The people who give Hollywood movies their ratings must often get into the gory details.
Was that too much blood for a PG-13? Which body parts were visible in that nude scene? Exactly how many expletives were uttered?
For decades, a board of parents established by the Motion Picture Association has rated movies based on their perceived suitability for children and teenagers. It has the declared mission of rating a movie the way a “majority of American parents” would, a tricky assignment in a sharply polarized country. Over the years, some critics have painted the board as prudish; others as overly permissive.
The board has provided limited glimpses into its system in the past, but in a new guide geared toward parents that was quietly rolled out online, it is disclosing more specifics than ever about how movies are assessed.
The guide delves into the considerations around nudity and sex (“brief background sounds” are acceptable in a PG-13 movie) and describes what kind of violent imagery is likely to tip a film toward an R rating (“the injury is usually evident, such as gunshot, stab wounds and knife/sword slashes”).
It also explains, for the first time, how the board approaches depictions of rape and suicide in movies. And it touches on hot-button issues that have spurred public discussion about the ratings system, including guns, cannabis and crude language.
Kelly McMahon, the chair of the M.P.A.’s ratings division, said in an interview that the guidelines were intended to give parents a clear window into the board’s process.
“I never loved the perception of we’re this faceless secret society who’s just doling out these ratings without really any rhyme or reason,” Ms. McMahon said, “because the reality is we’re a group of parents who are just trying to do right by other parents, and we don’t really have anything to hide.”
The ratings division has long been an influential force in Hollywood, putting movies in categories — from G, for general audiences, to NC-17, for no one younger than 18 — that can significantly affect their commercial prospects. A PG-13 rating tends to open a door to a wider audience than an R rating does, while an NC-17 rating can be a kiss of death.
Occasionally, a rating becomes the subject of public debate. In 2010, the filmmakers behind “Blue Valentine” successfully objected to an NC-17 rating that stemmed from an oral sex scene between characters played by Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams. In 2018, the board’s handling of expletives was put under the microscope when Bo Burnham’s “Eighth Grade” received an R, adding a hurdle for the movie’s subjects — middle schoolers — to see it.
The ratings division, officially called the Classification and Rating Administration, has also been accused of being opaque to filmmakers and the public, a strain of criticism voiced prominently in the 2006 investigative documentary “This Film Is Not Yet Rated.” Most of the 10 raters, whom the board describes as a “diverse cross section of American parents,” are anonymous.
Over the past decade or so, the ratings board has positioned itself as a more public-facing institution, including by releasing data on its ratings since 1968, when the system was created. The new guide takes those efforts at transparency a significant step further.
“It’s the most information that they’ve ever given out,” said Scott Young, a ratings consultant who was on the board for more than 30 years. “If it helps one parent make a good decision, I don’t see any negatives.”
The guide, which Ms. McMahon said would occasionally be updated, goes into plenty of particulars, including what kinds of sexual content might be seen at each rating level. In PG movies, suggestive material may include “innuendo or double entendre, flirting, kissing, a couple seen briefly in bed together under the sheets.” An R rating, which requires moviegoers under 17 to be accompanied by an adult, may mean sex scenes with “bare backsides, breasts or full-frontal nudity (male or female).”
In PG movies, the guide explains, guns are used infrequently and weapons are usually the unrealistic kind, such as “laser guns” and “glowing swords.” The guide also walks through escalating examples of expletives: A PG-13 movie may contain one use of the word “fuck,” although “possibly one or two more.”
The ratings board has long expressed a commitment to shifting its positions along with the sensitivities of American parents, and it periodically commissions surveys to take the country’s temperature on a range of issues.
In one survey of 1,500 parents in 2022, depictions of rape and suicide in movies were among the respondents’ top concerns. The guide addresses those issues directly, explaining that visuals of rape or suicide generally require an R or NC-17 while implied events may be suitable for a PG-13 movie.
Ms. McMahon said that in response to the survey and general parent feedback, the board has more regularly singled out those issues in the description boxes that accompany ratings. (“The Brutalist,” for example, is rated R “for strong sexual content, graphic nudity, rape, drug use and some language.”)
Although the guide is geared toward parents, Ethan Noble, who works with Mr. Young to help movies escape unwanted ratings, says filmmakers will inevitably use it to try to figure out what will pass muster — and to try to negotiate the rating they want.
“I’ve had a thousand calls with my clients in 25 years that have been about almost this specific stuff, and so they’re absolutely going to go on the site and say, ‘What do the ratings mean?’” he said.
When filmmakers disagree with the board, they can edit their movie, release it without a rating or appeal to a separate board. A filmmaker last successfully appealed in 2023, when Wes Anderson secured a PG-13 for “Asteroid City,” which was initially assigned an R because of a one-second nude shot of Scarlett Johansson.
Mr. Noble, who was an executive at Miramax before starting his ratings consulting firm in 2007, said he had taken particular notice of the guide’s assessment of marijuana use.
A decade ago, a film that clearly showed marijuana use tended to receive an R rating, he said. (This was true for the 2009 movie “It’s Complicated,” in which Meryl Streep’s and Steve Martin’s characters giddily share a joint.) But the guide makes clear that “infrequent marijuana use” is acceptable in a PG-13 movie. Mr. Noble said he viewed the language as confirmation of the board’s gradual acceptance amid a broader shift in the cultural and legal landscape around cannabis.
Ms. McMahon, who has led the board since 2019 and is among its raters, said many of the details in the guide had been shared informally with filmmakers and parents in response to questions.
She cautioned that the guide should not be viewed as a hard-and-fast rulebook. The rating process is nuanced and rooted in a movie’s context, she said, and there will be exceptions to what the guidance lays out.
“The beauty of the system is it’s not a perfect science,” Ms. McMahon said, “and the frustrating part of the system is it’s not a perfect science.”
Julia Jacobs is an arts and culture reporter who often covers legal issues for The Times.
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