Beyond these high-profile franchises, Disney’s filmography harbors some surprising entries. Tucked away in the annals of Disney’s past are numerous R-rated films from former subsidiaries like Touchstone and Hollywood Pictures. These labels no longer appear in theaters, yet their mature-themed films remain integral to Disney’s eclectic history. It’s intriguing to consider that the same company responsible for “Beauty & The Beast” and “Snow White” also produced such films—though, in fairness, “Snow White” has its own dark undertones.

These largely overlooked films challenge the typical view of Disney’s cinematic output. The world is full of subtlety, and that extends to the rich tapestry of Walt Disney’s storied studio. Nonetheless, don’t expect to see these titles advertised at Disneyland anytime soon.

Take “Down and Out in Beverly Hills,” for instance—a comedy about a homeless man, played by Nick Nolte, who disrupts the lives of a wealthy Beverly Hills couple, portrayed by Richard Dreyfuss and Bette Midler. Filming commenced in 1985, leading to a January 1986 release. This film signaled a pivotal moment in Michael Eisner’s tenure as Disney’s new CEO, as he aimed to expand the company’s horizons beyond children’s entertainment.

“Down and Out in Beverly Hills,” a comedy concerning an unhoused man (Nick Nolte) upending the lives of a rich Beverly Hills couple (Richard Dreyfuss and Bette Midler), began shooting in 1985, primed for a January 1986 theatrical release. The movie also marked an important step in new CEO Michael Eisner’s plans to overhaul the Disney corporation, broadening its territory beyond kiddie fare. 

“Down and Out in Beverly Hills” would mark the first R-rated feature released by the Mouse House, albeit via their Touchstone label rather than the Walt Disney Pictures moniker proper. Per James P. Stewart’s “DisneyWar,” embarking on more adult-skewing projects was part of Eisner’s goal to bolster Disney’s annual slate of films and make the studio into a formidable Hollywood player. It was a bold move, putting Disney in uncharted territory. The gamble paid off. 

“Down and Out in Beverly Hills” grossed $62.13 million domestically on a $14 million budget, a clear hit for such a big risk. After that, Touchstone began delivering a slew of comedies, including a subsequent Dreyfuss flick, “What About Bob?” Though largely forgotten today, “Beverly Hills” paved the way for subsequent non-family-oriented Disney hits back in the days when MTV still played music videos.

Wes Anderson’s first directorial effort, the 1996 “Bottle Rocket,” was released into theaters courtesy of Columbia Pictures. After that, Anderson began releasing his features through Disney and Touchstone Pictures. Following “Rushmore,” the next film Anderson did under Disney’s eye (and his third film, total) was “The Royal Tenenbaums.” Now regarded as one of Anderson’s best movies, (we pin it at No. 6 in our list of his best) the film was an anomaly for Touchstone, which largely focused on silly comedies or fare like the Memorial Day blockbuster, “Pearl Harbor.” 

Instead, here was a tonally complicated yarn about a troubled family, marital separation, death, and more. Nonetheless, “Tenenbaums” was one of the last and most powerful Disney releases of 2001. It hit theaters with an R-rating, which is unsurprising given the heavy material that the film focuses on. There’s a lengthy set piece dedicated to a suicide attempt, while sexual material abounds throughout the story. All of this emphasizes very human struggles of the titular family. Daring to shine a light on familial messiness resulted in critical acclaim and a terrific box office haul. 

The partnership didn’t last forever, with Anderson jumping ship to Fox Searchlight and Focus Features starting with 2007’s “The Darjeeling Limited.” However, as “Royal Tenenbaums” demonstrated, the unusual Wes Anderson and Touchstone Pictures relationship did work well for both parties, for a while.

With 1994’s “Ed Wood,” director Tim Burton came home to Disney. Though he had been a key creative figurehead behind the 1993 Disney feature “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” “Ed Wood” saw the former Disney animator, once too macabre for their taste, finally directing a motion picture under their roof. The artist that once seemed too unorthodox to work at the studio was now returning as a hero after hits at rival studios like “Beetlejuice” and “Batman.” When Columbia Pictures passed on “Ed Wood,” Disney executives leaped at the opportunity. 

“Ed Wood” was a far less commercial Burton effort than some of his prior works, but that didn’t deter Disney. This black-and-white period piece focused on the titular B-movie director (Johnny Depp), his eccentric creative visions, and his relationship with an elderly Bela Lugosi (Martin Landau). None of it was mainstream, and it would require a restrictive R-rating to properly explore Wood’s life. 

Though it failed to exceed $5.8 million at the domestic box office, “Ed Wood” did score two Oscar wins (including one for best supporting actor) and preceded further Burton/Disney collaborations, including 2010’s megahit “Alice in Wonderland.” “Ed Wood” became a crucial piece of Disney’s history, foreshadowing a future the real Ed Wood could only have dreamed of.

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer has spent much of his career working for Disney, particularly from 1994 to 2013. In the former year, the moneymaker “Crimson Tide” provided a template for the kind of star-driven blockbusters Bruckheimer could deliver for the studios’ Touchstone Pictures label. Another early Disney/Bruckheimer collaboration was 1996’s “The Rock,” which was also the first of three Disney tentpoles for divisive director Michael Bay, who has, unsurprisingly, wrecked more cars than any of his peers. This prison escape movie had plenty of explosions on hand, plus major names like Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage, and Ed Harris headlining the cast. 

It was also a production that leaned into a hard R-rating, with violent death scenes and ribald dialogue laced with profanity. Connery’s character gets the lion’s share of such aged witticisms, including a now-famous quip about “losers” and “prom queens”. 15 years earlier, it would have been impossible to imagine Disney anywhere near this project. In the 1990s, though, it was one of many adult action films Disney was sending to theaters. Even Bay’s PG-13 Disney blockbuster “Armageddon” boasted a strip club detour and harsh language.

The R-rated mayhem of “The Rock” proved to be exactly what audiences wanted in June 1996, as seen by its $336.06 million worldwide box office haul. Even on a steep $75 million budget, the result was deeply profitable. No wonder Bruckheimer kept on working with Disney, eventually leading to work on PG-13 juggernauts like the “Pirates of the Caribbean” and its many, many sequels.

After “The Passion of the Christ” became a box office phenomenon — for a different studio – Gibson’s next foray into grand-scale cinema would secure more prestigious North American distribution. The 2006 feature “Apocalypto,” which takes place in 1511 and is told entirely in Yucatec Maya, was distributed by Disney/Touchstone Pictures in North America, following Gibson headlining other adult-skewing titles for the studio like the PG-13 “Signs” and the R-rated “Ransom.” 

Given Gibson’s proclivity towards violence, it should be no surprise that “Apocalypto” is a grisly affair, more than earning its brutal R-rating. The feature is almost entirely wall-to-wall blood and carnage, which fits with a man who previously framed the crucifixion of Jesus Christ through gruesome imagery. This put “Apocalypto” in stark contrast to Disney’s other big holiday season 2006 release, “The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause.” That was G-rated Yuletide farce. 

Though nowhere close to matching “Christ” at the box office, “Apocalypto” still amassed a respectable $50.86 million in North America. It even topped the domestic box office over its opening weekend. This was not, however, the start of a long creative bond between Disney and “Apocalypto’s” helmer. Disney hasn’t financed or distributed any of work since, possibly due to the untold number of weird Mel Gibson stories — like founding his own variant of the Catholic church –  attached to the man’s name in the last 20 years.

Filmmaking provocateur Oliver Stone and the sanitized, franchise-oriented Disney studio seems like an odd match on paper. Yet their worlds collided with the 1995 movie “Nixon.” Disney’s Hollywood Pictures division was one of the co-financiers, also acting as distributor in North America. 

The production scored some major controversy before release. The Nixon family lambasted the script as historically inaccurate and shameful. The film wasn’t intended to be a clean-cut portrait of Richard Nixon, tailor-made for the Hall of Presidents attraction. It carried an R-rating, from non-stop profanity scattered throughout the script, with Nixon (Anthony Hopkins) personally delivering many of the most extreme remarks.

Disney executives and other “Nixon” financiers might’ve yearned for more moviegoer interest in seeing what all the family fuss was about. While Stone’s “JFK” cracked $70 million in its domestic run, “Nixon” petered out with just $13.66 million domestically and only $34.66 million worldwide on a $45 million budget. Taking a swing on such an unorthodox film didn’t work out for Hollywood Pictures beyond “Nixon” securing a quartet of Oscar nominations. Decades later, the feature is a footnote in Disney’s history. It even looks incongruous compared to other ’90s Touchstone/Hollywood Pictures releases. Oliver Stone and Disney would not be fast friends after “Nixon.”

The majority of the pre-December 2015 comedies from Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison production label were released by Sony and Columbia Pictures. However, the very first Happy Madison Productions feature was a release from Disney’s Buena Vista Productions: the unlikely Rob Schneider vehicle “Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo.” As the title implies, the project’s sex-heavy sequences instantly required an R rating.

Happy Madison’s bread-and-butter would evolve into more family-friendly comedies like “Grown Ups” and “Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” but “Male Gigolo,” meanwhile, showed the lewdest side of the label’s — and Schneider’s — comedic sensibilities. Touchstone Pictures had no problem with the movie’s crudeness and launched the title in over 2,100 theaters on December 10, 1999. It proved to be an okayish moneymaker with a $92.93 million worldwide gross, and the Disney brand name remained intact, despite the sophomoric nature of the flick.

When a sequel, “Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo,” was conceived, Disney rejected it. They no longer had room for either Happy Madison’s most vulgar antics or Rob Schneider’s star vehicles. Neither did we: “European Gigolo” headlines our list of the worst comedy movies ever made.

In 2009, DreamWorks SKG and Disney’s Touchstone Pictures settled on a new distribution plan, where Touchstone would distribute live-action DreamWorks films. Several of these titles weren’t far from traditional Disney fare, such as the Hugh Jackman robot boxing movie “Real Steel” or inspirational dramas “The Help” and “The Hundred-Foot Journey.” However, DreamWorks did get some R-rated movies into theaters with the Disney name technically attached.

That included one of the first DreamWorks films Touchstone distributed, a remake of the 80s horror film “Fright Night.” Starring Anton Yelchin and Colin Farrell, the update had bloody kills a-plenty, not to mention lots of harsh language to sharpen its teeth further yet. Though not what audiences considered a “normal” Disney movie, “Fright Night” was in line with many past DreamWorks horror remakes, such as “The Haunting,” “The Ring,” and “The Uninvited.” 

Unfortunately, “Fright Night” didn’t take a big bite out of the box office. Such is the fate of many non-“Twilight” vampire movies. Even though its MPAA rating promised lots of gnarly scares, audiences weren’t interested. That was less than ideal timing, given that 2011 also delivered other DreamWorks SKG bombs like “Cowboys & Aliens” and “I Am Number Four.” Unsurprisingly, the subsequent DreamWorks movies that Disney distributed would stick to PG-13 action fare or award season dramas.

James B. Stewart’s book, “DisneyWar,” alleges that Michael Mann’s R-rated 1999 drama “The Insider” brought down Michael Eisner’s ire, but not for its adult content. After all, Mann’s career was built on R-rated projects like “Heat,” so Disney/Touchstone Pictures executives knew what they were getting into. The problem was the true story that “The Insider” chronicled. The drama focuses on a whistleblower trying to divulge the truth of his former tobacco industry employers, including over a “60 Minutes” segment. He faces endless hurdles along the way, including the reluctance of ABC network brass (a flagship Disney property) to chastise the Big Tobacco tycoons. 

Allegedly, Eisner was infuriated over Disney releasing a motion picture that took direct swipes at their own house. “The Insider” offers an example of how the R-rating doesn’t just signify a movie containing nudity or extreme profanity. It can also be the place for subversive material that challenges the status quo, often to the chagrin of the executives financing these projects. Mann’s willingness to speak truth to power inspired a movie that was lauded critically, even though it flopped at the box office.

After the costly fiasco, Mann moved on to other studios. 2001’s “Ali” and 2004’s “Collateral” ended up at Sony/Columbia Pictures and DreamWorks SKG, respectively. Eisner wouldn’t have to worry about any more Michael Mann projects during the remainder of his Disney tenure.

After helming the final two “Twilight” movies, director Bill Condon shifted back into the mold of his prior works, like “Gods and Monsters” and “Kinsey,” with 2013’s “The Fifth Estate,” a fictional biography of WikiLeaks architect Julian Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch). Chronicling Assange instantly gathered controversy, including from Assange himself. While Condon’s then-recent directorial efforts skewed towards PG-13 ratings, “Estate” came with an R, suggesting it might take an unflinching look at Assange’s impact on the world. 

Though Assange’s leaks dominated headlines in 2010, “The Fifth Estate” was a raw flop. Cumberbatch’s popularity wasn’t enough to drive the adult drama into profitability, nor did it bother with more than tame melodrama. It was yet another dud in the partnership between DreamWorks SKG and Touchstone Pictures, with the latter studio only releasing a handful more DreamWorks movies in the years to come. One minor detail about the film’s place in Disney history is how it was the last R-rated project the studio would distribute for six years.

Those final DreamWorks/Touchstone releases were all PG-13 projects, meaning Disney wouldn’t get back into the R-rated game in North America until it completed its purchase of 20th Century Fox in 2019. Come July, the Kumail Nanjiani and Dave Bautista comedy “Stuber” became the first R-rated Disney movie since “The Fifth Estate” forgettably plopped.

In a career rife with unforgettable motion pictures, one of the highlights of director Spike Lee’s phenomenal filmography is still “25th Hour,” about a man’s final 24 hours before he begins a lengthy prison sentence. Committing to an R-rating for this project lets screenwriter David Benioff paint a world of complicated human beings. They resonate as hauntingly realistic individuals we all see every day. Edward Norton, as Monty Brogan, drops a barrage of slurs against New York’s five boroughs in a performance that puts this film in our top 10 of Norton’s best films to date. It can be a masterwork, because of the creative freedom afforded by that R-rating.

“25th Hour” boasts an undeniable status as one of Lee’s greatest films. “25th Hour” was actually the third of four films Lee would make for Disney’s Touchstone Pictures division, in fact, alongside “He Got Game,” “Summer of Sam,” and “Miracle at St. Anna.” This Norton-starring masterpiece was part of a long-term creative partnership between the filmmaker and the “Frozen” studio, rather than an aberration that slipped through the Touchstone cracks.

Unfortunately, Disney hasn’t given the film proper — much less any — treatment in the decades since its release. Its only Blu-Ray release is in an obscure 2014 double-movie pack with “He Got Game.” Though not an unusual Disney title of the time, “25th Hour” appears to no longer fit into a “mature” Disney landscape driven by xenomorphs and the MCU.