FAQ

We get many questions in our emails, and these are some of the most popular. If your question isn't here, feel free to contact us, and we will do our best to answer you.

How Do you Determine your grades?
What happened to Grading the Movies?
Why don’t your parental movie reviews include ”R” rated movies?
I can’t find a title... is it in your archives?
Why don’t you grade a movie on its artistic values?
Why don’t you assign an age-range to a particular movie?
How is your ”Overall” grade determined?
Why don’t all of your reviews have a grade for Alcohol/Drug Use?
Why don’t your theatrical releases have a Canadian ”CMPDA” rating?

How do you determine your grades?
Each of our reviewers consider many objective and subjective elements when assigning grades to a movie. For a complete description of what each of the grades indicate, please check this page.

What happened to Grading the Movies?
Since 1993, Grading the Movies has helped families make wise entertainment decisions. In 2005 we changed our name to Parent Previews to better reflect the nature of what we do. This new name also provides a broader scope than just movies. We are now offering video game reviews as well, and plan to add other media in the future. Rest assured, we are still an independent entity, and will continue to offer the same honest and candid reviews for parents that we have built our reputation upon.

Why don’t your parental movie reviews include ”R” rated movies?
Most readers come to our site to find entertainment their family or children can enjoy. That’s why we feel our audience is most interested in ”G,” ”PG,” and ”PG-13” rated movies. When a movie acquires a ”PG-13” rating or less, the industry is suggesting these titles are appropriate for children and/or teens. So these are the products we want to concentrate our parental movie review resources on, giving you greater details. about the content in order for you to make informed decisions.

The ”R” rating (and the more restrictive ”NC-17” rating) should already be a strong message to parents that the film is unlikely suitable for children or teens. On occasion however, we will review an R-rated title with high teen interest or significant mass audience appeal.

I can’t find a title... is it in your archives?
In light of the previous question, you usually won’t find titles with an MPAA ”R” or ”NC-17” rating in our archives. As well, although we have been screening films since 1993, there are some titles we have missed. We originally started reviewing one movie per week, so for the first few years (from about 1993 to 1999) some titles may not be available. In 2000, we began reviewing classic and older titles that were releasing on DVD (and now on Blu-ray and other formats), in order to provide information on many older family films.

Search tip: Look for the "POWER SEARCH" button at the very top right side of the page. This will give you an extensive form through which you can search our library through many different criteria. Also, when looking for a specific title, it will be easier to find if you type in a minimal amount of information. For example, if you were searching for ”Life Is Beautiful,” just enter ”life” as the search criteria. This will bring up all entries with ”life” in the title, but will not exclude the one you were looking for had you spelled ”beautiful” wrong. Also, don’t include the words ”The” or ”A” when they appear at the beginning of a movie title. Or to find ”Pooh’s Heffalump Movie” you could simply enter ”Pooh”.

Why don’t you grade a movie on its artistic values?
Our first priority is in helping parents find movies appropriate for their children. We concentrate on issues that would concern families, such as the theme and content of a film. Certainly a movie’s artistic value is important, and we do report on that as warranted. However, for a purely artistic review, we recommend you check one of the many reviewers found with a simple Google search.

Why don’t you assign an age-range to a particular movie?
We feel every child is different, and so is every family. We hope to provide enough information that parents can make an informed decision as to what is appropriate for their child.

How is your ”Overall” grade determined?
This is the most subjective grade in our "Report Card." Readers have asked why a movie with ”A” and ”B” grades in the content categories only ranked a ”C” in the overall category, or vice-versa.

First, remember our overall grade is not an average of the other grades. The above example (high content grades, low overall grade) most likely occurs with some ”G” or ”PG” rated movies, where there is little objectionable content, yet the production offers few redeemable features either in message or quality.

Likewise, on rare occasions, we may find films that have violence, language, or sexual content, yet offer a story or theme with unusually strong positive values, and/or include consequences for inappropriate behavior and important teaching messages. The Overall Grade gives our reviewers an opportunity to recommend these movies, while still warning families about objectionable content.

Why don’t all of your parental movie reviews have a grade for Alcohol/Drug Use?
When we originally developed the column, alcohol and drug use (including cigarettes) were not included in our grading system. This was added in 1999.

Why don’t your theatrical releases have a Canadian ”CMPDA” rating?
In Canada, theatrical releases are classified by various provincial government agencies. This means the same movie showing in different provinces could have a different rating. During 1995, in an attempt to help Canadian parents select appropriate video titles, the CMPDA (Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association) began assigning ratings to their video releases. They base these on the average rating a movie received from the various provincial classification boards during its theatrical release.

Although CMPDA ratings appear similar to those assigned by the MPAA’s in the United States, the two systems are based on very different scales. Bottom line: What receives a PG in Canada may be very different than what you would find in a PG rated film in the US. You may also notice some of the titles in our archives list N/A by the Canadian rating. These are titles reviewed prior to our inclusion of the CMPDA ratings. The CMPDA ratings are added to a title when it releases on video.