5. Brick (2005)
A contentious choice perhaps, but despite its storyline involving drug use and murder, Rian Johnson's masterful
Brick was decidedly restrained with how it depicted both, using clever and artful implication rather than literally displaying rampant drug use and violent death. While thematically quite dark, is that enough to obtain an R-rating? Many Hollywood blockbusters deal with these ideas in a far more blasé, unfussed way that fails to address the consequences, yet they receive PG-13 ratings which would allow younger kids to watch them unaccompanied. Brick deals with drugs and their dangers in a more realistic manner, free of exploitation still, and gets the higher rating quite undeservedly. The brief action scenes are dealt with in a pulpy, largely blood-free manner, and even the climax itself is quite dialled-down, not closing out in the hail of gunshots and mountains of coke that countless PG-13 rated actioners have done. Language, in adhering to Johnson's old-school, film noir style, is completely free of profanity, while sexuality is only implied very briefly. Given how David Fincher's
The Social Network showed Sean Parker's drug use in a much more overt way, yet earned a PG-13, it seems pretty absurd that this got an R.