Classification and Certification of films

Classification is the term used to describe putting films into certain categories in order to restrict access to the material on grounds of age. The five categories which are common in UK cinema are U, PG, 12A, 15 and 18, with specially licensed cinemas being allowed to show R18 movies. 

There are a myriad of reasons as to why films are classified. It protects vulnerable children from accessing content which could potentially cause them harm. There is also a legal obligation for films to be classified, as it is against the law for people under a certain age to view certain things in a film. Finally, films have to be classified properly for societal reasons which consider broader public opinion, especially in regards to language. If a film uses controversial amounts of bad language and people complain that it has been given an unsuitable rating, then the public exhibition of the film can be limited, or even stopped.

All films which are shown in Britain are classified by the British Board of Film Classification, or BBFC. It is a self-regulated body which is made up of film industry representatives. In order to classify films, people from the board liaise with the public to decide on film ratings. However, despite the board giving each film a rating, it is the local councils who decide on the final certificate to give to a film. This system has caused controversy in the past, with Mrs Doubtfire (1993) being rated a PG by many councils, despite some thinking that the film was unsuitable for children under the age of 12 due to the bad language used.

It isn't just films in the cinema which have to be classified by the BBFC - all DVDs and videos for home use have to be classified in the same way. Many DVDs have the same rating as they did in the cinema, but some films release censored versions in order to allow a wider range of people to buy the DVD when it is release. This also means that straight-to-DVD releases have to be classified, as their content must also be restricted for the same reasons. This law came into place as part of there 1984 Video Recordings Act.

On the 24th of February 2014, the BBFC certification guidelines are changing slightly, in order to keep up to date with public opinion. The main change will be else tolerance of bad language at a U level, but allowing more bad language in a 15 before it is pushed to an 18, as rating a film as 18 cuts out a key share of the target audience of most films. 

The most controversially rated film of the past 5 years was 'Woman in Black', which many viewers thought contained scenes too distressing for children as young as 12 to be watching unaccompanied. However, on a later survey, it transpired than only 11% of viewers thought that the film should have been re-rated as a 15, with 89% voting that it should remain rated as a 12.