Every NC-17 movie released since 1990 carries a little bit of Henry & June in its history. The MPAA initially gave Philip Kaufman’s film an X, a rating so associated with pornography by then that many theaters, newspapers, and advertisers effectively treated it as commercial poison. Universal refused to release the film that way, while critics, GLAAD, and 30 filmmakers pushed for a system that could distinguish adult dramatic material from explicit pornography. On September 27, 1990, the ratings board replaced X with NC-17. Eight days later, Henry & June became the first movie to open under the new designation.

Set in Paris in 1931, the story follows Anaïs Nin (Maria de Medeiros, Pulp Fiction), comfortably married to banker Hugo (Richard E. Grant, Saltburn) but increasingly restless with the boundaries of her life. Then she meets struggling American writer Henry Miller (Fred Ward, Tremors), whose appetite for life, sex, and language pulls her in. Things grow even more complicated when Henry’s magnetic wife, June (Uma Thurman, Jennifer 8), arrives from New York and becomes another object of Anaïs’s fascination.

Kaufman, who had already made The Right Stuff and The Unbearable Lightness of Being, wrote the screenplay with his wife, Rose, drawing from Nin’s uncensored diaries. Those writings remained unpublished until Henry, June, and Hugo had all died, finally appearing in 1986 and giving Kaufman access to material Nin herself had kept private for decades. Ward replaced Alec Baldwin as Miller, and the production shot for roughly 15 weeks in Paris with a largely French crew. Philippe Rousselot’s cinematography earned the film its only Academy Award nomination.

de Medeiros is the reason you’ll want to stay with it. Her Nin is curious, observant, and bolder than she initially appears, allowing you to understand why these people and experiences feel like an invitation into a different world. Ward gives Miller a rough physicality, and Thurman makes June more deliberately elusive. The imbalance between the three performances can be frustrating, but de Medeiros keeps Anaïs from becoming a passive observer in her own story.

The bigger challenge is Kaufman’s pace. At 136 minutes, Henry & June luxuriates in smoky rooms, bodies, books, cafés, conversations, and beautiful Parisian interiors until appreciation can start tipping toward impatience. The movie is sensual without being particularly urgent, and its reputation for sexual daring can make the actual experience feel unexpectedly restrained. The love scenes take risks the rest of the film rarely matches. The rating made it famous. de Medeiros is what makes it worth revisiting.

That history can overshadow the movie itself, but it also turns Henry & June into a fascinating marker of what Hollywood once imagined the new NC-17 could represent: serious adult filmmaking freed from the stigma of the X. The rating survived.