It’s the end of summer and if you’re an adult, you may need a good movie to watch to chase away the seasonal blues. If you’re craving films with more depth than Deadpool & Wolverine, have no fear. We’ve compiled a list of some of the best R-rated movies that are streaming right now.
From new movies like Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer to classics like Alien, these excellent R-rated movies are available to stream on different platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, and Max. If you’re in the mood for drama, action, romance, sci-fi, or biopics, these are great picks for an enjoyable movie night among grown-ups.
Need more recommendations? We also have guides to the best new movies to stream this week, the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Hulu, the best movies on Amazon Prime Video, and the best movies on Max.
Abigail (2024)
Vampire movies are pretty routine these days, which is why Abigail is even more fun than usual. The narrative is straightforward, yet catchy, and the cast, which includes another great silly Dan Stevens performance, knows what movie they’re in and has fun with it.
A band of criminals plan to kidnap the 12-year-old ballerina daughter of an underworld kingpin to net a $50 million ransom. The only problem? Little Abigail is a vampire. Whoops! As the criminals try to survive the night in a secluded mansion with the little monster, they soon discover they got more than they bargained for. Will anyone survive the night?
Abigail is streaming on Peacock.
Love Lies Bleeding (2024)
What do you get when you mix a Coen Brothers-esque film noir with the forbidden romance of the 1996 thriller Bound and a bonkers ending straight out of David Lynch? You get something like Love Lies Bleeding, which takes these familiar elements and smashes them together to make something excitingly fresh.
Kristen Stewart plays sullen gym manager Lou, whose humdrum life is awakened by the arrival of beautiful drifter Jackie (Twisters actress Katy O’Brian). Their budding romance is complicated by Jackie’s dreams of becoming a bodybuilder in Las Vegas and by Lou’s extended family, who are involved in shady dealings that involve crime, bribes, and possibly murder. When someone gets killed, it’s up to Lou and Jackie to figure out how to evade getting caught, or worse, while still trying to preserve their relationship.
Love Lies Bleeding is streaming on Max.
Hit Man (2024)
The ascension of Glen Powell is complete. The journeyman actor, who has been trying to find the breakout role he deserves for years, shines in the new action comedy Hit Man, which is currently the most popular movie on Netflix right now. It helps that he co-wrote the screenplay with director Richard Linklater, and took an inspiration from a Texas Monthly article about a mild-mannered professor, Gary Johnson, who posed as different hit men to entrap potential customers who were looking to off someone they loathed.
Things go according to plan until Madison (Adria Arjona) walks into his life. She wants to get out of an abusive marriage and thinks offing her husband is her only option. Gary talks her out of it, but that doesn’t stop him from falling for her … or for violence to ensue. Hit Man emphasizes foreplay over gunplay, and it’s all the better for it. It’s a dizzyingly romantic movie, even if true love is found here by disposing a body or two.
Hit Man is streaming on Netflix.
X (2022)
The early July release of MaXXXine brings closure to one of the unlikeliest film trilogies of modern times. Director Ti West’s horror triptych with star Mia Goth got its start with 2022’s X, a seemingly run-of-the-mill Texas Chain Saw Massacre rip-off that was surprising in both its depth (growing old stinks!) and gore (never, ever look into a peephole in a dark barn).
X follows a ragtag group of young amateur pornographers who rent an old farmhouse to shoot their latest movie, The Farmer’s Daughters. Much to their surprise, they find the owner, Howard, still on the property. Maxine Minx (Goth), meanwhile, discovers a mysterious old lady (also Goth) lurking in the shadows. As night falls, the blood begins to spill, and not everyone will make it out alive. The plot is nothing new, but horror auteur West directs the hell out of it, and the cast, which also includes a then-unknown Jenna Ortega and a charismatic Brittany Snow as cheery porno actress Bobby-Lynne Parker, makes you care for these walking targets.
X is streaming on Netflix.
Anyone but You (2023)
Rom-coms aren’t usually racy enough to warrant an R rating, and maybe that’s why Anyone but You was a surprise hit in late 2023. The Will Gluck-directed movie, which is a very loose adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, stars Glen Powell (Top Gun: Maverick) and Sydney Sweeney (Madame Web) as Ben and Bea, who loathe each other because of a past botched one-night stand, and now must attend the same lavish wedding with their exes. They then decide to strike a deal to pose as a couple to try to win back their former lovers. Guess what happens in the process? Yes, they start to develop feelings for each other.
While Anyone but You isn’t all that original or surprising (especially if you know your Shakespeare), it’s still fun and genuinely funny. The film makes great use of its primary assets: the beautiful Australian setting, and the magnetic charisma of both its leading stars. When they share the screen together, Powell and Sweeney showcase palpable chemistry, and elevate a standard rom-com into a near-great one.
Anyone But You is streaming on Netflix.
Anatomy of a Fall (2023)
Did Sandra Voyter kill her husband? That’s the central question behind Anatomy of a Fall , a thriller that was nominated for Best Picture and won Best International Film and Best Original Screenplay at the 2024 Oscars. Directed by Justine Triet, the French film depicts the seemingly idyllic life of German expat Sandra (Sandra Hüller), her husband, Samuel (Samuel Theis), and their legally blind 11-year-old son, Daniel (Milo Machado-Graner), in their remote French Alps town.
Their perfect existence is shattered when Samuel is found dead below their chalet and the police suspect Sandra. As her tumultuous relationship with her husband is dissected in the courtroom, the audience is invited to be both judge and jury and determine if Sandra is truly guilty or as innocent as she claims.
Anatomy of a Fall is streaming on Hulu.
Oppenheimer (2023)
Already being called director Christopher Nolan’s best movie, Oppenheimer is an epic biographical thriller that dramatizes the life of the “father of the atomic bomb,” J. Robert Oppenheimer. Oscar winner Cillian Murphy stars as the theoretical physicist in the film, which chronicles his experiences in universities before being recruited to lead the Manhattan Project. It also depicts his downfall after World War II, with a 1954 security hearing condemning his part in the creation of nuclear weapons.
Oppenheimer quickly gained critical acclaim for its unique portrayal of the complicated historical figure’s story, with Murphy infusing his character with both brilliance and imperfections. Aside from the protagonist’s gory visions of his creation’s victims, Oppenheimer earned its R-rating for its straightforward portrayals of sex and nudity. A scene with Florence Pugh’s Jean Tatlock has even been censored using a CGI black dress in the Middle East and India, with the latter also censoring any scenes that show characters smoking.
Oppenheimer is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
All of Us Strangers (2023)
Loneliness is something not often depicted on-screen, and when it is, it’s often in a depressing context. That’s not necessarily true with All of Us Strangers, a 2023 drama that is both very sad and also incredibly uplifting. Andrew Haigh’s acclaimed film stars Andrew Scott (Ripley) as Adam, a single screenwriter living in a near-empty apartment building just outside of London. One night, he has a chance encounter with his mysterious neighbor, Harry (Gladiator 2‘s Paul Mescal), and starts a relationship that causes Adam to think about his long-dead parents (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell), who appear to him as if they are alive.
No, this isn’t a ghost story — not exactly. All of Us Strangers is a lot of things: a sensual love story, a moody rumination of childhood trauma, and a generational portrait that examines the inherent chasm between parents and their children. Ultimately, though, the movie is a stellar drama that contains a quartet of fine performances from Scott, Mescal, Foy, and Bell. It’s movie you won’t soon forget, and you won’t want to after watching that devastating climax.
All of Us Strangers is streaming on Hulu.
Alien (1979)
Director Ridley Scott’s sci-fi horror masterpiece Alien takes place in deep space aboard the commercial towing spaceship Nostromo. The ship’s crew, including warrant officer Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), encounters a deadly extraterrestrial organism on an alien vessel. Little do they know that after they retreat back to the Nostromo, the alien has already infiltrated their ship. As the creature begins hunting the crew, they must fight for survival against an unknown and terrifying enemy.
The 1979 classic would go on to spawn the beloved Alien franchise, with the first movie best remembered for its clever use of silence and its claustrophobic setting. Scott focuses on the build-up, with the film containing very few shots of the actual alien killing its victims. It’s those moments, of course, that gave Alien its R rating, as well as intense and frightening ones like the iconic chest-burster moment.
Alien is streaming on Hulu.
The Godfather (1972)
Director Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather is a legendary mob drama that’s often called the best crime movie ever made. Based on Mario Puzo’s eponymous 1969 novel, the sweeping epic chronicles the Corleone crime family’s rise to power in post-World War II America. The story specifically follows Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) and his reluctant son, Michael (Al Pacino), who is drawn into the world of organized crime after his father is nearly assassinated.
The first in the award-winning trilogy sees Michael experience brutality and betrayal as he learns more about the family business. Its R rating was unavoidable, as the glimpse into the inner workings of the mafia comes with shootings, murders, physical fights, and more kinds of gore and violence. Despite premiering over half a century ago, The Godfather has lost none of its impact and is still celebrated for the way it set a new standard for the gangster genre and cinema as a whole.
The Godfather is streaming on Paramount+.
