Films rated R are officially described as “Restricted – Children under 17 must be accompanied by a parent or adult guardian. Contains material for adults. Parents are encouraged to learn more about the film before taking their young children with them. These films are less likely to attract large audiences because a large portion of the film population is likely to avoid them.
But there are some R-rated films that certainly attract large audiences and earn hundreds of millions of dollars from ticket sales. The highest grossing R-rated film is “The Passion of Christ,” released in 2004. Its all-time domestic box office stands at $ 370.8 million on a production budget of $ 25 million. Directed by Mel Gibson, it stars Jim Caviezel, Monica Bellucci, Maia Morgenstern and Christo Jivkov. Maybe not the biggest grossing, but it’s the best R-rated movie ever made.
The current film rating system was put in place in 1968 and slightly changed two years later. The goal was similar to previous rating systems for the film industry. Some content was not suitable for films released to the general public. Other content was appropriate based on age and parenting decisions. The 1968 system was based on parental judgment more than any other factor. Far from being rated R, these are the best G rated movies ever made.
To determine the 50 R-rated movies with the biggest box office sales, 24/7 Tempo looked at 3,891 R-rated movies with all-time national box office data from The Numbers, a movie database. online owned by the consulting firm Nash Information Services. Production budgets also came from The Numbers. The primary cast and genre for each movie is taken from the Internet Movie Database, an online movie database owned by Amazon.
Dramas, action movies, and comedies are also represented among the top-grossing R-rated movies, along with a few sci-fi and romance movies. R-rated theater traffic is obviously growing. Of the 50 films on the list, only 12 date from the 20th century. The rest were released in 2000 or later. Here are the biggest box office hits of the 2000s.
Click here to see R-rated movies with the biggest box office
