PG-13: Rating of Champions

The PG-13 rating was created in 1984, after some filmmakers and viewers raised concerns about films that seemed too intense to be rated PG but not graphic enough to be rated R.

Increasingly, a PG-13 rating--”Parents strongly cautioned: Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13”--is seen by the industry as a key ingredient in the creation of a blockbuster. Below is a sampling of the general guidelines the Motion Picture Assn. of America rating board uses to make its decisions.

* Any drug use content initially requires at least a PG-13 rating. There are no scenes depicting drug use in PG-rated films.

* Nudity of a nonsexual nature is OK for PG-13 movies. But if nudity is sexually oriented, the film will generally be rated R.

* If violence is too rough or persistent, the film will be rated R.

* A film can qualify for a PG-13 rating even if it includes what the MPAA calls “one of the harsher sexually derived words”--but only one use, and only as an expletive.

If such a word is used multiple times, or even once in a sexual context, then the film will almost always be rated R. One recent exception is “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” in which Julia Roberts utters the F-word in a sexual way. Originally rated R, the film was rated PG-13 after an appeal.