The 25 Best R-Rated Movies in Cinema History

Is Roger ‘Verbal’ Kint (Kevin Spacey) a con artist with cerebral palsy, just a two-bit thief, or a fearsome murderous mobster known as Keyser Söze? The movie’s plot revolves around cocaine and a ship explosion. For his duplicitous performance, Spacey won an Academy Award.

“The Departed” is director Martin Scorsese’s immersive look at Irish gangster life in Boston. The film took home four Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. The film packs the star power of actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, and Martin Sheen, but it is Jack Nicholson’s menacing portrayal of the mob boss that dominates the movie.

This film launched the successful action series starring Bruce Willis. In this first installment Willis, as a New York cop John McClane, tries to save the lives of his wife (Bonnie Bedelia) and other people taken hostage by terrorists in Los Angeles. The film catapulted Willis into the action film pantheon, and fans continue to quote his character’s defiant “Yippee-ki-yay” line.

Child molestation and cover-ups by the Catholic Church in Boston, as exposed by the Boston Globe, form the theme of this unsettling film, which is described by the Sydney Morning Herald as possibly “the best newspaper film since All the President’s Men.”

Clint Eastwood’s “Unforgiven” scored four Oscar wins in 1992 including best director and best picture. He both directed and starred in the film appearing as William Munny, a pig farmer-turned-bounty hunter. The film opened as a number one box office smash and was one of Eastwood’s biggest financial successes.

After returning from service in Vietnam, Travis Bickle is unstable and adrift, working nights as a taxi driver on the decrepit streets of New York. Full of undirected rage, he decides to make the world a better place by rescuing a child prostitute from her pimp.

In this neo-noir psychological thriller, a man without the ability to form new memories becomes obsessed with finding the people who murdered his wife and left him with anterograde amnesia.

Based on Peter Shaffer’s Tony Award-winning play of the same name, this account of the life and successes of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — told through the eyes of his rival, Antonio Salieri — dominated the 1985 Oscars. “Amadeus” won eight Academy Awards, including those for Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Director.

James Cameron’s “Terminator 2” excels in many of the aspects that action movie fans appreciate most, such as visual effects and tense action sequences. It stands apart from the average action flick thanks to its refined characters and philosophically intelligent storyline. The movie is a haunting tale of post-apocalyptic possibilities and a perfect popcorn action movie rolled in one.

This “intense, inspiring, and well-acted” music-fueled drama (according to critics consensus on Rotten Tomatoes) tells the story of an ambitious young would-be jazz drummer and his taskmaster teacher. The film won three Oscars, including a Best Actor statue for J.K. Simmons.

This romantic drama follows two young train travelers who connect on a trip from Budapest to Vienna and decide to spend a single night together before each goes his or her separate way in the morning.

Arguably Roman Polanski’s greatest film, this stylish film-noir stars Jack Nicholson as a private detective who, while investigating a case of adultery, stumbles onto a murder plot that includes incest and government corruption. The cynical tone of “Chinatown” reflects the mood of post-Vietnam America.

James Cameron’s powerful follow-up to director Ridley Scott’s sci-fi horror film “Alien” was hailed as “the best monster movie of the year,” “state-of-the-art science fiction,” and “the rarest of sequels” — one that’s at least equal to the original. Sigourney Weaver is back as Lieutenant Ellen Ripley and once again must fend off some of the most vicious extraterrestrial beings ever imagined on film.

South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite” surprised many by winning Best Picture at the 2020 Academy Awards despite being among the lesser seen nominees. Reception of the film has been near universally positive, however, especially among critics. The film tells the story of a lower-class family that dupes a wealthier family into employing them with unexpected results.

Based on James Ellroy’s novel of the same name, “L.A. Confidential” follows three detectives trying to solve a murder in 1950s Los Angeles. They must navigate the confluence of corrupt police, organized crime, and the biggest celebrities of the era.

“Good Will Hunting” is about a janitor who’s secretly a genius, his life rapidly changing once his talents are discovered by a university professor. However, along the way he meets someone special and must decide what’s most important to him.

Steven Spielberg won the Oscar for Best Director (the film won four more, too) for this inspiring account of a group of GIs in WWII. The soldiers push into enemy territory to save a paratrooper whose three brothers have been killed in action. The critic consensus Rotten Tomatoes calls it an “unflinchingly realistic war film [that] virtually redefines the genre.”

The sprawling, visionary Vietnam War drama is based on Joseph Conrad’s book “Heart of Darkness” and shows how men descend into madness as the result of war. Though not fully embraced by audiences and critics when it was released in 1979, “Apocalypse Now” has gained more recognition.

The tagline for sci-fi horror film “Alien” states: “In space, no one can hear you scream.” Plenty of people could be heard screaming in theaters when the movie was released in 1979, however. Ridley Scott’s sci-fi horror classic overcame wary studio executives and numerous rewrites on its way to the big screen, where it found immediate commercial success. The story follows crew members of the spaceship Nostromo as they’re picked off by an alien creature.

Roman Polanski’s “The Pianist” is based on the autobiography of Polish composer, Wladyslaw Szpilman, during World War II. The film earned Polanski — currently a U.S. fugitive — an Academy Award for Best Director.

The murder scene in the shower in “Psycho” almost instantly became a cultural landmark and is among the most famous in movie history. Adding to the tension of this taut thriller that starred Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh was the music by Bernard Herrmann that projected impending doom. “Psycho” is Hitchcock at his suspenseful best.

One of the greatest thrillers ever made puts F.B.I. cadet Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) on the trail of a dangerous serial killer. Seeking help, she turns to a devious psychopath by the name of Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins). The film won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Based on Ken Kesey’s timeless novel, this blockbuster dramedy follows a rebellious soul (Jack Nicholson) into a mental institution. It won five Academy Awards and yielded a series spin-off called “Nurse Ratched.”

“Pulp Fiction,” Quentin Tarantino’s follow-up to “Reservoir Dogs,” is among the 1990s’ most definitive films. A wildly inventive mix of crime, film-noir, and comedy, the movie scored the Palme d’Or at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival. Its reputation has held up well over the past 25 years, with 96% of audiences giving the film a positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Real-life New York mobster Henry Hill is the subject of this biographical crime drama based on the book “Wiseguy” by Nicolas Pileggi. “Goodfellas” portrays the story of Hill’s rise through the ranks of the organized crime world and his descent into drug addiction and unsanctioned dealing.

The poster child of the Spaghetti Western, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” tells the story of a tenuous alliance of gunslingers, among them the iconically laconic Clint Eastwood, who are looking for Confederate gold. The film was directed by Sergio Leone, with an unforgettable movie score from Ennio Morricone.

Based on a Stephen King novella, this historical prison drama about two imprisoned men was trounced at the box office by the likes of “Pulp Fiction” and “Forrest Gump.” It was then re-released in theaters after receiving seven Oscar nominations, which helped recoup some of the loss.

Nevermind sequels, “The Godfather: Part II” is widely hailed as one of the greatest films of all time. The film chronicles Vito Coreleone’s (Robert De Niro) rise to power in the Mafia along with the struggle of his son (Al Pacino) to maintain power decades later. The film won six Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor for De Niro, and Best Director for Francis Ford Coppola.

This black-and-white drama tells the story of Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), a German industrialist who saved the lives of over 1,000 Jews during WWII. A passion project for Steven Spielberg, it won seven Academy Awards. The director redirected both his personal salary and some of the film’s profits to create the USC Shoah Foundation, which is dedicated to Holocaust survivors.

One of the greatest and most influential films ever made launched several high-profile careers and took home three Oscars. It was also a critical and commercial smash, reportedly sitting on top of the domestic box office for 23 weeks in a row. Behold the story of the Corleone crime family, whose power is threatened by a new foe.