G (General Audiences)

How to read it

G is one of the five ratings given to films in the United States by the Classification and Rating Administration (CARA), an independent division of the Motion Picture Association (MPA). A board of parents rates each film. In the MPA’s rules, a G-rated film “contains nothing in theme, language, nudity, sex, violence or other matters that, in the view of the Rating Board, would offend parents whose younger children view the motion picture.” Snippets of language may go beyond polite conversation but are common everyday expressions, violence is minimal, and there is no nudity, sex scene or drug use. G is the only rating that comes without a descriptor, the short line explaining why a film got its rating.

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G is not a children’s rating

The rules say the G rating “is not a certificate of approval,” nor does it mean a children’s film. The MPA’s answers to common questions add that a rating and its descriptor are not judgments of a film’s quality, value or social importance: they identify only the level and type of content. The TV equivalent says the same: TV-G marks a program most parents would find suitable for all ages, and it too does not signify a program made specifically for children.

What G content looks like

FilmRatings.com, the MPA’s ratings site, describes each element at each rating. At G, a film generally contains no violence, or violence shown in a comedic, absurd or very mild way that harms no character. It has no sexual content and no drug use, drug references or drug material.

One of the 1968 ratings

G was one of the four ratings the MPA announced in November 1968, with M, R and X. The other two letters of the original four are gone: M became PG and X was replaced by NC-17. In the Federal Trade Commission’s account, the first four ratings defined G as “General Audiences – all ages admitted”, as the rating still reads.