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Many of my favorite movies of all time are rated R: The Matrix, The Last of the Mohicans, and The Last Samurai, to name a few. For a while I watched tons of rated R movies, but after a while I found that the vast majority of them were awful, and the R-rated content was usually completely gratuitous and ended up undermining the movie rather than supporting it, if that makes sense. On the other hand, the R-rated content in my favorites tends to be pretty sparing and almost always supports a larger theme (some are a little more intense, like Gladiator, Braveheart, and Looper). I hardly even bother with rated R movies anymore, but I keep wondering if I’m missing something awesome. I hate the idea of having to watch a bunch of garbage to find those diamonds in the rough. What are some rated R movies that are really worthwhile? I still watch some R-rated movies. I used to watch a lot more, in more worldly days. My parents don’t watch as many as me, but every once in a while they’ll watch some. I agree it’s irritating to look for diamonds in the rough, but it’s worth it sometimes. Just look at stories in the scriptures, church history, and life in general. I agree that everyone is offended and uplifted by different things. I understand with children and more religious or spiritually sensitive people it’s risky. I’ve seen some PG and PG-13 movies that had content that, in my opinion, should have been R-rated. My brother, who’s a great guy, and a bishop in Lehi, Utah, right now gave up watching R-rated movies a long time ago. Sometimes when I was younger he used to be a little pushy to me about that. Nowadays, he doesn’t say anything. Which, I’m glad. It doesn’t always help my OCD. I also had a friends when I used to go to a young single adult branch that was too pushy about that. The church doesn’t over-emphasize it like they used to, which I’m glad. President Gordon B. Hinckley was known for that, but I loved him anyway. Anyway, with most movies anymore I either rent them in the Red Box or check them out at the library. I can’t afford to go to the theaters as much as I used to. The theater prices have gotten too expensive, especially with so many 3-D movies out now, and 20 minutes of advertisements and commercials play in the theaters. That’s far too much time to spend in that. As much as I love movies, too many have too many stereotypes and cliches. Too many over-rely on CGI. Although I am desensitized by graphic violence, bad language, and some sex/nudity, I can get turned off when it’s excessive or gratuitous. Graphic rape scenes turn me off. Warning: if that upsets you, don’t watch Rob Zombie’s Halloween, the uncut version or Death Wish 2. For me, much of that depends on context. Some hardline members suggested just to stick to documentaries for some rough topics so you don’t have to see them, but even some of those can be offensive to some people or sometimes they just don’t do it like a movie can. Anyway, sorry for babbling. Good Will Hunting, Gran Torino, The Green Mile, and Saving Private Ryan are excellent uplifting films. Saving Private Ryan has some graphic war violence and the others have some bad language and rough parts, but I think you’ll be uplifted and enjoy them. Just let personal spiritual inspiration and experience be your guide. Helpful hint: I normally check out the content description on DVDs or online before I see the movie so I got get too many big surprises. I hope that helps. There’s a site that we starting subscribing to when are kids were young called “Screenit.com” We still subscribe even though they are grown now. I think it’s $25/year, but it’s worth it because it spells out very clearly what’s in the movie, including how many F-words, sex scenes, etc. They also give pretty good reviews, better than Rottentomatoes sometimes I think. You have to be careful, because you can get the spoilers if you want, but they’re easy to avoid too. One other thing I like is that it lists every movie and DVD that has come out, so I can scroll down through and see if there’s something I’ve missed that I’d like to see. We feel like we get our money’s worth. My thought is that if I think I’ll like the movie (no guarantees), I’ll go see it. I don’t really consider the ratings. So far, my judgement has been good. Yes I’ve seen a few stinkers, and had a few thoughts like “Why did she need to ride off on the horse naked?”, but overall it’s been a good system. Off the top of my head, I loved Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan. I’m a former history teacher and a social scientist by nature, so my favorites tend to be historical in nature, regardless of the rating. I don’t watch many R-rated movies, since my experience also is that most of what causes the rating is gratuitous. If it is central to the plot and important for authenticity, I don’t mind – except in the case of horror movie violence, which I just can’t stomach at all. I’d far rather watch something with sexual scenes that aren’t over-the-top or gratuitous than watch something that has no sex or language issues but has lots of explicit, gory violence.
Also for finding content of great R-rated movies check out imdb.com. It’s helpful for many movies, not all of them. Commonsensemedia.org is really helpful, although you may not agree with the reviews of all movies. Daerium, I love movies. Always have since I was little and have not paid much attention to the rated R thing. My wife and I actually met on the set of an LDS film (Pride & Prejudice: A latter-day comedy). If you have not seen it I suggest you check it out (it has a soft spot in my heart). If you are careful, you can spot both my wife and I as extras in a couple different scenes. We both love raunchy comedies, but from the thread intro it sounds like those types of movies might be out in your book (If not I recommend Superbad, The Big Lebowski (lots of f type words though), and Anchorman).
These are pretty solid. There might be some things that people might find objectionable as my filter isn’t very good for other people so take with a grain of salt. But I love all the movies below.
Comedies/Rom Coms:
Hot Fuzz
Shaun of the Dead
Be kind Rewind
Waiting for Guffman
Bottle Rocket
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Love Actually (some breasts but nothing too gratuitous)
Office Space (some language)
High Fidelity
Action/Drama:
Edge of Tomorrow
Oblivion
Jack Reacher
Legends of the Fall
Shawshank Redemption
Almost Famous
Apocalypse Now
If you are more into “chick flicks”, I like the French film “Amelie” which has some brief sexuality and nudity (hey, it’s French!) but nothing off the charts. I also like “Next Stop Wonderland”. The R rating for this film puzzles me as it is pretty tame. I think it is the multiple use of the F word (I think it is mentioned twice). But there is nothing else offensive in this movie. Sunbeltred Quote:My wife and I actually met on the set of an LDS film (Pride & Prejudice: A latter-day comedy). If you have not seen it I suggest you check it out (it has a soft spot in my heart). If you are careful, you can spot both my wife and I as extras in a couple different scenes.
Hey! I’ve seen that movie multiple times and like it. I have the DVD and the soundtrack. Fun movie.
Some of my favorites: Amelia
Schindler’s List (really hard to watch, but very important)
Godfather II
Godfather
Shawshank Redemption
I also liked:
The Graduate
Silver Linings Playbook
Limitless
Good Morning, Vietnam
When Harry Met Sally
Bridget Jones Diary
The Shining
The Terminator
The King’s Speech – this wasn’t rated R in Singapore where I watched it
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Shakespeare in Love
Pulp Fiction
Animal House – raunchy, but yeah, it’s funny
Gladiator (at the time, not sure I would re-watch it much)
I don’t like too much violence or sex in movies, but I may watch something once. I watched a lot of movies while living abroad and traveling so much, and I almost never knew what the ratings were because they differ from US ratings depending on where you are. When you watch it on a plane, though, you can always skip ahead.
I also shared a funny story about going to see an R rated movie with a guy for his first post-mission date. Awkward!
http://bycommonconsent.com/2013/04/17/worst-mormon-date-ever/ I’ve never seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I’ll have see that. I used to like Jim Carrey, but not as much anymore. I am a huge Kate Winslet fan. I fell in love with her after seeing her in Titanic. 🙂 There are some good recommendations here! I’ve seen a fair number of these films. Some of them I’m sure are not rated R (Amelia, Edge of Tomorrow, Jack Reacher, Limitless, Oblivion—all great films that I have seen), but I’ll forgive you. 
In general I’m not a fan of raunchy comedies or horror. The furthest I go into horror is films like The Others and The Village. I can’t watch modern war films with lots of realistic violence. I was scarred by some films like that as a kid, and I can get physically ill from certain kinds of violence. I actually passed out during a movie one time. So movies like Saving Private Ryan and Apocalypse Now will unfortunately never be on my list. For some reason that doesn’t extend to historical films that don’t involve guns, so I was fine with Braveheart and Gladiator, which are both in my top 10 favorites. I was also fine with the ridiculous gore in the recent Hansel and Gretel film, too, although the movie was terrible.
I also have to work around my dear wife. We went through that uncritical R-rated movie watching phase together, but she rebounded further than I did. I have to work on her really hard to get her to watch an R-rated movie these days. I convinced her to watch Looper when it came out, and we both liked it. I think the last one we saw before that was The King’s Speech, which really didn’t need to be rated R (it had a few F-words, that’s all).
Ones I’ve seen: Almost Famous, Amelie, Bridget Jones Diary, Gladiator, High Fidelity, The King’s Speech, Legends of the Fall, Love Actually, Shakespeare in Love, The Terminator.
Ones I’ll be putting on my list: Be Kind Rewind, Bottle Rocket, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Godfather, Good Will Hunting, Gran Torino, The Green Mile, Next Stop Wonderland, Office Space, Pulp Fiction, Shawshank Redemption, When Harry Met Sally.
Thanks, everyone! Keep the recommendations coming.
Daeruin wrote:Many of my favorite movies of all time are rated R: The Matrix, The Last of the Mohicans, and The Last Samurai, to name a few. For a while I watched tons of rated R movies, but
after a while I found that the vast majority of them were awful, and the R-rated content was usually completely gratuitous and ended up undermining the movie rather than supporting it, if that makes sense. On the other hand, the R-rated content in my favorites tends to be pretty sparing and almost always supports a larger theme(some are a little more intense, like Gladiator, Braveheart, and Looper). I hardly even bother with rated R movies anymore, but I keep wondering if I’m missing something awesome. I hate the idea of having to watch a bunch of garbage to find those diamonds in the rough. What are some rated R movies that are really worthwhile?Basically a few F-bombs will earn an automatic R-rating. Anything more than something like 47 seconds worth of soft-core sex scenes will prevent a movie from even getting an R-rating. Blink and you will miss it. I’m not sure why it’s alright to show breasts in some PG-13 movies (e.g. Titanic) but other movies will end up with an R-rating for what looks like the same exact thing. It almost looks like the producers and directors already know the rating they want ahead of time and will edit or leave things in, appeal to the ratings board, etc. until they end up with the rating they are aiming for. Some of the violence and gore really is over-the-top but that is probably the least troublesome of all to most Church members and now we are seeing what is basically the equivalent of R-rated violence and gore in regular TV shows (not HBO/Showtime) that still limit the sex, nudity, and language to PG.
Personally I will watch movies like the Hangover series, 300, horror movies, etc. including the unrated version if there is one and the sex, nudity, language, and/or violence doesn’t usually bother me much. What bothers me the most about movies is if they boring and tedious to sit through and that’s when I will really end up feeling like it was a waste of time. However, more sensitive viewers could try watching “The King’s Speech” or “Argo” for example and I doubt that most TBMs would find anything overly offensive about them. There are many if not the majority of R-rated movies where editing out less than a minute of material would change it to PG or PG-13 which isn’t really that much compared about 90 minutes to over two hours of the entire movie.
How could I have not thought of Shawshank Redemption and Shaun of the Dead? Great movies. Top Grossing R-rated movie of all time… Passion of the Christ.
I actually have never seen it.
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