18 Most Profane Movies of All Time, Ranked by the Number of F-Bombs

English can be a colorful language. There are so many words that often carry with them so many different meanings. But arguably, few of them rival the f-word, and certain filmmakers have been well aware of this, adding it sometimes sparingly, sometimes liberally to their films. If a film’s dialogue needs punching up, a quick and easy way to do it is by adding some profanity. Just ask Quentin Tarantino: he’s made some of the most extreme and profane movies of all time, right?

It’s true, but his films pale in comparison compared to other films and filmmakers. Nothing he’s made comes close to cracking the top 10, when it comes to most f-words in a film. His highest-ranked film is currently at #35 (Reservoir Dogs). So in celebration of some of the films that truly go the extra distance when it comes to swearing, here are some of the most profane films of all time, ranked from least to most f-words.

18 ‘Sweet Sixteen’ (2002)

313 f-words

A brutally honest but effective coming-of-age movie, Sweet Sixteen is definitely not to be mixed up with Sixteen Candles, which is a little lighter and funnier as far as movies about teenagers go. The plot of this 2002 Ken Loach film concerns a teenage boy who wants to escape from his downtrodden lifestyle, and plans to do so with his mother, once she’s released from prison.

Sweet Sixteen deals with his trials and tribulations, uncompromisingly showing hardships and societal cycles that keep underprivileged people under pressure, and oftentimes unable to break out of where they are and what they have to deal with. Capturing a gritty reality in Sweet Sixteen also necessitated the use of a great deal of profanity, which led to the film being rated 18+ in Britain, even though younger viewers might well gain something (perhaps even empathy) from watching it.

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17 ‘Running Scared’ (2006)

315 f-words

You might think that action movies wouldn’t have the time to feature much profanity, what with sounds of fighting, car chases, and shootouts sometimes drowning out audio. But, on the other hand, characters are naturally going to be stressed in a great many action movies, and so something like Running Scared featuring 300+ F-words doesn’t seem too out of the ordinary, especially because it’s not just non-stop action.

Running Scared also has something of a neo-noir feel to it, and tells a story revolving around a gun that was used to shoot various corrupt police officers, and the consequences that come from one man’s failure to dispose of said weapon. It’s brash and aggressive as a crime/thriller/action movie, but no one could accuse it of lacking profanity.

16 ‘Twin Town’ (1997)

318 f-words

Almost qualifying as a British gangster movie, Twin Town is a darkly comedic crime film about two brothers who get on the wrong side of a small-time gangster. Their lives had previously been defined by a general sense of laziness and tedium, but striving to get something of someone shady has its consequences, with their lives becoming more hectic and Twin Town exploring the aftermath of their life-altering decision.

But, crime and seriousness aside, Twin Town is also quite a bit of fun, and contains plenty of wonderfully profane dialogue that viewers will get accustomed to very quickly. The film’s not long, either, clocking in at just under 100 minutes, so its total F-word count of 318 means that, mathematically, there’s a little over 3 F-bombs per minute on average.

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15 ‘One Day Removals’ (2008)

320 f-words

One Day Removals is a very obscure movie, and only has some degree of notoriety for cracking the top 15 list of most F-word-heavy feature films of all time. It’s an 85-minute-long film with over 300 uses of the word, and centers on two seemingly ordinary removal men who have one very bad day that throws their lives out of balance. This makes it something of a mash-up between comedy and thriller, with the high level of stress offered by the premise making all the profanity somewhat understandable.

It’s obscure enough that it doesn’t actually have its own Wikipedia page, and might be one of the few films on IMDb that have roughly the same number of user votes as F-bombs (326 versus 320). Its short runtime also ensures it has an impressive 3.76 F-words per minute on average, for what that’s worth.

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14 ‘State Property’ (2002)

321 f-words

A bleak and gritty crime film, State Property follows one ambitious criminal in Philadelphia who has his own idea of how to reach the American Dream. He builds a crime empire from the ground up, and his quest for fame and power ultimately corrupts and damages the longer it goes on.

The MPAA cited “nonstop language” as one of the reasons for State Property being rated R, and given there are 300+ F-bombs in under 90 minutes, that descriptor is a fair one. It’s also notable for having a shockingly low score from critics on Metacritic, sitting at just a 9/100, indicating “overwhelming dislike.” As such, it’s safe to say that State Property isn’t a great crime movie, but it is a greatly profane one, for what that’s worth, meaning it does at least deliver when it comes to swearing.

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13 ‘End of Watch’ (2012)

326 f-words

Most found footage movies belong in the horror genre, but End of Watch stands out for being a crime/thriller that uses the format to tell its story. It centers on a pair of police officers who work in Los Angeles, and is mostly character-focused, with a little more of a concrete narrative developing in the film’s more explosive and dramatic second half.

It doesn’t shy away from showing intense encounters, violent confrontations, and the kind of language people use in stressful situations, leading to one very profane crime movie. Of course, due to the presentation, some of the salty language is a little hard to make out, but it’s estimated there are about 326 here in total. End of Watch is a highly stressful movie, and that leads to characters expressing such sentiments with bold and profanity-laden language; it’s at least justified here.

12 ‘Starred Up’ (2013)

337 f-words

Prison dramas rarely get as gritty or confronting as Starred Up. Movies set inside prisons are nothing new, but the way Starred Up approaches a familiar premise makes it stand out from the pack, with the core story revolving around a 19-year-old prisoner who’s transferred from a juvenile prison to one populated by adult offenders. It’s graphic when it comes to both its violence and language, and manages to include more than 300 F-words throughout its runtime.

For those with strong stomachs, it’s easy to recommend, thanks to it being a powerful and engaging experience… but those who don’t like confronting or particularly tense movies might want to steer clear. It’s definitely a prison movie through and through, but one more about survival and endurance rather than escape, which is an approach many others take.

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11 ‘The Outpost’ (2020)

355 f-words

The Outpost is a war film that depicts the Battle of Kamdesh in 2006, during the war in Afghanistan. It stands as the 10th most profane movie of all time, and the most swear-filled war film ever released. It’s not quite a great war movie, at least on an all-time basis, but it gets the job done and is compelling in its depiction of a still fairly recent war. It feels contemporary and fresh in its approach to a well-worn genre, thanks to having a less than well-worn conflict at its center.

War movies don’t usually shy away from language, as having soldiers curse up a storm is true to real life. Adding to that, they’re often in dangerous and tense situations, and that is a realistic way to react when in danger, so for that aspect at least, The Outpost does stand as a believable, grounded war movie.

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10 ‘Alpha Dog’ (2006)

367 f-words

A film directed by Nick Cassavetes – son of the famed John Cassavetes; one of the most important independent filmmakers of all times – Alpha Dog is based on a real-life kidnapping/murder that took place in 2000, and has a huge cast that includes Emile Hirsch, Bruce Willis, Sharon Stone, Justin Timberlake, and the late Anton Yelchin.

It received overall mixed reviews, but might have been interesting at the time for the novelty of seeing Justin Timberlake swear a bunch of times, seeing as he was still mostly known for being a pop star in 2006. It’s not bad as a gritty and very full-on crime movie, and tells its true story fairly well throughout. Its cast is also eclectic, featuring some actors you’d expect to see in this sort of film, and others you don’t often see in movies like Alpha Dog.

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9 ‘Straight Outta Compton’ (2015)

392 f-words

Straight Outta Compton stands out from the average music biopic by having more f-bombs than any other in history (well, that and the fact that it’s also a well-made biographical movie that’s far more vibrant and energetic than your run-of-the-mill music biopic).

It tells the story of rap group NWA, whose time as a collective was short but incredibly impactful. They used their music and lyrics to bring attention to the societal issues around them, and in essence, weaponized profanity for a noble cause. The language in NWA’s lyrics was far more extreme than any other music group at the time, and it drew attention to both NWA and the issues they wanted to shed light on. As such, it would be dishonest for a film depiction of the group’s history to shy away from profane language.

8 ‘Casino’ (1995)

422 f-words

An almost three-hour-long crime film from Martin Scorsese, starring the notoriously (and often hilariously) profane Joe Pesci at his most fiery and energetic? Of course this epic about the criminals that all but ran Las Vegas throughout the 1970s is going to be full of swearing.

Casino is certainly one of Scorsese’s most well-known movies, and successfully utilizes much of the style and spark of his masterpiece, Goodfellas, transposed into an entirely new setting. The level of violence matches the language, too, as it also manages to be one of the most graphic and unapologetically brutal crime films of all time. It’s not quite the best of Scorsese’s crime movies, but it is one of the most swear-filled, and does have a ton of other stuff to admire when it comes to style, music, and performances.

7 ‘Nil by Mouth’ (1997)

428 f-words

Nil by Mouth is an intense and gritty UK drama about a working-class family living in London. It stars Ray Winstone, who’s somewhat famous for bringing a huge amount of anger and ferocity to the roles he plays, so it’s not surprising to find him in one of the top 10 most f-word-heavy films.

It’s also notable for being Gary Oldman‘s directorial debut, and as of 2023, it remains the only film he has directed. He apparently drew from his real-life experiences growing up while making this film, which might be one of the reasons why it’s such a gritty, grounded, and unnerving film. It’s a highly stressful sort of movie, and therefore hard to recommend to most, but it works as a very tough and brutal film, and more than justifies a title as aggressively blunt as Nil by Mouth.

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6 ‘Summer of Sam’ (1999)

435 f-words

For six years, between 1999 and 2005, Spike Lee‘s tense (and sometimes romantic) crime-drama Summer of Sam held the record for the most f-words in a feature film. It’s not one of Spike Lee’s very best films, perhaps being a little too long and unfocused, but he brings his unmistakable style and energy to this film about the lives of a group of people living in New York City in the late 1970s, while the city was living in fear of a prolific serial killer.

It’s undeniably a stressful time, with the summer heat, infidelity, and murders happening in the background, so the characters in the film can certainly be cut some slack when it comes to their language. Overall, it’s a worthy watch for any fan of Spike Lee, and so Summer of Sam feels sufficiently gritty, high-stakes, and impactful throughout its long runtime.

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5 ‘Christmas Bloody Christmas’ (2022)

487 f-words

A gruesome horror movie with an admittedly eye-catching title, Christmas Bloody Christmas is about what you’d expect it to be, for better or worse. It centers on a robot Santa Claus who goes on a rampage on Christmas Eve, effectively becoming a Christmas-themed slasher movie that’s no-nonsense and unapologetically violent.

Beyond being gory, Christmas Bloody Christmas also manages to be extremely profane, and is the most F-bomb-heavy feature-length horror movie of all time, coming very close to hitting 500 in total. Considering it’s also only about 87 minutes long, this effort on Christmas Bloody Christmas’ part is extra impressive. It might well rival Robert Zemeckis animated Christmas movies like The Polar Express and A Christmas Carol for creepiness, though those two are admittedly not supposed to be frightening.

4 ‘Uncut Gems’ (2019)

560 f-words

The Safdie Brothers‘ 2019 masterpiece, Uncut Gems, features a career-best performance from Adam Sandler, and doesn’t mess around when it comes to delivering one of the most gleefully intense, downbeat, and profane films of the last 10 years.

In telling the story of a risk-taking, thrill-seeking gambling addict who doesn’t know when to quit, it makes sense for the language of Uncut Gems to match the constant pressure its main character is under. Much of the film involves characters yelling and swearing at each other as events spiral further and further out of control, and provided you can handle the stress of it all, it’s brilliant. Explorations of addiction in film don’t get much more harrowing and intense than it’s done in Uncut Gems, and for that, it’s an admirable movie.

3 ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ (2013)

569 f-words

Like in Casino, Martin Scorsese uses an almost three-hour runtime to get the most swear words he can from his actors. This time, he manages to outdo his previous efforts, as The Wolf of Wall Street is his most f-word-heavy film, and he managed to do it all without Joe Pesci, too!

The film follows Jordan Belfort and his criminal exploits on Wall Street, as well as the debauchery and chaos that comes with such a lifestyle. The Wolf of Wall Street is a film about excess, from its content to its extended runtime to its 500+ f-words, and Scorsese fans wouldn’t want it any other way. It’s one of Martin Scorsese’s very best movies, and also happens to be his most profane. It’s not necessarily the case that more swear words equal a better film, but when it comes to The Wolf of Wall Street, they just so happen to line up.

2 ‘F★CK’ (2005)

857 f-words

So, F★CK is a rather well-made documentary about the word itself. Of course, it’s going to use it a lot. Admittedly, it’s a unique premise for a documentary, as it provides insight into the origins of the infamous four-letter word, the variety of ways it can be used, and the reasons why it’s so controversial.

It also contains a number of interviews with comedians who are famous for their use of the word, which are often pretty funny and eye-opening. Despite basing an entire movie around the f-word, though, it only ranks second overall in the ranking of films that use the word the most. Still, you have to admire the commitment to being filled with expletives while exploring expletives, and it’s an overall interesting documentary that might prove worth watching for those who are curious.

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1 ‘Swearnet: The Movie’ (2014)

935 f-words

It’s all in the title, really. It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that a movie called Swearnet is extremely profane, but still, racking up almost 1000 f-words in one movie is something. The plot of the film itself involves the actors of the Trailer Park Boys TV series playing themselves, as they try to create an uncensored network online, after being annoyed at censorship on TV.

Swearnet may have broken the record for the most f-words, but that’s about it, as it was overall poorly reviewed. Still, if it was just an excuse by the filmmakers to grab the official title for the most swear-filled movie of all time, good for them. It might not be worth watching for most people out there, but it’s an exercise in profanity and extremity, and it was never going to be the sort of film that would end up ranking among anyone’s favorite movies of the 2010s.

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