This Film Is Not Yet Rated

This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006) is Kirby Dick's investigative documentary, well worth a watch online on iFILM. It asks a deceptively simple question: who decides what American audiences are allowed to see at the movies, and by what rules?

Dick goes after the MPAA, the body that handed out theatrical ratings anonymously for years while owing no one an explanation. To learn who these people actually are, he hires a private investigator and tracks the board members down by their license plates. Alongside that hunt, filmmakers stung by the NC-17 brand — which all but locks a movie out of theaters — speak up: Kevin Smith, John Waters, Matt Stone, Kimberly Peirce. An uncomfortable pattern emerges. The censors cut sex far more readily than violence, and the big studios somehow get an easier ride.

Dick never lectures; he lays the double standard bare scene by scene and even submits his own film for a rating mid-investigation. A sharp, funny look at American film censorship from the inside out. Stream This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006) online on iFILM.