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macgeek2005 · Nov 22, 2006, 12:38 PM

If someone can find me this information, it would be extremely facinating to me.

I'd like to see year by year how many movies of each rating (G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17) were released each year, starting as far back as possible.

Then i'd like to see the total number of each rating in the USA today, compared to the rest of the world, and the difference between how many R rated movies there are in the US now compared to the rest of the world.

Basically, i'd like to see a detailed statistics chart.

Thanks!

TETENAL · Nov 22, 2006, 12:43 PM

Do all countries have the same movie rating system as the US?

Doofy · Nov 22, 2006, 12:44 PM

Wouldn't this only work if different countries had the same ratings systems? Where does a UK "15" fit into the US rating system? Same for a "12".

macgeek2005 · Nov 22, 2006, 12:49 PM

I'm pretty good at estimating what's equivilent between the countries.

But we can start with the US. That makes things simpler. Does such a statistic exist?

olePigeon · Nov 22, 2006, 01:37 PM

I wonder if someone could write a Google hack to search IMDB to get a rough idea?

macgeek2005 · Nov 22, 2006, 02:31 PM

Sounds like a plan.

I also found this website: SCREEN IT! MOVIE/VIDEO REVIEWS (ALL TITLES)

I went through the entire alphabetical list of movies they have (about 1700), and using the search feature of firefox, found out how many of each rating there are.

69 G's, 225 PG's, 545 PG-13's, and 852 R's.

Theres more than 1700 american movies right? But this gives us a rough idea.

I would like to know though, at what rate the ratio of R's to G's is increasing in recent years.

spindler · Nov 23, 2006, 09:08 AM

You'd also have to factor in that you can get away with a lot more nowadays. What is PG or R seems to have been stretched upwards. At least it appears that way to me. Things that are PG today would have required an R rating previously.

BRussell · Nov 23, 2006, 09:32 AM

I don't know about the raw data, but I'm pretty sure I've seen studies like this (on ratings of US movies). Search in media studies-type journal databases. One phenomenon is "ratings creep," where a PG movie today would have been R twenty years ago. (oops spindler mentioned that above)

I'm not sure how international comparisons would work. Do you want to look at how the same movies are rated in different countries? Movies are so international that it's hard to distinguish between American movies and movies from other countries.

willed · Nov 23, 2006, 09:34 AM

What's an 'NC-17' and how's it different to R?

Also, what did Casino Royale get in the US? Over here it's a 12A (i.e PG13, but a year younger!), but I thought it was pretty violent and would usually have been a 15.

Cold Warrior · Nov 23, 2006, 09:54 AM

Originally Posted by willed

What's an 'NC-17' and how's it different to R?

Also, what did Casino Royale get in the US? Over here it's a 12A (i.e PG13, but a year younger!), but I thought it was pretty violent and would usually have been a 15.

It got PG-13.

macroy · Nov 23, 2006, 10:14 AM

[QUOTE=willed;3216641]What's an 'NC-17' and how's it different to R?

QUOTE]

R = Those under 17 needs guardian to accompany them to the movie.
NC-17 = You must be 17 to see the movie - guardian or not.

NC-17 is also the "kiss of death" as they can expect much less revenue (less screens, less audience).

Of course, these are not "laws" per se - but something the movie industry has set for their theaters (as far as I know). I remember as a kid, we'd see "R" movies at a particular theater because they didn't give a damn. And I've never been to a R movie where everyone under 17 had a guardian with them.

My guess is that you'll have a hard time comparing them as the US is a lot more 'restrictive' with sexual situations as well. i.e. a movie that has no violence but nudity may receive a rating of "R" here.. but a less rating in Europe?? This is just a guess.

MaxPower2k3 · Nov 23, 2006, 10:34 AM

Also factor in that PG-13 didn't exist before 1984. Maybe restrict your data to newer movies, if possible. Although it was said above that movies rated PG today would have been R 20 years ago, I've found the opposite to be true. It seems to me that I've seen older PG movies that had occasional swearing and even brief nudity that would've easily made it a PG-13 or possibly R today (although I can't think of any examples off the top of my head). Maybe, since there was no PG-13, and these weren't deemed explicit enough for R, they were pushed down to PG. At the top end, the R rating seems to allow more today than it did. A Clockwork Orange, for instance, was X/NC-17 when it came out, but the same cut was released on DVD as R.

analogika · Nov 23, 2006, 11:10 AM

Originally Posted by macroy

[My guess is that you'll have a hard time comparing them as the US is a lot more 'restrictive' with sexual situations as well. i.e. a movie that has no violence but nudity may receive a rating of "R" here.. but a less rating in Europe?? This is just a guess.

Nudity does not prevent a movie from getting the equivalent of a "G" (general audience) here.

Explicit violence will generally get a 16 or 18 rating.

Casino Royale gets a 12.

analogika · Nov 23, 2006, 11:16 AM

Originally Posted by MaxPower2k3

A Clockwork Orange, for instance, was X/NC-17 when it came out, but the same cut was released on DVD as R.

are you sure?

Quoth IMDB: "USA:R (edited for re-rating) (1972) / USA:X (original rating)

MaxPower2k3 · Nov 23, 2006, 09:27 PM

Originally Posted by analogika

are you sure?

Quoth IMDB: "USA:R (edited for re-rating) (1972) / USA:X (original rating)

Whoops, wrong I am

monkeybrain · Nov 23, 2006, 10:24 PM

I think it would be impossible to compare countries, since many films have different cuts for different markets. The torture scene in Casino Royale was re-edited for the UK release, whereas it is intact in the US version. So not only are the rating systems and the criteria they use to apply these ratings different between countries, but also the films themselves are different.

willed · Nov 24, 2006, 06:05 AM

Originally Posted by monkeybrain

I think it would be impossible to compare countries, since many films have different cuts for different markets. The torture scene in Casino Royale was re-edited for the UK release, whereas it is intact in the US version. So not only are the rating systems and the criteria they use to apply these ratings different between countries, but also the films themselves are different.

Really? You mean it was even worse in the US? When I went to see it there was a sharp intake of breath from every guy in the cinema several times in that scene!

Tuoder · Nov 24, 2006, 06:25 AM

Originally Posted by willed

Really? You mean it was even worse in the US? When I went to see it there was a sharp intake of breath from every guy in the cinema several times in that scene!

It is my understanding that the US is more tolerant of violence and less tolerant of sex.

talisker · Nov 24, 2006, 08:21 AM

Originally Posted by Tuoder

It is my understanding that the US is more tolerant of violence and less tolerant of sex.

That's because violence is good and sex is bad. No, wait a minute....

Wasn't there a quote by some director in the 40s or 50s along the lines of "I'm allowed to show a woman's breast being sliced off, but god forbid I show anyone touching it."