Spanish film slapped with NC-17 rating in US

Spanish director Pedro Almodovar's latest film, Bad Education, has been slapped with a rare NC-17 rating in the US, excluding children 17 and younger.

The film features Gael Garcia Bernal (The Motorcycle Diaries) and Fele Martinez as men who fell in love as Catholic schoolboys but were driven apart by an abusive, jealous priest.

Sony Pictures Classics appealed against the 17 rating to the Motion Picture Association of America but the decision was upheld because of "explicit sexual content."

There are sex scenes between men in the film, and one scene suggests a priest sexually abuses one of the boys, although there is no frontal nudity.

Almodovar won a best original screenplay Oscar in 2002 for Talk to Her.