The Ring: parents' guide
Best for ages 14 and up. Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, disturbing images, language and some drug references.
A creepy, atmospheric horror mystery for teens who can handle dread and dark themes. A reporter investigates a videotape that seems to kill anyone who watches it within a week, and her young son ends up seeing it too. It leans on eerie images and a few jump scares more than gore, but it includes two suicides, a horse's violent death, a girl murdered by her mother and corpses with twisted faces. Language includes around ten s-words. The disturbing images and suicide content, more than any blood, are why we suggest 14.
What's in it
Violence
ModerateA man electrocutes himself in a bathtub, a panicked horse leaps off a ferry into the propellers, a girl is smothered by her adoptive mother and dropped into a well, and the boy's father is killed by the ghost. Gore is limited.
Language
ModeratePlugged In counted about ten s-words plus milder curses, and Common Sense notes one "f--king." Also "bitch" and "damn," with God's and Jesus' names used as exclamations nearly ten times.
Sex and nudity
MildNo sex scenes. A woman is seen in her underwear and briefly in the shower, in non-sexual moments, and the cursed tape flashes an image of writhing bodies with nothing explicit shown. A teen girl is said to have spent a night with her boyfriend.
Drinking, drugs and smoking
ModerateAdults and teens smoke cigarettes, and the reporter bums one from an underage girl. Teens joke about stealing Vicodin, and an adult wonders whether a dead teen was on drugs. Marijuana is mentioned.
Scary or intense scenes
StrongSustained dread built on a nightmarish videotape, sudden nosebleeds, faces frozen in terror, a body decaying in seconds and a waterlogged ghost girl crawling out of a TV. A young boy is in danger throughout.
Sensitive topics
- Suicide
- Child abuse
- Death of a child
- Animal death
- Death of a parent
Worth talking about
The ending asks whether it is right to save yourself and your family by putting strangers at risk. Talk about where your teen would draw that line.
On our lists
Similar picks around 14+
Checked October 13th, 2026 against Common Sense Media, Plugged In, movieguide.org, the MPA, Wikipedia, christiananswers.net, bbfc.co.uk, Rotten Tomatoes. 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.