The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes: parents' guide
Best for ages 14 and up. Rated PG-13 for strong violent content and disturbing material.
A grim prequel for older teens that follows a young Coriolanus Snow, the future tyrant, as he mentors a District 12 girl in the 10th Hunger Games. It is darker than the original films: children kill each other with blades, poison and snakes, rebels bomb the arena, and the government hangs and shoots people, including characters we come to know. Flashbacks show wartime starvation, and we learn that Snow's parents died during the war. A school dean is addicted to an opioid-like drug and is seen using it. Language is minimal and romance stays at kissing. We suggest 14 for the cruelty and the hangings.
What's in it
Violence
StrongFrequent and sometimes grisly: tributes are speared, clubbed, poisoned and bitten by swarms of snakes, a mentor is stabbed in the neck with broken glass, a boy is beaten to death, and people are hanged and shot.
Language
MildVery little: one "ass" and one "piss," plus Capitol characters calling district people "savages" and "trash." No f-words or s-words noted.
Sex and nudity
MildCoriolanus and Lucy Gray hold hands, embrace and kiss several times. He is shown shirtless while showering and changing, and teens swim in underwear. No sexual situations.
Drinking, drugs and smoking
StrongDean Highbottom, addicted to an opioid-like drug called morphling, is shown using it many times and appears high at a public event. People drink and get drunk in a tavern, and a teen girl swigs from a bottle.
Scary or intense scenes
StrongDisturbing material throughout: tributes caged in a zoo and denied food, bats attacking a train car, a snake-bite victim whose skin turns scaly, executions by hanging, and a flashback of children seeing a man about to cut up a corpse for food.
Sensitive topics
- Death of a child
- Death of a parent
- Addiction
Worth talking about
The film keeps asking whether people are naturally violent or are shaped by fear and power. Where could Coriolanus have chosen differently, and why didn't he?
On our lists
Similar picks around 14+
Checked October 13th, 2026 against Common Sense Media, Plugged In, movieguide.org. 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.