The MPAA’s landmark rating produced a patchwork of international responses that underscored the global awkwardness of classifying erotic art on film. While the film received a more lenient M classification in Australia and an uncut 18 certificate in the United Kingdom, it was outright banned in South Africa (a ban that was later lifted). New Zealand initially gave the film an R18 rating before lowering it to an M rating only decades later, in late 2023. Critics and commentators at the time — with Entertainment Weekly summing up the moment as a “ratings brouhaha” — noted the irony that a film championed for its artistic aspirations would be defined, and in many markets constrained, by a single institutional stamp; the movie’s modest domestic gross of $11,567,449 and mixed critical reception only amplified the conversation about how ratings can shape a film’s life long after production wraps.
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AI concept artworkArchive Record · 1990s
International Pushback and the Long Tail of an NC-17 Stigma
Henry & June (1990) / 1990s
The MPAA’s landmark rating produced a patchwork of international responses that underscored the global awkwardness of classifying erotic art on film. While the film received a more lenient M classification in Australia and an uncut 18 certificate in the United Kingdom, it was outright banned in South Africa (a ban that was later lifted). New Zealand initially gave the film an R18 rating before lowering it to an M rating only decades later, in late 2023. Critics and commentators at the time — with Entertainment Weekly summing up the moment as a “ratings brouhaha” — noted the irony that a film championed for its artistic aspirations would be defined, and in many markets constrained, by a single institutional stamp; the movie’s modest domestic gross of $11,567,449 and mixed critical reception only amplified the conversation about how ratings can shape a film’s life long after production wraps.
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