what does it mean if a movie is rated x
X rating In the United States, the X rating was applied to a film that contained content judged unsuitable for children, such as extreme violence, strongly implied sex, and graphic language. When the MPAA film rating system began in America on November 1, 1968, the X rating was given to a film by the MPAA if submitted to it or, due to its non-trademarked status, it could be self-applied to a film by a distributor that knew beforehand that its film contained content unsuitable for minors. From the late 1960s to about the mid-1980s, many mainstream films were released with an X rating such as Midnight Cowboy, Last of the Mobile Hot Shots, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, A Clockwork Orange, Fritz the Cat, Last Tango in Paris and The Evil Dead. (Films that achieved critical and commercial success were later re-rated R after minor cuts, including Midnight Cowboy and A Clockwork Orange.) The threat of an X rating also encouraged filmmakers to re-edit their films to achieve an R rating; one notable example of this was the 1987 satirical action film RoboCop, which had to be edited eleven times before it could attain an R rating.[3]