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Movie · Comedy, Fantasy · 2003 · PG

Elf: parents' guide

6+our pick

Best for ages 6 and up. Rated PG for some mild rude humor and language.

A broad, sweet-natured holiday comedy that most families can share with school-age kids. Will Ferrell plays Buddy, a human raised by elves at the North Pole, who travels to New York to find his workaholic birth father. The humor is mostly slapstick and bathroom gags. Parents should expect a handful of mild swear words, a played-for-laughs scene in which Buddy gets drunk after mistaking whiskey for syrup, a locker-room shower scene with nothing shown, and a passing mention that Buddy's birth mother has died. Nothing is truly scary, though the climactic sleigh chase has some peril.

What's in it

Violence

Mild

Cartoonish slapstick throughout: Buddy is bumped by a taxi, brawls with a fake department-store Santa, is attacked by an angry author and a raccoon, and wins a snowball fight. No one is hurt.

Language

Mild

Roughly a dozen mild words, including hell, damn, crap and pissed, plus phrases like up yours and son of a nutcracker. Several jokes target a little person's height.

Sex and nudity

Mild

Buddy wanders into a women's locker room and sings along while Jovie showers, shown only from the shoulders up. He gives his father lingerie by mistake, and the couple share a kiss.

Drinking, drugs and smoking

Moderate

Buddy pours whiskey into his coffee thinking it is syrup and becomes comically drunk. Adults drink wine at dinner, a store Santa smells of liquor, and inmates smoke in a jail cell.

Scary or intense scenes

Mild

Little that would scare kids. Santa's sleigh loses power and is chased through Central Park by mounted rangers, and Walter's coldness toward Buddy may sadden some children.

Worth talking about

Buddy's family ends up including the elves who raised him and the father he meets as an adult. Talk about the different ways people become a family.

Where to stream →

On our lists

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Checked October 24th, 2026 against Common Sense Media, Plugged In, Wikipedia, bbfc.co.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.