My 2025 March R-Rated Movies Ranked

Here's what I saw, what about you?

Apr 24, 2025

Here’s my latest monthly update on the R-rated movies I watched this year. I’m glad to share about my experience with you here and I’m curious: what did you watch and what did you think? Add your own watchlists in the comments.

2025 Total Movie Stats

2025 March Movie Stats

January Goal Met: Watch (at least) one movie per day.
February Goal Met: Watch all 10 Best Picture nominees.
March Goal Met: Watch the final 12 Oscar nominated 2025 films I hadn’t seen yet.
April Goal Made: Watch at least 1 movie per week in a busy travel month.

Commentary: March saw a mix of movies at home and movies in the theater, and at a much more normal pace of life for me. My goal for the month was to see the last 12 movies nominated for an Oscar for one or more of the 23 Academy Award categories. I did end up seeing them all, so goal met! Even if I didn’t love all of them (The Apprentice) and ended up surprised by others (Better Man).

My April goal is to see 1 movie a week. Not a very lofty goal, I know, but this month is pretty busy with travel and other projects, plus my spouse and I are watching Severance together and yes, I am 100% excited for the final episodes of Matlock! With a busier month and a few series to enjoy, I’ll be seeing fewer movies this month, so hopefully I can still do at least one a month.

And with that, let’s get to the rakings! Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

March 2025 R-Rated Movies Ranked in the order I saw them:

Strange Darling (2024) 4.5 out of 5 Bags of Ketomine

Oh, no. You may recall that Strange Darling was my favorite movie of 2024, a true 5-star experience that I truly loved. My Amazing Wife and I watched this together and when it was over, well, she was not as impressed as I was. And since I think she has good taste and I love her and I love this movie I don’t know what to think! I’ve decided to stay married and rate this third viewing down a half star. This is the way.

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (2024) 5 out of 5 World Jazz Ambassadors

FIRST WATCH | Wow, did I love this. A complex story told over an engrossing nearly 3-hour timespan, this deep dive into how the US played with assassination games in other nations gripped me the entire way through. I watched this on a flight, so I had the flurry of quotes and text right in front of me, thankfully. Clever editing, engaging contextual quotations, and a treasure trove of archive footage made for a great story.

Sing Sing (2024) 4 out of 5 Reformed Prisoners as Themselves

FIRST WATCH | This was my final Best Picture nominee to watch and it didn’t disappoint. If you haven’t heard by now, many of the prisoners in the theater production at the heart of this film were played by people who were once prisoners involved in these very theater productions! Their raw authenticity gave so much weight to this one. It didn’t replace my pick for Best Picture (Dune Part II) but it was definitely up there and I’m glad I finally saw it.

Threesome (1994) 2 out of 5 90s Cash Grabs

FIRST WATCH | Somehow I missed this in the 90s. Then again, I didn’t miss much. It’s not great and not only does it not hold up to a modern 2025 view of sexuality, identity, and relationship dynamics, it was ham-fisted for its time, too. The 90s were a clunky stepping stone for media to depict topics addressed here like LGBTQIA+ identity, discovering yourself, and non-vanilla sex, but this movie does not earn anything with its half-hearted attempts. Maybe I’m missing something, but I wasn’t impressed.

Better Man (2024) 3.5 out of 5 Better Than You Think, Mans

FIRST WATCH | This is likely the movie you heard about being “so bad” from a bunch of Internet Experts who never actually saw it. I won’t say it was amazing, and it didn’t make me a Robbie Williams superfan. But it was much more compelling than I thought it would be. And look, if you’re never going to watch it, okay, but at least watch this clip of the song “Rock DJ,” a catchy clap-and-stomp sing-a-long all done in one take. Too much CGI in it to make it work for you? Oh, boo-hoo! This song rocks!

The Girl with the Needle (2024) 4.5 out of 5 Sinking Realizations

FIRST WATCH | My pick for Best International Film remains the category’s winner, I’m Still Here. But I will gladly move this up to my close runner-up. A haunting tale of a young woman in poverty put in a position to give up her baby, we follow her new life as an assistant to a makeshift midwife. This tale of trust and betrayal is haunting, harrowing, and several other haunting, harrowing H-words (how about “heart-wrenching,” while I’m at it?!). If you haven’t already taken advantage of Mubi’s 3 Months for $1 deal to watch The Substance, then do it to watch this.

Porcelain War (2024) 4 out of 5 Hopeful Sparks

FIRST WATCH | This documentary about the illegal war in Ukraine perpetuated by the fascist Russian regime (If this puts me on Putin’s radar, the very least he can do is become a paid subscriber before he sues me) is worth watching, if you can find it. Like No Other Land, this doc about a complex conflict can be hard to come by. If you want a clear window into the fog of war, this is it. You may not want that clear window, but it is important.

Novocaine (2025) 3.5 out of 5 Stabby McStabStabs

FIRST WATCH | We saw this in the theater as a family after seeing a trailer for it in front of about 10,000 movies. We all enjoyed it at various levels. I was surprised it wasn’t funnier, with a few serious outcomes that I didn’t see coming including a relentless boss fight that took up a surprisingly long amount of the short running time. Pretty good, and I’m glad we have two pretty good to good Jack Quaid movies in theaters this year already. Looks like he has a third coming out this year, Neighborhood Watch. Trying to Chalamet us this year, Jack? Dude Duned and Dylaned us in 2024. 2025 is the Year of the Quaid!

It’s fun to recommend what we enjoy. Please share this with someone who would enjoy it.

Predators (2010) 3 out of 5 He Should Go By “Larry” Again Fishburnes

I saw this a long time ago just once and I thought this held up. It’s one of the better Predator movies, though most of them don’t impress me. I liked the variety of characters and the setting, but it didn’t move the needle into great territory like the original or the latest, Prey. Yeah, you know what? Just go watch Prey instead.

The Predator (2018) 2 out of 5 Multiple Plotholes

FIRST WATCH | Eh. Just… eh. Like I said, just go watch Prey. Or the upcoming Predator: Killer of Killers cartoon show. Something tells me a lot of people have never seen a cartoon quite like this:

The Apprentice (2024) 3 out of 5 Smarm Factors

FIRST WATCH | I had no desire to watch this but my goal was to watch all of the movies nominated for an Oscar. I’ll say that Sebastian Stan does a great job. The vintage vibe was spot-on. As for the subject matter… Eh. Again, Prey is great!

A Different Man (2024) 4 out of 5 Tragic Downfalls

FIRST WATCH | The ambulance parked next to the ice cream trunk may have invoked the most morbid, chortling laughter I’ve had all year. Sorry, not sorry. Chalamet wasn’t the only one who Chalameted us last year with Dune and Dylan. Sebastian Stan had two excellent acting performances in 2024. Those performances include a desperate, washed-up wanna-be actor who gets in over his narcissistic head, alienates himself from everything good in his life, and attacks people for his own selfish ego. Also, he was in this movie.

Malcolm X (1992) 4 out of 5 Bamboozleds

I picked this up on 4K UHD as part of the most-recent Criterion 50% sale at Barnes and Noble and the presentation did not disappoint. Tons of solid extras and wow, it looks great. Yeah, 1990s film, so it’s not going to look slick like today’s digitally shot studio films, but still a sharp lookin’ disc. Malcolm X is all Denzel Washington in a tour de force. 1992 was a tough category for Actor (Al Pacino won for Scent of a Woman), but Spike wasn’t even nominated for Director (Clint Eastwood won for Unforgiven) and it wasn’t up for Best Picture (again, Unforgiven). I’m not saying that if nominees were changed we’d see different wins, but those are quite the snubs for this excellent film.

Bad Words (2013) 3 out of 5 F-Bomb Supremes

This is one of those guilty pleasure movies. Jason Bateman plays Jason Bateman as he directs Jason Bateman. True story — he’s directed a lot of TV even as a teen but this was his feature film directorial debut. It kicks that line between tasteful and crass with glee and right in the teeth, but I think it’s fun. If you’ve only known Kathryn Hahn from WandaVision and Agatha All Along, or even just the very funny Bad Moms movies, she adds a lot of charm to this one.

Your turn!

What did you watch in March? Agree with my ratings? Any reviews to share?

Disclosure: Some links here are affiliate links, which means at no cost to you, I earn affiliate commission if you tap or click the link and finalize a qualifying purchase.

Glad you were here today. God’s peace and good movies to you!

R-Rated Movie Club

Discussion about this post