1984 movie review parents

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Rent 1984 on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

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1984 doesn't fully emerge from the shadow of its source material, but still proves a solid, suitably discomfiting adaptation of a classic dystopian tale.

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Audience reviews, cast & crew.

Michael Radford

Winston Smith

Richard Burton

O'Brien

Suzanna Hamilton

Cyril Cusack

Charrington

Gregor Fisher

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Parents Guide Movies, Games, TV & Web Series, Videos. Age Restriction reason – What & Why

1984 (Film)

1984 Parents Guide

Nineteen Eighty-Four is a 1984 British dystopian science fiction film written and directed by Michael Radford and the film is  based upon George Orwell’s 1949 novel of the same name .

Production companies were Virgin Films, Umbrella-Rosenblum Films, Atlantic Entertainment Group, and Distributed by 20th Century Fox.

Official Poster and Details

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[su_row][su_column size=”1/2″ center=”no” class=””]

[/su_column] [su_column size=”1/2″ center=”no” class=””]

[su_table responsive=”yes”]

[/su_table][/su_column] [/su_row][/su_box]

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Table of Contents

What does “1984 ” is about?

The film follows the life of Winston Smith, a low-ranking civil servant in a war-torn London ruled by Oceania, a totalitarian superstate. Smith (Hurt) struggles to maintain his sanity and his grip on reality as the regime’s overwhelming power and influence persecutes individualism and individual thinking on both a political and personal level.

1984 Parents Age Rating

The film is rated R for sex and nudity.

R Rated means Restricted. Program-rated R is intended to be viewed by mature, adult audiences and may be unsuitable for children under 17. Contains content that is unsuitable for children. Children Under 17 Require Accompanying Parent or Adult Guardian.

• The movie is an overall dark, depressing and suspenseful dystopia that takes place in an extremely authoritarian superstate.
• Sexual content and nudity are there.
• Full frontal female nudity is shown in two scenes.
• Male and female rear nudity in another scene.
• Sex scenes more than one.
• A prostitute lifts her skirt revealing her pubic hair. It is implied that the main character had sex with her afterward.
• There is some violence is also included in the film.
• A bomb explodes near the main character and in a scene, a woman is punched in the stomach.
• The main character is tortured by repeatedly being beaten, having his hair cut off, starvation, sleep deprivation.
• There is a scene in which the main character’s limbs are stretched, he’s tortured with electric shocks, and having his head put into a cage containing ravenous rats.
• The main character and others are shown smoking cigarettes and drinking alcoholic beverages.
• Very rare use of profanity.

1984 Wallpaper and Images

Who is in the cast of 1984 ?

• John Hurt as Winston Smith
• Rupert Baderman as Young Winston Smith
• Richard Burton as O’Brien
• Suzanna Hamilton as Julia
• Cyril Cusack as Mr. Charrington
• Gregor Fisher as Parsons
• James Walker as Syme
• Andrew Wilde as Tillotson
• Merelina Kendall as Mrs. Parsons
• John Boswall as Emmanuel Goldstein
• Roger Lloyd-Pack as Waiter
• Pam Gems as the Washerwoman
• Pip Donaghy as Inner Party Speaker
• Janet Key as the Instructress
• Hugh Walters as Artsem Lecturer
• Shirley Stelfox as the Prostitute
• Corinna Seddon as Winston’s Mother
• Martha Parsey as Winston’s Sister
• Matthew Scurfield and Garry Cooper as Guards
• Rolf Saxon as Patrolman

1984 Official Trailer

1984 age rating and 1984 parents guide.

Know about 1984 Parents Guide. Why 1984 receive this age rating? Read the complete information here about 1984 ratings in the UK, US, Australia, Canada, Ireland, Switzerland, and overseas.

In fact, the age rating is fixed by MPAA ( Motion Picture Association of America TV Series rating system),  BBFC (British Board of Film Classification), and Commons sense, TV Parental Guidelines (A television content rating system in the United States).

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Book Review

• George Orwell
• Fantasy , Science Fiction

Readability Age Range

• Secker & Warburg were the original publishers, but now it's published by many publishers, such as Signet Classic, an imprint of the Penguin Publishing Group
• Prometheus Hall of Fame Award Winner, 1984

Year Published

1984 also known as Nineteen-Eighty-Four written by George Orwell has been reviewed by Focus on the Family’s marriage and parenting magazine .

Plot Summary

Winston Smith works as a clerk in London, the chief city of Airstrip One in the provinces of Oceania. The dystopian nation where Winston lives is ruled by the Party, a totalitarian regime whose key phrases include “War is Peace,” “Freedom is Slavery” and “Ignorance is Strength.” The face of Big Brother, the Party’s figurehead, graces posters on every wall and street corner; the signage warns: “Big Brother is Watching.” Inside every home and workplace, telescreens monitor individuals to ensure their behaviors, facial expressions and even dreams show no indication of dissension. Children are urged to spy on their parents and turn them in for any action that might indicate Party disloyalty. The Party has created its own language, newspeak, that is constantly evolving to eliminate words that don’t promote their orthodoxy. They also preach “doublethink,” where people must believe two opposing thoughts at once if the Party requires it.

Ultimately, the Party seeks to control reality, believing whoever controls the past controls the future, and whoever controls the present controls the past. Government offices, like the one in which Winston works, ensure that any unsavory information about the past is wiped out and rewritten in all publications. The old information is then destroyed as though it never existed. One moment, Party members believe they are at war with the nation of Eurasia. A moment later, they’re told they’ve always been at war with Eastasia, and they are compelled to believe it. Individuals caught rebelling against the Party vanish and are written out of history, becoming “unpersons.”

Winston, unconvinced that the Party is right, begins to rebel in subtle ways. He starts an affair with a co-worker named Julia. He also seeks out a man in his office named O’Brien, whom he believes to be working for the rogue anti-Party group, the Brotherhood. O’Brien gives Winston a book that explains the Party’s tactics. The book talks about the importance of three people classes (in Oceania’s case, the Inner Party, the Outer Party and commoners called proles) and the power struggles between nations that are necessary for keeping these classes intact.

Shortly after Winston has read the book, he and Julia are arrested at their love nest. O’Brien, an operative for the Party, turns them in. He is also Winston’s chief persecutor over the time he spends in prison. Winston is starved, beaten and physically tortured. Worse than that, however, is the mental anguish inflicted to convince him Big Brother and the Party are right. O’Brien explains that the martyrs of old died clutching their beliefs, but that the Party would not allow anyone to die unconverted. In session after session, O’Brien tries to convince Winston that reality exists only in his own mind. If Winston tries hard enough, he can make himself believe what the Party preaches. Winston is finally sent to room 101, where each prisoner meets his deepest fear. Winston’s is rats. When faced with the prospect of being eaten alive by them, he betrays Julia and begs O’Brien to torture her instead of him. Eventually, Winston is completely brainwashed into loving Big Brother and sent back into the world where the Party finds him completely harmless. He encounters Julia once more. They confess their betrayals and no longer have any interest in one another.

Christian Beliefs

The narrator says the proles would be allowed to practice religion if they’d shown any signs of wanting or needing it. A man is imprisoned partly because he allowed the word “God” to remain at the end of a Kipling poem he was revising for the Party. O’Brien’s book likens the Party to the Catholic Church in that one does not achieve membership by inheritance but by opting in.

Other Belief Systems

A woman in Winston’s office cries out that Big Brother is her Savior. Winston tells O’Brien that the world was uninhabited for millions of years. O’Brien objects, saying it is only as old as we are. O’Brien says people could control the laws of nature, such as gravity, if they tried hard enough. He believes power can only be truly asserted when it is done through pain and humiliation. He says God is power, and Party leaders control life, so they are the priests of power. Only in a group setting is power found, he believes, and individuals are infinitely malleable. Winston says he doesn’t believe in God but believes there is something deeper in man, perhaps man’s spirit, that will defeat evil.

Authority Roles

The Inner Party consists of the elite Party members, those who rule and are allowed life’s luxuries. They go to great lengths, including maintaining a constant state of war, to ensure they remain in power. Big Brother is the Party’s figurehead, always watching the actions of Party members. O’Brien will not tell Winston whether Big Brother is a real person, only that he will never die. O’Brien tricks Winston into thinking he (O’Brien) is a dissenter, then betrays Winston. O’Brien shows occasional tenderness in the midst of torturing Winston. He exudes a sense of wisdom and confidence in his beliefs about the Party that intimidates Winston.

Profanity & Violence

The word d–n appears half a dozen times. A woman in prison calls someone the f-word along with b–tard . The Party urges its members to develop passionate, violent tendencies. It televises bloody events, such as a little boy’s arm being blown off. It holds daily and annual Hate festivities to stir the masses into frenzies where they desire to kill or injure others. In one such Hate moment, Winston fantasizes about tying Julia naked to a stake and shooting her full of arrows before raping her and cutting her throat. Adults and children alike revel in the violence of the Party’s monthly public hangings. After a bombing, Winston sees a severed hand and kicks it into the gutter. He tells Julia he’s sorry he didn’t shove his wife off a cliff when he had the opportunity. Winston and Julia tell O’Brien they will do whatever is necessary for the Brotherhood, including distributing addictive drugs, giving others sexually transmitted diseases, throwing sulfuric acid in a child’s face or otherwise killing people. Prisoners, including Winston, are beaten and bloodied until their teeth come out (or are yanked out). Winston is starved and beaten on numerous occasions with fists, boots and steel rods. He often rolls around in his own blood and vomit. As O’Brien prepares to torture Winston with rats, he says the creatures sometimes attack the head and the eyes first and other times burrow through the cheeks and devour the tongue. In terror, Winston begs O’Brien to let the rats tear off Julia’s face or strip her flesh to the bones rather than doing it to him .

Sexual Content

The Party does not permit its members to marry for love or have sex for pleasure. They look upon sex as a “disgusting minor operation” and train people this way from childhood. Young Party members are urged to join the Anti-Sex league. Party leaders are working on a scientific way to abolish the orgasm altogether; they want that level of excitement and energy reserved for pro-Party sentiment. They fear losing control if men and women are permitted to form passionate relationships. Winston talks about his wife’s rigidity and sexual “submission” to him so they could produce a child. He details a sexual encounter with an old prostitute.

The proles have no restrictions on sex and are even granted divorces. The Party produces pornographic, astrological and sensational literature and films for the proles in the Pornosec department. Julia worked there for a while, an indication that the Party felt she had good character.

Winston dreams of Julia flinging off her clothes. Later, they begin a secret love affair. She confesses she’s had many and tells him she wants nothing to do with purity, virtue or goodness, but wants to be corrupt. For both, the affair is as much about rebellion against the Party as it is about sex and relationship. He comments on her breasts and about nakedness in general, and they have sex a number of times.

After his capture, Winston wonders if he’ll be sent to a prison camp. He’s heard they allow homosexuality, prostitution and illicit alcohol use. He confesses (dishonestly) to sexual perversion when he is being tortured.

Discussion Topics

Get free discussion questions for this book and others, at FocusOnTheFamily.com/discuss-books .

Additional Comments

Alcohol: Party members drink a sickly, oily spirit called Victory gin, which burns like nitric acid going down but eventually makes the world look more cheerful. When Julia and Winston visit O’Brien at his home, he gives them wine, a drink reserved for Inner Party members.

Smoking: Winston and other Party members smoke poorly made Victory cigarettes. One of Winston’s co-workers smokes a pipe.

You can request a review of a title you can’t find at [email protected] .

Book reviews cover the content, themes and worldviews of fiction books, not their literary merit, and equip parents to decide whether a book is appropriate for their children. The inclusion of a book’s review does not constitute an endorsement by Focus on the Family.

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STARMAN begins by reminding us of Voyager, that little spacecraft that is even now speeding beyond the solar system. Remember Carl Sagan on the “Tonight” show, explaining to Johnny about all the messages that were on board, in case someday an alien race found this postcard from Earth? Voyager carried greetings in all of the tongues of man, and there is something inevitable about the scene, early in STARMAN, when we get an extraterrestrial visitor who has studied them carefully, and is able to say “hello” a hundred different ways.

The starman of the title is a ball of glowing light. He, or it, has traveled to Earth in response to the invitation from Voyager, but of course the Air Force treats the spacecraft as a possible invader and shoots missiles at it. Knocked off course, the starman lands in rural Wisconsin, where it becomes the identical clone of a dead house painter. The painter’s widow ( Karen Allen ) is stunned when she sees this creature from beyond the grave. It is even more difficult when she realizes this is not her husband, but something infinitely different that just happens to look exactly like her husband. The visitor is very smart, but has a lot to learn, and at first it controls its human host body with a lot of awkward lurching. Meanwhile, government officials led by Richard Jaeckel are seeking the extraterrestrial for “security” reasons, and scientist Charles Martin Smith hopes to get there first and record the historic moment of man’s first meeting with a race from another world.

All of this seems like a setup for a science-fiction movie, but what’s interesting is the way the director, John Carpenter , makes a U-turn and treats STARMAN as a road movie. The visitor (played by Jeff Bridges ) forces Allen to start driving in the direction of the Great Meteor Crater, where he has a rendezvous with his ride home. And as the two characters spend time together as refugees from the search parties, they begin to communicate, and the woman’s initial hostility turns into respect and finally into love. This is a wonderfully sweet process, especially as Allen and Bridges go about it.

STARMAN contains the potential to be a very silly movie, but the two actors have so much sympathy for their characters that the movie, advertised as space fiction, turns into one of 1984’s more touching love stories. Meanwhile, Carpenter provides many of the standard scenes from earlier road movies, including a stop in a roadside diner where the alien’s uncertain behavior draws attention. And there’s an interlude in Vegas where the extraterrestrial tries to outsmart the slots.

The most interesting thing about STARMAN is probably Bridges’s approach to playing a creature from another world. The character grows gradually more human as the film moves along, but he is never completely without glitches: His head movements are birdlike, his step is a little uncertain, he speaks as if there were just a millisecond’s delay between brain and tongue. Actors sometimes try to change their appearance; Bridges does something trickier, and tries to convince us that Jeff Bridges is not inhabited by himself. I think he succeeds, and that STARMAN makes Voyager seem like a good investment.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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‘ghostbusters’: thr’s 1984 review.

On June 8, 1984, America met the Ghostbusters, as the Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd comedy hit theaters nationwide.

By Arthur Knight

Arthur Knight

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On June 8, 1984, America met the Ghostbusters, as the Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd comedy hit theaters nationwide. The Hollywood Reporter’s original review is below: 

Columbia’s Ghostbusters would seem to be just the right film for the silly season — a ghost story that combines action adventure with comedy and high-tech special effects. Although it reunites the comic talents of director Ivan Reitman, writer Harold Ramis and star Bill Murray, the team responsible for the Meatballs phenomenon, their style here is far more laid-back and relaxed. There are still plenty of laughs, but not of the frantic sledgehammer variety. In today’s market, alas, this may not be an advantage.

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'better off dead': thr's 1985 review, 'saratoga': thr's 1937 review.

The film introduces Murray, along with sidekicks Ramis and Dan Aykroyd, as a trio of university parapsychologists who are just too bright and aggressive for the academic life. Losing their research grant, they open their own business — Ghostbusters — and almost at once are summoned to investigate the strange happenings in Sigourney Weaver’s Central Park West apartment. What they discover is that all Manhattan is being besieged by other worldly demons.

As might be expected, their freewheeling but effective extermination techniques are halted by bumbling bureaucracy in the person of health official William Atherton, who insists on shutting down the entire operation — whereupon their ectoplasmic population, in a fine pyrotechnical display, is released into New York’s atmosphere where it rushes in pink streams toward an exotic temple on the roof of Weaver’s apartment house.

Throughout the film the special effects people, headed by Richard Edlund, have obviously had a ball, transforming a little old lady in the New York public library into a howling Banshee, or wrecking the interior of a hotel ballroom with laser beams as the ghostbusters pursue a particularly voracious fuzz green phantom. But once the ghosts start raining on the roof, transforming Weaver herself into a sexy demon, it’s all signals go for the effects crew.

The temple is swathed in a light show. Gargoyles come to life and pursue nerdy Rick Moranis, Weaver’s neighbor, in Central Park. The street in front of the building heaves up spectacularly and masonry showers down on the crowd below. Our heroes’ coordinated laser attack on the demon congregation provides a suitably showy finale.

The plotting may be primitive, but it’s all carried off with far more style and finesse than one might expect from the creators of Animal House and Meatballs , with a special nod to editors Sheldon Kahn and David Blewitt for their sustained pacing of both the comedy and the action. Elmer Bernstein’s score, augmented by half a dozen disco tracks, provides the necessary chills, but with an uptempo that underlines the essential comedy, just as Laszlo Kovacs’ resourceful camerawork augments John De Cuir’s often ingenious production design. — Arthur Knight

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Wonder Woman 1984 Parent Guide

This movie will only amuse viewers who are seeking a film that requires complete escape from reality, thought, or logic..

HBO Max and Cineplex: It's 1984 and Wonder Woman is back in action against a megalomaniacal oil baron and an insecure colleague who craves power and attention.

Release date December 25, 2020

Run Time: 151 minutes

Get Content Details

The guide to our grades, parent movie review by keith hawkes.

Since saving humanity in the Great War, Princess Diana, a.k.a. Wonder Woman (Gal Godot) has settled in Washington, D.C., where she works as an anthropologist at the Smithsonian while rescuing people during her off-hours. But the run-of-the-mill crime she’s been vanquishing is about to be overshadowed by something more exotic. A mysterious stone has been found which grants wishes – at a terrible cost. Unaware of the stone’s powers, Diana yearns for the love of her life, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), who died in the first film. As she grapples with the ramifications of her wish, the stone is spirited away by the determined and nefarious wannabe oil baron Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal), who has other plans for the stone’s remarkable abilities.

Wonder Woman 1984 truly is a movie imbued with Christmas spirit - in the seasonal fever for giving, this film takes 90 minutes of insipid nonsense and gives the unfortunate audience an additional hour of campy gibberish. Never let it be said that this movie held back! Going above and beyond like this really makes this film an experience of such atrocity and duration that I would sooner feed myself foot-first into a woodchipper than sit through it again.

Superhero flicks are usually written for teens and adults. This one might please the former but it will only amuse adults who are looking for a film that requires complete escape – from reality, thought, or logic. With its lack of subtlety or nuance and its glaringly obvious storyline, WW84 feels like a kids’ movie, except it’s two and half hours long, which is precious time you will never get back. The movie comes across as Spy Kids playing dress-up as a Wonder Woman movie and will give adults eyestrain from constant eye rolling.

On the plus side, this production’s bloated run time does not contain a lot of troubling content. There is almost no profanity, only brief non-descriptive sexual references, and minimal social drinking. The only parental issue is the kind of over-the-top sanitized violence that typifies the genre. But none of that matters in light of the fact that it’s it’s completely insufferable and not even vaguely worth watching. I wouldn’t even watch this on an airplane. I’d rather talk to the creepy seatmate who’s hogging the armrest.

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Keith hawkes, watch the trailer for wonder woman 1984.

Wonder Woman 1984 Rating & Content Info

Why is Wonder Woman 1984 rated PG-13? Wonder Woman 1984 is rated PG-13 by the MPAA for sequences of action and violence.

Violence:   There are frequent depictions of “superhero” violence, which include individuals being punched, kicked, and thrown incredibly powerfully. An individual is briefly shown bleeding from the eyes and ears. There are several instances of harassment which end violently. There is a brief depiction of domestic violence against women and children. Sexual Content: There is a brief non-descriptive reference to a sex tape. A couple are seen in bed together but there is no actual sexual activity. A man and woman kiss on several occasions, including in bed. Profanity: There is one use of scatological profanity and very infrequent use of mild curses and terms of deity.  Alcohol / Drug Use: People are seen holding drinks at a major social event. Main characters drink alcohol in a restaurant.

Page last updated October 2, 2021

Wonder Woman 1984 Parents' Guide

What does Diana give up to bring Steve back? What does it cost both of them? How does she come to terms with this?

What is Max Lord’s motivation? Do you think under different circumstances he might not be a villain? Why or why not?

Related home video titles:

This is a sequel to the much better Wonder Woman . Set in the First World War, this movie sees Diana trying to vanquish Ares, the God of War so she can end the slaughter.

For another take on the female superhero genre, you can watch Brie Larsen as the most powerful superhero in the MCU in Captain Marvel .

If you want a funnier, campy take on the superhero genre, Thor: Ragnarok is an excellent choice.

As I mentioned, this movie borrows heavily from Disney’s Aladdin. Warnings about making wishes also abound in Four Kids and It . A frustrated father makes a wish which startlingly comes true in 17 Again .

Threads (1984)

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Farah Cheded

Not a recommendation as such, because Threads is absolutely not for the faint of heart. Proceed with caution.

What it's about

Named for all the connections that form a functioning society, Threads is a harrowing look at what might happen when those ties are rent apart by nuclear war. This British TV movie — released during the Cold War — so violently seized on the nuclear anxieties of the time that its premiere was dubbed “the night the country didn’t sleep.” Depressingly, it hasn’t lost that initial resonance, and so it remains a panic attack-inducing watch.

Threads begins in the kitchen-sink vein of a Ken Loach movie. In the northern industrial town of Sheffield, a young couple from different social classes (Reece Dinsdale and Karen Meagher) discover they’re about to be parents — but looming above their small-scale drama are the clouds of war, as televisions and radios blare out the details of escalating tensions between the US and the USSR. And then, it happens: the town is strategically bombed, and Threads unfurls into an unrelenting nightmare. In the documentary-like approach that follows, it spares no graphic or emotional detail, charting both the personal devastation caused by the bomb and the annihilating impact of the nuclear holocaust on all the vital infrastructure we take for granted. In short, one of the bleakest, most terrifying movies ever made.

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Common Sense Media Review

Language, violence in female-led whistleblower biopic.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Winner is a comedic biopic based on the true story of Reality Winner (Emilia Jones), a former National Security Agency employee who blew the whistle on the U.S. government for covering up Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. An Air Force soldier uses a controller…

Why Age 15+?

Language includes "ass," "f--k," "d--kbag," "a--hole," "s--t," "hell," "bitch,"

An Air Force soldier uses a controller to carry out drone strikes on suspected t

Scenes with kissing, making out, and heavy petting.

Target is mentioned. Other brands, such as Fox News and other news organizations

A character drinks and takes prescription drugs, possibly opioids (the implicati

Any Positive Content?

The film uplifts idealism, activism, and courage to stand for what's right, even

Reality Winner lives by her convictions and is moved by activism and idealism, m

Written and directed by women, the movie focuses on a real woman's story about w

Language includes "ass," "f--k," "d--kbag," "a--hole," "s--t," "hell," "bitch," and phrases such as "bitched him out" and "suck my massive skin flute" (a translated phrase from an Afgan person). Exclamatory use of "Jesus Christ" and "God."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Violence & Scariness

An Air Force soldier uses a controller to carry out drone strikes on suspected terrorists; there are on-screen images of explosions. Descriptions of bodies torn from limbs. Descriptions and depictions of prison torture.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Target is mentioned. Other brands, such as Fox News and other news organizations, are shown.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

A character drinks and takes prescription drugs, possibly opioids (the implication is that they're dependent on the pills). Characters drink alcohol.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

The film uplifts idealism, activism, and courage to stand for what's right, even at personal cost.

Positive Role Models

Reality Winner lives by her convictions and is moved by activism and idealism, much like her dad. While Reality does have shortcomings, such as being too self-centered on her own dreams and goals to consider the feelings of those close to her, she also wants to change the world for the better. She has courage to do hard things, even if those things are technically illegal.

Diverse Representations

Written and directed by women, the movie focuses on a real woman's story about whistleblowing on the American government and serves in part as a commentary on how women are often dismissed in American politics. There's also commentary on how race and xenophobia fueled the government's focus on Reality (by her account, she was painted as a terrorist simply because she has an interest in learning about the Middle East and wanted to help people). That said, there are few characters of color beyond background roles. Reality's ex-boyfriend, Andre, is portrayed by Colombian Mexican actor Danny Ramirez, and Reality's boss at the NSA is played by Black Canadian actor. But the film's female gaze does allow Ramirez' character to be portrayed as a support and mirror for Reality.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Parents need to know that Winner is a comedic biopic based on the true story of Reality Winner ( Emilia Jones ), a former National Security Agency employee who blew the whistle on the U.S. government for covering up Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. An Air Force soldier uses a controller to carry out drone strikes on suspected terrorists, and there are on-screen images of explosions and descriptions and depictions of torture and other violent acts. A character is dependent on painkillers, and several characters drink alcohol. There's kissing and making out, and strong language includes "f--k," "a--hole," "s--t," "Jesus Christ," and more. The film shows how bravery comes in many forms, and activism means standing up for what you believe in. The film is female-led both in front of and behind the camera. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (1)

Based on 1 parent review

What's the Story?

WINNER is based on the true story of Reality Winner ( Emilia Jones ), an Air Force linguist who went to work for the National Security Agency. She eventually blew the whistle on the NSA, revealing to the public that the U.S. government knew there was Russian interference in the 2016 election. Her actions landed her in prison, where she was faced with extreme punishment because, according to her, the government sought to make an example out of her. The film also portrays Winner's home life, including the differences between her social worker mother ( Connie Britton ) and staunchly activist father ( Zach Galifianakis ), her layered relationship with her sister ( Kathryn Newton ), and her intense focus on doing what she feels is right.

Is It Any Good?

This is a fun film that also tells a very serious story about how the U.S. government can turn on its own, even if the public needs to know what the government might be hiding from them. Jones' portrayal of Reality Winner could have easily been grating, seeing how laser-focused Reality is on her activism. But instead of coming off as obnoxious or unlikeable, Reality is funny, cool, and admirable for her convictions. Her flaws do bring her down to a relatable level, as does the fact that she realizes a little too late that prioritizing social friendships and relationships is just as important as being committed to your sense of activism. Overall, Winner is a humanizing portrayal of an American political figure who's been unfairly ridiculed—both for her name and her courage to fight against the system.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about activism. What fuels Reality's sense of activism in Winner ? Can you think of other movies about the subject?

How does Reality's family's dynamic affect her relationships with her mother and father? Do the characters feel realistic?

How are women and female points of view portrayed in the film? Why are diverse representations important in the media?

How does Reality demonstrate courage ? Why is that an important character strength ?

How accurate do you think the film is to what actually happened? Why do filmmakers sometimes change the facts in movies based on real life?

Movie Details

• In theaters : September 13, 2024
• On DVD or streaming : September 13, 2024
• Cast : Emilia Jones , Kathryn Newton , Zach Galifianakis , Connie Britton , Danny Ramirez
• Director : Susanna Fogel
• Inclusion Information : Female directors, Female actors, Latino actors, Female writers
• Studio : Vertical
• Genre : Comedy
• Topics : Activism , Brothers and Sisters
• Character Strengths : Courage
• Run time : 103 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : some strong language, sexual material and drug material
• Last updated : September 14, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

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Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.