10 Great R-Rated Movies Based on True Stories

The fascination audiences have for films based on true stories is so important that writers and directors have made controversial decisions to categorize some movies as based on fact when they’re actually not. The public’s love of recreation and reenactments, truthful or not, has always been a strong selling point, proving films are maybe the most important modern medium for telling stories. This belief seems prominent among scholars and critics, with movies based on true stories often winning the top prizes during award season.

While some of these adaptations feel like watered-down versions of the truth, others are as raw as they come. In the end, a good adaptation is one that’ll transport you to a specific moment in time through a well-written script and a proper balance of theatrics and realism. The following films are good examples of occasions in which the facts are depicted without shedding away the ugly side of the events that transpired. These are the best R-rated films based on true stories.

10 Argo (2012)

Rated R for Language and Some Violent Images

Ben Affleck’s 2012 drama thriller Argo tells the story of Tony Mendez, the CIA operative who led an operation that saved American diplomats during a hostage crisis in Tehran, Iran, in 1979. Based on Mendez’s memoirs, the film narrates how Mendez used a fake movie production in order to infiltrate himself into Iran and safely extract the team from the hostile country that was still under the control of Iranian revolutionaries.

The winner of several awards in the award season, including Best Picture at the Academy Awards, Argo was a fascinating blend of comedy and drama that depicted the balls-to-the-wall vision of a clever CIA agent.

The film isn’t as violent as one would think, but the images of the hostages being held are truly disturbing, and they’re perhaps the reason why the film got an R rating in the first place. It isn’t a war movie per se, but it complies with the rules of a genre that almost always gets an R rating.

9 The Iron Claw (2023)

Rated R for Language, Suicide, Some Sexuality, and Drug Use

The Iron Claw follows the lives of the Von Erich clan, a family of wrestlers in the early 1980s whose potential drove them to be prominent figures in the world of heavyweight wrestling until tragedy struck. Told from the perspective of Kevin Von Erich, the film shows the family’s descent into what could only be qualified as a curse, for the descendants of Fritz Von Erich met death early on in their lives.

Sean Durkin’s 2023 biographical drama could already be one of the best sports films ever made. The performances were great, and while the film wasn’t a blockbuster, the reception by critics was excellent (89% on Rotten Tomatoes).

The R rating was probably due to the film’s open depiction of drug use and the suicide theme that’s inherent to the true story of the Von Erich family. Yes, it’s very tragic because it’s what actually happened in real life to wrestling’s most important family of athletes.

You can stream The Iron Claw on Max.

8 Zodiac (2007)

Rated R for Some Strong Killings, Language, Drug Material, and Brief Sexual Images

In Zodiac, the city of San Francisco is going through a series of horrific killings. Serial killers didn’t exist back in the late 1960s, so law enforcement agencies failed to get the clues of what would ultimately become a killing spree. When the killer, identifying as the Zodiac Killer, starts sending letters to newspapers, a cartoonist and a crime reporter do their best to add their wit to the manhunt for a killer who was never caught.

The 2007 film by David Fincher is one of his most underrated features. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr. and Mark Ruffalo, Zodiac did fairly well at the box office, and the reception by the audience and critics was also quite positive. It is truly one of the best serial killer movies ever made, but it isn’t exactly an ultra-violent film.

However, its R rating was probably due to its pivotal sequence where the Zodiac Killer attacks the couple while they are having a picnic. It is, by far, one of the most unnerving sequences ever put on film.

7 Schindler’s List (1993)

Rated R for Language, Some Sexuality, and Actuality Violence

Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List takes viewers on a daunting journey through the Nazi holocaust, where the Third Reich submitted an entire community to the terrifying conditions of slavery and concentration camps. However, a member of the Nazi party decided he would do something against his party’s wishes. Oskar Schindler, an industrialist, would end up hiring thousands of Jews to work in his factories, saving them from being killed by Nazi officers running the camps.

According to Spielberg himself, it’s his best film. We won’t argue against one of the most important filmmakers in cinema history. Schindler’s List won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.

While it seems necessary for a film of this nature to be entirely realistic, Spielberg decided he wouldn’t pull any punches, and Schindler’s List, as good as it is, is one of the films you will probably watch once and have a hard time watching again. Its R rating is surely a compendium of all those jarring images we all still have embedded in our minds.

You can rent or buy Schindler’s List on Prime Video.

6 Society of the Snow (2023)

Rated R for Violent/Disturbing Material and Brief Graphic Nudity

Society of the Snow tells the true story of the survival of a rugby team when the plane transporting from Uruguay to Chile crashed in the middle of the Andes mountains. The story of the Miracle of the Andes started when the young rugby players survived a plane crash, but the film also depicts what they had to do in order to survive for 72 days until two of them walked into a rural town in Chile.

The film by J.A. Bayona is a realistic and gut-wrenching reenactment of the unbelievable story of the young men whose will remained unbroken for 72 days in one of the most hostile environments on Earth. Critically acclaimed, the film was nominated for two Academy Awards.

The MPAA rating is probably because of the graphic nature of the true story: their only source of nourishment was the dead bodies of their friends, and they decided to live. The last scene, in which audiences see the condition of the survivors and what their bodies looked like upon rescuing, is very, very hard to watch.

5 I, Tonya (2017)

Rated R for Pervasive Language, Violence, and Some Sexual Content/Nudity

I, Tonya follows the story of American figure skater Tonya Harding, the competitor who felt she had to do something against her rival leading up to the 1994 Winter Olympics.

Harding, a fierce skater with a not-so-fancy background, teams up with her husband, Jeff, and their friend, Shawn, to attack Nancy Kerrigan and disable her. The problem is that the attack isn’t very subtle at all, and Tonya is soon discovered to have planned the whole thing, sending her on a spiral from which she never recovered.

Craig Gillespie’s biographical sports drama is told in a mashup of drama and mockumentary where each character shares their own version of the facts. The unreliable narrator technique makes it a fun and entertaining drama that consolidated Margot Robbie as an exceptional performer.

The film was nominated for three Academy Awards, and it actually won one (Allison Janney for Best Supporting Actress). The R rating by the MPAA is probably due to the film’s depiction of abuse and the raw violence in the Harding household.

4 127 Hours (2010)

Rated R for Language, and Some Disturbing Violent Content/Bloody Images

127 Hours follows the story of a canyoning adventurer called Aron Ralston, who had the idea of going hiking without telling anyone in April 2003. Ralston meets some fellow mountaineers, but he ultimately ends up alone.

The problem is that, while hanging from a huge boulder, the rock comes loose, and Ralston falls with it. He doesn’t exactly get trapped, but his right arm does. Unable to communicate, Ralston begins calling for help, but soon after, he realizes he will have to think of extreme measures if he wants to live.

The survival drama starring James Franco as Ralston is an uplifting film right up until the inevitable comes. Its very last sequence is probably the reason the MPAA decided to give it an R rating, and a much-deserved one, for that matter. Director Danny Boyle doesn’t spare any expense when being graphic about Ralston’s self-mutilation. The film was critically acclaimed, and it got six nominations at the Academy Awards. But guess what scene wasn’t shown in the clips at the Oscars?

3 12 Years a Slave (2013)

Rated R for Violence/Cruelty, Some Nudity, and Brief Sexuality

In 12 Years a Slave, Solomon Northup is an African-American living in freedom in New York City in the mid-1800s. When he gets offered a job as a musician, he accepts and unknowingly falls into a network of slavery traders in the South. Northup gets sold and sent to a plantation where he will have to find a way to survive the horrendous conditions of slavery in the South of the country and come in contact with those who know who he is.

Steve McQueen’s biographical drama is a gripping film that doesn’t filter out any of the facts about slavery in the most shameful era of the country. The film starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano, Michael Fassbender, Paul Giamatti, and Lupita Nyong’o, was a blockbuster beloved by audiences and critics in 2013.

Nominated for nine Academy Awards, the film won in three categories, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress (Nyong’o). Its R rating is because of its raw depictions of violence against prisoners. This one is also very hard to watch.

2 Oppenheimer (2023)

Rated R for Some Sexuality, Nudity, and Language

Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who was responsible for creating nuclear weaponry for the Americans during World War II. The film narrates the scientist’s development of the technology to create a bomb that could destroy the world, but it also sheds light on his eventual fall from grace when government authorities accused him of having ties to the communist party.

The 2023 epic drama represented Nolan’s acceptance to the Hollywood pantheon, as the film won all sorts of awards, including Best Picture and Best Director at the Academy Awards (it won seven of its 13 nominations). Widely considered to be Nolan’s masterpiece, the reception at the box office was extremely positive, with the film making almost $1 billion.

Its R rating is due to its scarce nudity, yet it doesn’t seem like enough to warrant that kind of rating. This is probably more associated with the adult themes portrayed in the film.

1 Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

Rated R for Violence, Some Grisly Images, and Language

In Killers of the Flower Moon, the indigenous communities in Osage Nation are suffering a streak of suspicious deaths. The land has become valuable because oil has been found, and no one suspects this may be the work of William King Hale, a greedy deputy sheriff and benefactor to the land owned by the Osage.

When Ernest Burkhart comes back from the war and falls in love with Mollie, an Osage woman, the role of King becomes all too clear as Ernest, mentored by King, begins to do some dirty work.

Martin Scorsese’s fascinating biographical drama was met with critical acclaim upon release. While it failed to snatch any Academy Awards of its ten nominations, critics were enamored with Scorsese’s Western crime drama that featured a golden cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, Robert De Niro, Jesse Plemons, John Lithgow, and Brendan Fraser, among others. The MPAA rating was due to the film’s most violent scenes. Then again, Scorsese’s films almost always get an R rating.