Business Research

Certificate 18 films

Certificates are issued by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC). In their opinion the film, video or game should not be seen or purchased by a person under 18 years old. The 18 certificate was only created in 1982. For a film to be classified as an 18 in will contain some of the following; hard drug use, supernatural horror, explicit sex, sadistic violence and sexual violence.

Until recently sexual violence and sadistic violence were not even issued a certificate and were seen as not acceptable. According to the BBFCwebsite no drugs promotion is tolerated, only films showing effects of drug misuse are given a classification. The use of bad language in films depends on the language being used; mild bad language could be given a certificate 15 but frequent bad language will be classified as an 18.

Natural nudity is allowed for all classification levels, with sexual content resulting in more restrictive classifications.

If the theme to the film is racial, sexual, paedophilia, drugs or violence it may be classified as a 15 but in most cases will be given certificate 18.