Romeo + Juliet: parents' guide
Best for ages 14 and up. Rated PG-13 for scenes of contemporary violence and some sensuality.
A loud, stylish modern-dress Shakespeare that works for high schoolers, especially those studying the play, if parents are ready for its guns, drugs and ending. The feuding families are rival gangs in a sun-baked city, swords become handguns, and the original verse stays. Expect shootouts, a gas station explosion, two killings, a party where Romeo takes an ecstasy pill and trips, a non-explicit wedding night, and the double suicide shown on screen, one by poison and one by gunshot. There is no modern profanity. Age 14 reflects the suicides and the drug use.
What's in it
Violence
ModerateFrequent gun battles, fistfights and car chases, a gas station explosion, and a gun pointed at a child's face. One man is fatally wounded in a brawl, another is shot several times, and a teen shoots herself in the head, with blood. A father strikes his daughter.
Language
NoneNo modern profanity. The dialogue is Shakespeare's verse, so the insults and bawdy puns are in Elizabethan English that most young viewers won't recognize as swearing.
Sex and nudity
ModeratePassionate kissing, including in a swimming pool, and a wedding night in bed with sex implied, a brief glimpse of a young man's bare buttocks and partly obscured female nudity. Mercutio's bawdy jokes, his drag performance at the party and references to prostitution add innuendo.
Drinking, drugs and smoking
StrongRomeo swallows an ecstasy pill on the way to a party and the film shows him hallucinating. Characters, teens included, smoke and drink throughout, a priest brews potions, and Romeo buys poison and drinks it.
Scary or intense scenes
ModerateThe final scene, in which both young lovers die by suicide moments apart, is intense and sad. The shootouts are loud and chaotic, Juliet's father explodes at her in rage, and the drug-hazed party is disorienting.
Sensitive topics
- Suicide
- Domestic abuse
Worth talking about
Romeo and Juliet make life-and-death choices within days of meeting. Talk about how the adults' feud and failure to listen push them toward tragedy, and where they could have found help instead.
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Checked October 13th, 2026 against Common Sense Media, Plugged In, the-numbers.com, Wikipedia, movieguide.org, 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.