away with an R-rating, the board gave American Pie an NC-17 rating.

A total of 10 seconds was changed, with alterations to 11 different scenes. Some examples of scenes that the filmmakers had to change was the one involving the pie, with Jim standing in the unrated version as well as the sex Bible, which had sexual positions drawn in the unrated version’s book.

Braveheart (1995)

• Streaming now on Netflix.

While a violent movie, Braveheart was one historical epic that had to fight the X-rating. A respected Oscar-winning movie telling the story of Sir William Wallace and the First War of Scottish Independence, the movie had to be edited to lessen the brutal medieval warfare.

To get the R-rating, director Mel Gibson had to trim the battle scenes, shortening them and eliminating some of the brutality. These were all scenes from the battlefield, and the execution of William Wallace was fine as shot.

Casino (1995)

• Streaming now on Fubo and AMC+.

Martin Scorsese had made some intense movies over the years, and it would have been no surprise to see many of them get an X-rating. However, while movies like Taxi Driver made it through the ratings board fine with an R-rating, Casino needed some major cuts.

When the ratings board got its hands on Casino, they sent it back with an X-rating. The good news for Scorsese is that he sent it back on appeal and was given an R-rating for brutal violence, pervasive strong language, drug use, and some sexuality.

Clerks (1994)

• Streaming now on Paramount+.

Kevin Smith got his start as a filmmaker in 1994 with his black and white movie Clerks. The movie told the story of a convenience store clerk and video rentals clerk who went through a day observing crazy customers, exchanging stories, and wishing they could be anywhere else.

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Clerks is one of the movies people point to as starting the independent movie craze of the 1990s. However, it was almost X-rated in the start. The problem here was simply the discussions about sex in the movie, which rubbed the ratings’ board the wrong way. Luckily, Smith escaped with an eventual R-rating and went on to enjoy a successful career.

Die Hard 2 (1990)

• Streaming now on DirecTV.

In Die Hard, Bruce Willis’s John McClane became a new-era action star. Instead of the muscle men of the ’80s, McClane was an everyman who was able to beat armies of bad guys to save the day with nothing but his gun and a few one-liners, making Die Hard a true classic.

However, after the success of that first movie, the sequel ended up with an X-rating. The movie ended up edited down to an R-rating by cutting away from certain death scenes. The third movie, Die Hard With A Vengeance required similar cuts to get its R-rating.

Scary Movie 2 (2001)

• Streaming now on Fubo.

In 2000, the Wayans Brothers spoofed ’90s self-aware horror movies like the Scream franchise with Scary Movie. The movie ended up spawning a franchise of its own, but the second movie faced some problems before it reached theaters. The spoof movie received an X-rating.

While the movie was a comedy above all, there were a lot of gratuitous sex scenes that rubbed the ratings board the wrong way. These were mentioned on the DVD commentary, and once they re-edited the scenes, the movie received its R-rating.

Scream (1996)

• Streaming now on Fubo.

While Scary Movie was a spoof of Scream, the directors of the comedy franchise might not have expected to follow in the footsteps of the X-rating. However, they did share that in common as the first Scream movie was originally X-rated before changes were made.

As the most successful of the ’90s self-referential genre of horror movies, that might come as a surprise. All it took to get to an R-rating was seven seconds of gore cut out of the final cut.

South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999)

• Streaming now on Paramount+.

The animated movie South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut was based on a television cartoon that aired on Comedy Central. There wasn’t a lot in the movie that fans wouldn’t see on the show outside of the fact Matt Stone and Trey Parker didn’t have to censor curse words in the movie.

However, it came back with an X-rating, which would have doomed the animated release. The reasons were for vulgar language and crude sexual humor. Stone and Parker said they added different vulgar material every time they sent it back until they got an R-rating – and an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song.

Starship Troopers (1997)

• Streaming now on Starz.

In the 1997 science fiction classic Starship Troopers, the entire idea of the movie is a military force that battles giant bug creatures on a different planet. There are plenty of war movies that are extremely violent, from Saving Private Ryan to Platoon that showed real-life horror and got an R-rating.

Starship Troopers initially received an X-rating. All it took to get from X to R was trimming of four seconds in the final battle scene from the movie. The scene in question was the decapitation of a human soldier by an attacking bug.

Total Recall (1990)

• Streaming now on Fubo.

In 1990, Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in the Philip K. Dick adaptation Total Recall. The movie told the story of a man who went to a company to live a fantasy and then ended up in a giant conspiracy that he wasn’t sure was real or part of the game.

There are several scenes in the movie that made it R-rated, but in the start, the ratings board delivered an X-rating for the movie. The changes made to get Total Recall to R included cutting some of Benny’s death scene as well as shortening of several other deaths.

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