This post was originally on my previous blog September 2013.
As a parent I strive to closely supervise the movies that my kids watch. It isn’t always easy to know which movies are appropriate for kids, but I’ve found some great tools that make at least this part of parenting much easier. There are a couple of web sites with movie reviews for parents and I wanted to share them in the hope that they’ll make parenting easier for others as well.
IMDB
IMDB.com, the Internet Movie Database, is a great collection of movie information. You can look up any movie, TV show, or actor. From there, you can look up a wealth of related info. It’s great for settling that nagging question of “That actress looks really familiar. What else have I seen her in?”
IMDB also has a detailed Parents Guide for each movie that can help a parent decide which movies are appropriate for their kids and consistent with their values. Users have submitted information from the movie for each of the following categories: Sex and Nudity, Violence and Gore, Profanity, Alcohol/Drugs/Smoking, and Frightening/Intense Scenes.
I’ve looked at a lot of parental review sites and I’ve found this format to be the best combination of detailed information and concise format.
Common Sense Media
CommonSenseMedia.org is another great site for parental reviews of movies, books and video games. CommonSenseMedia gives reviews of movies and a recommended minimum age for each movie. It also has a rating for content in the categories of positive messages, violence, sex, language, consumerism, and drinking, drugs and smoking.
Movie Ratings
One of the reason that I find parental movie reviews so helpful is that even when I’ve seen a movie in the past, I often can’t accurately recall what details might not be appropriate for kids. An example of this is the movie Big from 1988 with Tom Hanks. This movie is about a boy 12 year old boy who wakes up in the body of grown man and has a PG rating. However, because the boy finds himself in a number of adult situations, it is best that parents make an informed decision about whether a movie is appropriate for their kids instead of relying on the movie rating.