Come and See: parents' guide
Best for ages 17 and up. Not formally rated.
A harrowing Soviet film about the Nazi occupation of Belarus, best saved for mature older teens studying the history and watching with an adult. A village boy joins the partisans and witnesses atrocity after atrocity: his family is killed, he tries to drown himself in a bog, a cow is machine-gunned for real on camera, a young woman is gang-raped offscreen and seen bleeding afterward, and a whole village, children included, is locked in a barn and burned alive. It ends with real footage of Nazi crimes. Profanity and sexual content are minimal. The sexual violence, suicide attempt and relentless horror are why we suggest 17.
What's in it
Violence
StrongSoldiers herd villagers into a barn, toss a fleeing child back inside, then burn everyone in it and shoot survivors. A young woman is gang-raped offscreen and later seen bleeding. Executed villagers lie heaped up, and a cow is genuinely killed by machine-gun fire.
Language
ModerateSubtitled dialogue includes some s-words, bastards, goddammit and asshole, plus the antisemitic slur Yid. Swearing is infrequent compared with the violence.
Sex and nudity
MildA girl kisses the boy, and soldiers grab at a woman with clear sexual intent before the assault described under violence. No sex scenes or sexual nudity.
Drinking, drugs and smoking
ModerateSome German soldiers are visibly drunk as they round up and attack villagers, a few characters smoke, and an empty liquor bottle is tossed from a plane.
Scary or intense scenes
StrongSustained horror throughout. After learning his mother and sisters were murdered, the boy pushes his head under bog water to drown himself until others drag him out. Long scenes of mass panic, shelling that half-deafens him, and closing real atrocity footage overwhelm many adults.
Sensitive topics
- Sexual assault
- Suicide
- Death of a parent
- Death of a child
- Animal death
Worth talking about
The film was made to show what the occupation did to ordinary villages; a closing title notes that 628 Belarusian villages were destroyed. Why might filmmakers show atrocity this directly, and why does remembering it matter?
On our lists
Similar picks around 17+
Checked October 13th, 2026 against Common Sense Media, Wikipedia, bbfc.co.uk, zooscope.group.shef.ac.uk. The age is our judgment, not an official rating, and every family draws its lines differently: read the notes, not just the number. Spotted something we missed? Tell us. How we rate.