NC-17 (No One 17 and Under Admitted)

How to read it

NC-17 is the most restrictive of the five ratings the MPA’s Classification and Rating Administration gives films. The rules describe an NC-17 film as one “most parents would consider patently too adult for their children 17 and under. No children will be admitted.” The rating can be based on violence, sex, aberrational behavior, drug abuse or any other element most parents would consider too strong for their children. The rules also say what it does not mean: NC-17 “does not mean ‘obscene’ or ‘pornographic’ in the common or legal meaning of those words, and should not be construed as a negative judgment in any sense.” Where R admits under-17s with a parent, the MPA says NC-17 admits no children even with an adult.

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It replaced X in 1990

NC-17 took the place of the X rating in 1990. The MPA’s own history says the change came after the pornography industry took up X to brand its products. The Federal Trade Commission’s history adds that critics had called an X “a kiss of death” for a film’s takings. NC-17 first meant “No Children Under 17 Admitted”; in 1996 the MPA changed it to “no one 17 and under admitted”, which in effect raised the age of admission from 17 to 18.

Few films carry it

By the FTC’s count in 2000, only 65 films were listed as rated NC-17, ten of them films that had been rated X before the change, and the FTC found that NC-17 seemed to have inherited some of the X’s stigma. It quoted the Los Angeles Times in 1999: films with the rating were barred from advertising in many media outlets and from screening in many theaters.

Trailers

The MPA’s 2018 history says trailers for NC-17 films may be shown only before R-rated and NC-17-rated films.

NC-17 and AO

Video games have their own adults-only rating, the ESRB’s Adults Only 18+, for content suitable only for adults 18 and up.