PG-13 (Parents Strongly Cautioned)

How to read it

The MPA’s rules call PG-13 “a sterner warning by the Rating Board to parents to determine whether their children under age 13 should view the motion picture.” A PG-13 film may go beyond PG in theme, violence, nudity, sensuality, language, adult activities or other elements, but does not reach the restricted R category. A film’s theme alone will not push its rating past PG-13, though depictions of activities related to a mature theme can. PG-13 does not restrict admission: the MPA counts only R and NC-17 as restrictive ratings.

Also searched as: pg 13, pg 13 meaning, what does pg-13 mean.

The lines the rules draw

The rules set some PG-13 thresholds in so many words. Any drug use needs at least a PG-13. More than brief nudity needs at least a PG-13, and nudity in a PG-13 film generally will not be sexually oriented. Violence may appear, but generally not violence that is both realistic and extreme or persistent. One use of one of the harsher sexually derived words, as an expletive only, needs at least a PG-13; more than one, or even one used in a sexual context, needs an R. The raters can still give such a film a PG-13 by a special two-thirds vote, if they believe most American parents would find it appropriate because of the context or because the words are inconspicuous.

FilmRatings.com’s guide to descriptors puts it in plainer terms: “brief strong language” on a PG-13 film usually means one use of the F-word, and “strong language” usually means more than one.

Why PG-13 was added in 1984

PG-13 was the first new rating since 1968. The MPA’s own history says the director Steven Spielberg raised the need for a middle ground between PG and R with the MPA’s president, Jack Valenti, after a scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, a still-beating heart ripped from a man’s chest, upset parents who had not expected anything so frightening in a PG film. The Federal Trade Commission’s history of the ratings gives the same reason: the rating was introduced in 1984 in response to controversy over violence in the PG-rated Temple of Doom.

PG-13 and TV-14

The closest TV rating is TV-14, for programs many parents would find unsuitable for children under 14. The ages differ by one year, and neither rating restricts who can watch.