John Galt

First movie was Tombstone with my dad when I was 12/13.

First attempt to go without a parent was Bad Boys when I was 14/15. My mom bought the tickets for me and my friend (with his parents permission) and then let us go inside. She went home and was going to come pick us up two hours later. About five minutes into the movie, a theater employee came in and asked us where our parents were. So we get refunded and kicked out. I doubt there were any other movies we wanted to see that started at the same time or we would have just stayed there. Without cell phones at the time, we had no way to call our parents so we just walked to the neighboring shopping center and went to the batting cages for a couple hours. Then walked back over to the theater when we were supposed to meet my mom.

Mike86

I didn’t see them in theaters for a long time. Went to Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines with my grandpa. It was the summer before I turned seventeen and was able to go to R rated movies myself. I think it was also a couple of days before I started my first part-time job.

The same year in October after I turned seventeen I went to the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with one of my friends. That was my first R rated film without an adult present.

bunkaroo

History of the World Part 1 - I was 7.

leacha

I was 7.

JayTL

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday
I was 4 or 5

d2cheer

Halloween when I was in 6th grade. Scared the fuck out of me. I wasn't normal for days still might not be...

wishbone

It may have been Die Hard (1988) when I was seventeen. We had cable since the early '80s so several R-rated films viewed at home.

Nick Danger

The Man Who Fell To Earth was the first R-rated movie I saw in first release in the theater. As we drove home, my father remarked that the movie had the right amount of bare breasts for an R-rated movie.

Ginwen

Probably Woodstock, at a drive-in, when I was 7.

Shannon Nutt

The Amityville Horror (1979) when I was 9. I was spending the summer with my aunt and uncle (my parents never took me to R movies). I spend most of the film cowering under the seat, but I did emerge to see Margot Kidder take her top off.

Mondo Kane

Did he have anything to add about the multiple penises in it too?

dom56

The French Connection

I was I think 15 but went with my older brother and his friend. Great movie, my only complaint was just one tits shot.

rw2516

Hey, it scared the fuck out of everybody. Word gets around. Came out at Halloween and still playing to full houses in Feb.

tommyp007

I "think" it was Tarzan the Ape man at a drive in with my folks around 1981

cultshock

Man, some of you folks' first R-rated movies make me feel old! Face/Off? Jackass the Movie? Damn!

The first for me was Creepshow. Now in Ontario, an R rating was almost the equivalent of NC-17 (or X back in the day), meaning no one under 18 allowed at all. When Creepshow came out, I was 14 going on 15. My dad and I were big George Romero fans, and I was also a huge Stephen King and EC Comics fan, so I desperately wanted to see this, and my dad wanted to take me, but it was rated R in Canada. We went to the local mall theater, and my dad was trying to convince the guy at the ticket booth to let me in, saying "Look I'm his father, he's almost 15 and I completely give my permission to let him see this". The guy was like "Sorry, rules are rules, no one under 18 allowed". We finally gave up, started to walk away, the employee talked to his manager and came running to us "Well, I guess we can make this one exception." So we happily walked into the theater and.. it was almost empty. I guess the manager thought bending the rules was better than making almost no money on the screening. After the film, which we both loved, we looked at each other and said "Why was this R-rated??"

I remember my mom taking my younger sister and me to see National Lampoon's Vacation about a year later (same mall theater), but I guess that wasn't rated R in Canada, around that time we had a new rating, 14A (adult accompaniment under 14) which was long overdue, because there was a huge gap between PG and an Ontario R that needed to be finally addressed.

Michael Corvin

Snuck into this one, and turns out they were checking IDs in the theater. My buddy and I got lucky though. He started scoping out the theater as the ushers were checking ages and saw an older guy he new that vouched for us(said we were with him) before the ushers could ask us for ID.

JeffTheAlpaca

I had to buy a ticket for Shipwrecked a cheesy Disney movie when the person at the counter refused to let me in.

It was fun watching a movie at night back then.

Josh-da-man

I watched Halloween when it was on NBC when I was six or seven, and it didn't scare me at all. I was actually expecting something a lot scarier based on its reputation.

I mean, I love the movie to pieces, but it didn't keep me up at night.

I was more freaked out by body horror like The Howling and Hellraiser when I was older.

Paff

I remember having to make my dad take me to The Shining, Gilda Live, and American Pop around 80-81 instead of just dropping me off. My dad wasn't into horror though so that threw a major wrench into my theatrical viewings.

Then I came to the great idea that while you must be accompanied by an adult to see an R-rated movie, there's nothing that says you have to know that adult. I did the same thing the South Park kids did to see Asses of Fire, I just hung out outside the theater and asked everyone going in if I could slip in with them, and it wasn't hard to find someone who would.

L Everett Scott

I'm terrible at remembering which film had what rating and have to rely on IMDB being right for the ratings in Ontario, Canada. If it is then the first R film I saw (without sneaking in) was Aliens. I think by 1986 the enforcement in the province for R films had relaxed somewhat (depending on the location) so there was no negotiation like what @cultshock described when I went. Mind you, I recall my buddy buying the tickets so he may have had fake ID. Not that mine was checked at the door or anything.

Coincidentally, I just watched Creepshow for the first time yesterday. It's very tame by today's standards, especially since King and Romero were going for a light comic-booky tone, and its depiction of violence is fairly cartoonish. But combine the decapitation, suicide, etc. with all the F-bombs that get dropped and you have a movie that won't make it past the Ontario Film Board back in '82.

I think also that the AA rating had just been introduced the year before so the Film Board hadn't quite got the hang of using it.

rocket1312

Even though I already answered upthread, I started thinking about what my first R-rated movie without a parent or lying about my age might have been. I guessed Face/Off, but looking at the release calendar I decided it must have been Con-Air.

That's when I was reminded that Con-Air and Face/Off were released only 2 weeks apart. What a time to be alive that was.

d2cheer

Yeah a TV viewing the optimal place to see it the first time...

davidlynchfan

I think “Missing in Action” with pops when I was about 7. But me and my crew would always “tap shoulders” by the time I was 12 to watch R rated stuff... Easy peasy process.

majorjoe23

The Running Man when I was 7 or 8.

AGuyNamedMike

Walking Tall with Joe Don Baker. I think I was 6?