Families are in for a treat this summer with a slew of family-friendly movies in theaters and on streaming platforms.
Lilo & Stitch is a box office smash, along with A Minecraft Movie. The How to Train Your Dragon live action film is expected to open above $75 million. All are rated PG.
While it's not exactly news that G and PG-rated films perform well with audiences, particularly families, news headlines tout that Hollywood has “finally” realized that these films do well at the box office.
The Los Angeles Times recently wrote about this phenomenon, proclaiming that “The PG rating has made a major comeback in Hollywood.” The Wall Street Journal wrote, “PG-rated films that appeal to parents, nostalgic childless adults, and children are on a hot streak.”
We hope that streak continues.
I have every reason to believe that it will, as other film studios like Angel Studios released The King of Kings in April and Heroic Pictures released The American Miracle—Our Nation is No Accident in June.
The King of Kings “set a record for the biggest opening weekend for an animated faith-based film with $19 million in ticket sales from 3,200 theaters domestically,” according to Forbes.
Certainly, our country, and our world, could use more heartwarming stories with multi-generational appeal and free of graphic sex, violence, and profanity.
U.S. box office sales bear this out as desirable, as in 2024, PG-rated films made up one-third of ticket sales – the largest percentage since 1995, reports Axios.
The same Axios report revealed how well films that appeal to families did in 2024: Disney’s Inside Out 2 became the “highest grossing animated film of all time,” Disney’s Moana 2 made “a whopping 221 million in domestic sales” over the Thanksgiving weekend, Universal’s Despicable Me 4 made $122 million over the July 4th weekend.
In other words, films that appeal to families are successful.
But Hollywood has to invest in movies that appeal to the whole family. That might mean they forego using explicit language, or they don’t show a graphic sex scene that was probably not necessary to the plot.
The King’s Speech is a prime example of a film that could have left the explicit language out while still receiving the accolades that it did. Originally rated R due to a few scenes of explicit language, the film went on to win several Oscars, and one for Best Picture. While not exactly a film for young children, it could have broadened its appeal to families with teens, except for the barrage of “f-words.”
What has historically been true in Hollywood is that the less restrictive the film’s rating, the better a movie tends to perform at the box office. So a PG-13 film is generally more profitable than an R-rated film; PG movies tend to be more profitable than PG-13; G-rated movies are the best performers overall.
Hollywood also believes that for any film to be considered a serious contender for a “Best Picture” Academy Award nomination, it needs to have an R-rating.
The most noteworthy thing about many of the titles nominated for “Best Picture” in 2025 is their near-total obscurity: Nickel Boys grossed only $2.7 million; Emilia Perez, only $15.4 million; I’m Still Here, $27.3 million; and The Brutalist, $36.6 million.
These are the oh-so-serious, “art” films that Hollywood loves to congratulate itself over. They seldom gain traction at the box office, and most people aren’t even aware of their existence until the nominations list is released. That’s why films like Anora, a “Cinderella story” about a sex worker which definitely deserves the R-rating due to its graphic sex scenes, nudity, explicit language, and drug use – but grossed less than $40 million at the box office – end up on the list of nominees (and wins).
It's time to break this cycle. It’s time for the industry to think differently.
In many ways, Hollywood is still recovering from the pandemic when theaters were closed. With entertainment a big part of many families’ lives, it behooves the entertainment industry to really focus on appealing to families.
And I bet that this summer’s PG-fare will give us more evidence of success.
Melissa Henson is the vice president of the Parents Television and Media Council (PTC), a nonpartisan education organization advocating responsible entertainment. On X: @ThePTC
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