The Best Movies for 13-Year-Olds
Thirteen is an awkward age for movie night. Most 13-year-olds have outgrown family films and are curious about what their older friends are watching, and most parents are looking for something in between. These are movies a 13-year-old would pick for themselves: superhero blockbusters, the horror everyone at school is talking about, mysteries, a musical, and a few true stories worth talking over afterward.
Every pick comes from our parents' guide, and the rule is simple: every movie here has a guide age of 11 to 13. Within that range, the most useful question is what kind of content a film carries. Top Gun: Maverick is mostly about language, and Free Guy about language and crude jokes. Five Nights at Freddy's and A Quiet Place are about fear. The Hate U Give and Black Panther take on heavy subjects and suit a family that likes to talk after the credits. Each note says which kind you're dealing with.
If you're unsure where to start, The Half of It, Enola Holmes and Free Solo are the mildest here, while Five Nights at Freddy's and King Richard push their PG-13 the hardest, one with fear and the other with language. The age badge on every title opens its full guide, with swearing counts and the specific scenes to know about. When they're ready for more, try Movies for 15-Year-Olds, Coming-of-Age Movies for Teens and Parents or PG-13 movies with no sex scenes.
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Movie · 2021The surest hit with 13-year-olds: Peter Parker is a high school senior, the jokes land, and villains from earlier Spider-Man films come back. The middle is heavier than the trailers suggest, as a parent figure dies and Peter briefly tries to kill the one responsible. Expect about four s-words, a cut-off f-word, and fights that leave Peter bloodied.
Project Hail Mary
Movie · 2026The newest film here and easy to love: a science teacher wakes alone on a spaceship with no memory and must save Earth, helped by an alien who becomes his best friend. Swearing is very mild. The harder moments: he finds two dead crewmates, gets drunk once, a character is drugged against his will, and the astronauts briefly discuss ending their lives after the mission.
The Half of It
Movie · 2020A quiet, clever teen story for a 13-year-old who prefers people to explosions: shy Ellie Chu ghostwrites a jock's love letters to the girl she secretly likes herself. The content is light for a PG-13. There's a single s-word, some kissing, including between two girls, and a house party where Ellie gets drunk and throws up.
Top Gun: Maverick
Movie · 2022Pure big-screen fun, and nobody needs to have seen the 1986 original to follow it. Maverick trains young pilots, including his late best friend's son, for a near-impossible mission. Parents should know about one f-word and roughly 20 s-words, a night together that's implied but not shown, and grief over the friend's death. The air combat is mostly bloodless.
Enola Holmes
Movie · 2020A 16-year-old detective who outwits both her famous older brothers is an easy sell. Enola runs away to find her missing mother and ends up shielding a young lord from a hired killer. The PG-13 comes from the fights: she is punched, choked and nearly drowned, and a man dies after a blow to the head. Language is mild, and the romance stops at a kiss on the hand.
Five Nights at Freddy's
Movie · 2023If your 13-year-old knows the video games, this is the horror film they're asking about. A night guard at an abandoned pizzeria faces animatronic mascots that kill. The jump scares are frequent and most deaths happen in shadow, though some bloody bodies are shown. No f-words, but the guard leans on sleeping pills. The part to be ready for is the backstory about murdered children, including the guard's little brother.
Hamilton
Movie · 2020A musical plenty of 13-year-olds already know by heart, performed here by the original Broadway cast, which is a different thing from the album. The swearing flies by: one quick, barely audible f-word survives, along with at least five s-words. An affair is staged as a sultry duet, and the Hamiltons losing their son in a duel lands hard.
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
Movie · 2017The group-watch pick: four mismatched teens are pulled into a video game as adult avatars, and Jack Black playing a popular girl is the best joke in it. Avatars die bloodlessly and respawn. Parents should expect a long-running gag about that girl suddenly having male anatomy, a few s-words, and one teen getting tipsy on margaritas.
Godzilla Minus One
Movie · 2023The monster movie for a 13-year-old who thinks they're too old for monster movies. Set in Japan just after the war, it's as much about a pilot's guilt as about Godzilla, and it's in Japanese. Swearing is mild and the romance stays chaste, but the city-flattening attack, mass deaths and a baby orphaned by bombing make it heavy.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Movie · 2022A mystery teens and parents can try to solve together: Benoit Blanc joins a tech billionaire's murder-mystery weekend on a Greek island, and the game turns real. It's more adult than it looks, with two f-words, over two dozen s-words, near-constant drinking and a bikini-clad make-out scene. The violence centers on a fatal poisoning and a shooting with some blood.
The Hunger Games
Movie · 2012The film of the dystopian novel many middle schoolers already know, and the premise is the hard part: children forced to kill each other on live TV. Quick cuts limit the gore, but deaths are shown with blood, and a 12-year-old girl's death is very sad. Swearing is mild, the mentor drinks heavily, and two characters threaten a double suicide.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople
Movie · 2016From the director of Thor: Ragnarok, and just as funny in its dry way: a city foster kid and his gruff foster father go on the run in the New Zealand bush. Two deaths sting, a loving foster parent's and a dog's. Moderate swearing without f-words, a bloody pig hunt, and a running joke built on a false molestation rumor.
Black Panther
Movie · 2018A superhero film with real ideas, about a young king deciding what his hidden country owes the world. Expect bloody ritual duels, a handful of s-words, and a villain who kills coldly, even shooting a woman in the head. A boy finds his murdered father in a flashback, and a wounded character chooses to die rather than face prison, invoking enslaved Africans who leapt from slave ships.
Free Solo
Movie · 2018A documentary a 13-year-old will watch through their fingers: Alex Honnold climbs El Capitan, about 3,000 feet of sheer granite, without a rope. There's no violence, though practice falls hurt him and the film remembers climbers who died. The PG-13 is for one f-word and a few other curses. Hard going for anyone who's afraid of heights.
Dune (2021)
Movie · 2021For the 13-year-old who loves big invented worlds and can sit still for two and a half hours. Battles are huge but mostly bloodless and the swearing is sparse. The darker moments are a parent's death, a painful test with a poisoned needle at Paul's neck, and guards threatening to rape a captive woman before she turns the tables.
The Hate U Give
Movie · 2018The one to watch together when your teen is ready to talk about policing and race. Sixteen-year-old Starr sees a police officer shoot her unarmed childhood friend, and the film follows her grief and anger. The shooting is on screen and upsetting. Expect one or two f-words, about two dozen s-words, teen drinking, and a drug-dealing gang leader who beats his girlfriend's teenage son.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Movie · 2023A fantasy heist comedy that works whether or not anyone in the room has ever rolled a die. Fights kill a lot of people with very little blood, though a cube-shaped monster dissolves one man down to the bones and the undead soldiers look gruesome. About five s-words and some British cursing. Flashbacks reveal the hero's wife was murdered.
Nimona
Movie · 2023An animated adventure with a punk streak, about a shapeshifting teen who helps a knight framed for murder. The two male leads are a couple and share a kiss. Fights include a queen shot dead and an arm cut off. Late on, Nimona, rejected by everyone, tries to end her life and is stopped at the last second.
A Quiet Place
Movie · 2018A strong first horror film: about ninety minutes and nearly silent, so the whole room holds its breath. No swearing or sexual content. The age is for terror and grief: a young child is killed in the opening minutes, a grieving man screams on purpose so a creature will kill him, and a parent dies in front of the children.
King Richard
Movie · 2021A sports film that's really about family: Richard Williams's plan to make Venus and Serena champions, with Will Smith as the stubborn, funny father. Racism is a constant theme, and the Compton setting brings real menace, including a gun held to Richard's head and an on-screen drive-by killing. The n-word is heard about five times, along with one f-word and a couple of s-words.
Twisters
Movie · 2024Big, loud and uncomplicated, which is sometimes exactly what a Friday night needs. Storm chasers race a record outbreak of tornadoes across Oklahoma. In the opening the heroine sees her boyfriend and two friends killed. There are about six s-words, a gory leg gash and plenty of flirting, but no sex scenes. Skip it for a teen who's frightened of storms.
Free Guy
Movie · 2021A comedy for gamers: a background character in an online shooter realizes he can be the hero, with Ryan Reynolds at his most likable. The game mayhem is constant but nearly bloodless, since everyone respawns. The jokes get cruder than the premise suggests, though, with lots of virginity and body-part humor, one f-word and about 15 s-words.
The Martian
Movie · 2015For the science-minded 13-year-old: an astronaut stranded on Mars stays alive by solving one problem after another, and the jokes keep it buoyant. Parents should know about one or two f-words and around ten s-words, a bloody scene where he pulls debris from his own abdomen and staples the wound, and a brief non-sexual shot of him naked from behind.
Superman (2025)
Movie · 2025James Gunn's version is bright, earnest and funny, with a superhero dog, though Superman takes more of a beating than usual. The scene to know about is the villain shooting an unarmed man at close range. A baby is put in danger, there are more than ten s-word variations plus goddamn, and the romance stays at kissing.
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Movie · 1986The skip-school comedy many parents loved at this age, and it still lands. Language is the main issue: frequent s-words, plenty of 'ass' and one f-word. Ferris lies his way through the day with no consequences, which is worth a comment. Cameron's dread of his cold, controlling father gives it a sad streak that teenagers often pick up on.
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Picks are editorial recommendations. Streaming availability changes by region and over time — the “where to stream” links check current availability on JustWatch.