Thumbs up to the Motion Pictures Association of America.

The MPAA recently added a new rating for movies beyond the R category:NC-17. The rating was created to make a distinction between hard-core pornography, which people associate with the X rating, and mature adult movies.

With the new rating, the MPAA hopes, theaters will be more willing to show adult films previously rated X because of mature subject matter, but with the rating holds a stigma of a “dirty movie.”

If theaters follow this trend, films that were considered artistic masterpieces but were “banned” from local theaters because of the stigma attached to the X rating will be available to the public.

International movie critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert have been pushing for such a rating in the past and have applauded the MPAA’s move,

“It represents a victory for everyone who cares about truly adult films. And I’m using adult here in the sense of mature, thoughtful, serious and intelligent – not in the sense of ‘dirty movies,'” Ebert said.

The new rating shows a positive step in our society to begin accepting subject matters that leave the norm, but nonetheless have some cultural and intellectual value.

And it’s about time.