Certificate Ratings

The BBFC (British Board Of Education) are the people behind classifying the ratings of the films we watch. 

Every 4-5 years, the BBFC carries out a major public consultation exercise to find out what the public thinks about the age rating of films and videos before they are released and whether the BBFC’s classification standards meet public concerns.

The main issues that are addressed when allocating a film (for example) are :

• Discrimination - 
  Potentially offensive content, relating to such matters as race, gender, religion, disability or sexuality.
• Drugs - 
  No work taken as a whole may promote the misuse of drugs and any detailed portrayal of drug misuse likely to promote or glamorise the activity may be cut. 
• Horror - 
  The use of frightening elements which might scare or unsettle an audience is part of a long tradition of story telling and film making. 
• Language - 
  Many people are offended, some of them deeply, by bad language. This may include the use of expletives with a sexual, religious or racial association, offensive language about minority groups and commonly understood rude gestures. 
• Imitable behaviour - 
  Classification decisions will take into account any detailed portrayal of criminal and violent techniques, and any glamorisation of easily accessible weapons, such as knives.  
• Nudity - 
  Natural nudity with no sexual context is acceptable at all classification levels, but will not occur more than occasionally in the lowest category. 
• Theme - 
  Classification decisions will take into account the theme of a work, but will depend significantly on the treatment of that theme, and especially the sensitivity of its presentation. 
• Sex - 
  The portrayal of sexual activity can range from kissing and verbal references to ‘making love’, to detail of real sex. This is reflected in the classification system, in which progressively stronger portrayals are allowed as the categories rise. 
• Violence - 
  Violence has always been a feature of entertainment for children and adults. Classification decisions will take account of the degree and nature of any violence in a work.