R-Rated Movies You Never Knew Disney Made
Disney’s reputation is notoriously squeaky clean.
The beloved company has provided family-friendly fun for decades, with live-action favorites and animated classics spanning back to the 1930s.
As a powerful force in the industry and one of Hollywood’s biggest studios, the company expanded its reach over the years with film distribution companies, like Touchstone Pictures, Miramax, Searchlight Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution.
The movies often featured more adult themes than one would expect from the company. Because they are published by subsidiaries, the titles are all only indirectly Disney-related – but they still fall under the major studio’s umbrella anyway.
Find out which R-rated movies reside within the Disney brand…
The Woman in the Window (2021)
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Starring: Amy Adams, Gary Oldman, Anthony Mackie
Plot summary: An agoraphobic woman begins to spy on her new neighbors, and is witness to a crime in their apartment.
Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986)
Touchstone Pictures
Starring: Nick Nolte, Bette Midler, Richard Dreyfuss
Plot summary: A rich but dysfunctional family saves the life of a suicidal homeless man.
The film is also the first R-rated film ever released by Disney, and got the rating due to profanity and a brief scene of a maid in bed having sex.
Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)
Touchstone Pictures
Starring: Robin Williams, Forest Whitaker, Tom. T. Tran
Plot summary: in 1965, an unorthodox and irreverent DJ named Adrian Cronauer begins to shake up things when he is assigned to the U.S. Armed Services radio station in Vietnam.
The Joy Luck Club (1993)
Hollywood Pictures
Starring: Tamlyn Tomita, Rosalind Chao, Kieu Chinh
Plot summary: The film follows the relationships between Chinese-American women and their Chinese mothers, based on the 1989 novel of the same name by Amy Tan.
Pretty Woman (1990)
Touchstone Pictures
Starring: Richard Gere, Julia Roberts, Jason Alexander
Plot summary: A man in a legal but hurtful business needs an escort for some social events, and hires a beautiful prostitute he meets… only to fall in love.
Ready or Not (2019)
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Starring: Samara Weaving, Adam Brody, Mark O’Brien
Plot summary: a newlywed is hunted by her spouse’s family as part of a wedding night ritual.
Stay Alive (2006)
Hollywood Pictures
Starring: Jon Foster, Samaire Armstrong, Frankie Muniz
Plot summary: for a group of teens, the answer to the mysterious death of their old friend lies within the world of an online video game based on the true story of an ancient noblewoman known as the Blood Countess.
The movie gained the distinction of being Disney’s only slasher film, without counting any from Dimension Films before 2005 or anything inherited from future acquisitions.
The Night House (2020)
Searchlight Pictures
Starring: Rebecca Hall, Sarah Goldberg, Vondie Curtis-Hall
Plot summary: A widow begins to uncover her recently deceased husband’s disturbing secrets.
The Rock (1996)
Hollywood Pictures
Starring: Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage, Ed Harris
Plot summary: A mild-mannered chemist and an ex-con must lead the counterstrike when a rogue group of military men, led by a renegade general, threaten a nerve gas attack from Alcatraz against San Francisco.
Armageddon (1998)
Touchstone Pictures
Starring: Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Ben Affleck
Plot summary: After discovering that an asteroid the size of Texas is going to impact Earth in less than a month, NASA recruits a misfit team of deep-core drillers to save the planet.
Enemy of the State (1998)
Touchstone Pictures
Starring: Will Smith, Gene Hackman, Jon Voight
Plot summary: A lawyer becomes targeted by a corrupt politician and his N.S.A. goons when he accidentally receives key evidence to a politically motivated crime.
G. I. Jane (1997)
Hollywood Pictures
Starring: Demi Moore, Viggo Mortensen, Anne Bancroft
Plot summary: A female Senator succeeds in enrolling a woman into Combined Reconnaissance Team training where everyone expects her to fail.
Tombstone (1993)
Hollywood Pictures
Starring: Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, Sam Elliott
Plot summary: A successful lawman’s plans to retire anonymously in Tombstone, Arizona are disrupted by the kind of outlaws he was famous for eliminating.
Alive (1993)
Touchstone Pictures
Starring:Ethan Hawke, Vincent Spano. Josh Hamilton
Plot summary: A Uruguayan rugby team stranded in the snow swept Andes are forced to use desperate measures to survive after a plane crash.
25th Hour (2002)
Touchstone Pictures
Starring: Edward Norton, Barry Pepper, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Plot summary: cornered by the DEA, convicted New York drug dealer Montgomery Brogan reevaluates his life in the 24 remaining hours before facing a seven-year jail term.
Lucy in the Sky (2019)
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Starring: Natalie Portman, Jon Hamm, Zazie Beetz
Plot summary: Astronaut Lucy Cola returns to Earth after a transcendent experience during a mission to space, and begins to lose touch with reality in a world that now seems too small.
Consenting Adults (1992)
Hollywood Pictures
Starring: Kevin Kline, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Kevin Spacey
Plot summary: During a joint dinner at the restaurant, the neighbors offer to exchange wives for one night. It was a joke, but only at first.
One Good Cop (1991)
Hollywood Pictures
Starring: Michael Keaton, Rene Russo, Anthony LaPaglia
Plot summary: An NYPD Detective and his struggle for justice, while taking care of his late partner’s three little girls after he is killed in the line of duty.
Nixon (1995)
Hollywood Pictures
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Joan Allen, Powers Boothe
Plot summary: A biographical story of former U.S. President Richard Nixon, from his days as a young boy, to his eventual Presidency, which ended in shame.
Dead Presidents (1995)
Buena Vista Pictures
Starring: Larenz Tate, Keith David, Chris Tucker
Plot summary: A Vietnam vet adjusts to life after the war while trying to support his family, but the chance of a better life may involve crime and bloodshed.
Last Dance (1996)
Touchstone Pictures
Starring: Sharon Stone, Rob Morrow, Randy Quaid
Plot summary: A lawyer assigned to the clemency case of a woman on death row finds himself forming a deep friendship with her while he tries to prevent her impending execution.
A Low Down Dirty Shame (1994)
Hollywood Pictures
Starring: Keenen Ivory Wayans, Charles S. Dutton, Jada Pinkett Smith
Plot summary: An ex-cop, now a private detective, takes on the search for the millions stolen by a drug lord.
Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion (1997)
Touchstone Pictures
Starring: Mira Sorvino, Lisa Kudrow, Janeane Garofalo
Plot summary: Two dim-witted, inseparable friends hit the road for their ten-year high school reunion and concoct an elaborate lie about their lives in order to impress their classmates.
Starship Troopers (1997)
Touchstone Pictures
Starring: Casper Van Dien, Denise Richards, Dina Meyer
Plot summary: Humans in a fascist, militaristic future wage war with giant alien bugs.
V.I. Warshawski (1991)
Hollywood Pictures
Starring: Kathleen Turner, Jay O. Sanders, Charles Durning
Plot summary: A female PI babysitting for a boyfriend gets stuck with his daughter and the case of her murdered father.
The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992)
Hollywood Pictures
Starring: Annabella Sciorra, Rebecca De Mornay, Matt McCoy
Plot summary: After her humiliated husband kills himself, an embittered pregnant widow loses her child, and embarks on a mission of vengeance against a woman and her family.
The King’s Man (2021)
20th Century Studios
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Harris Dickinson, Gemma Arterton
Plot summary: In the early years of the 20th century, the Kingsman agency is formed to stand against a cabal plotting a war to wipe out millions.
Antlers (2021)
Searchlight Pictures
Starring: Keri Russell, Jesse Plemons, Jeremy T. Thomas
Plot summary: In an isolated Oregon town, a middle-school teacher and her sheriff brother become embroiled with her enigmatic student, whose dark secrets lead to terrifying encounters with a legendary ancestral creature who came before them.
The French Dispatch (2020)
Searchlight Pictures
Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Elisabeth Moss, Owen Wilson
Plot summary: A love letter to journalists set in an outpost of an American newspaper in a fictional twentieth century French city that brings to life a collection of stories published in “The French Dispatch Magazine.”
Find out how critics rank Disney live-action films, from best to worst!