There is no shortage of places to find out who’s in a movie. You can pull up a cast list in seconds. You can read a critic’s take, scroll through audience reviews, check the box office numbers, find out which award it was nominated for, and watch four different trailers cut to make it look like the greatest film of the generation. The internet is very good at telling you who made something, who’s in it, and whether strangers on the internet thought it was worth their time.
Sure, cast lists are great. Knowing whether to actually watch something? Even better. That’s what VidAngel’s Content Guides are for. Think of it as your movie and TV guide. You can get a real breakdown of a show or movie—the summary, the tones and themes, and a look at the explicit content inside—so you can make an informed call before anyone’s committed to the couch.
MPA Ratings & Parents Guide: The Information Gap Nobody Talks About
When was the last time you felt truly, confidently informed about a show or movie before you watched it? Not “I read a review” informed. Not “it has a good rating” informed. Actually informed where you knew what you were walking into before you sat down.
That level of certainty requires a small research project. You check the MPA rating, which tells you just enough to be unhelpful. You hunt down a parents guide buried in a forum somewhere, written by a stranger whose standards may or may not match yours. You try to find timestamps of specific scenes so you know what’s coming and when. You cross-reference two or three different sites and hope the picture that emerges is accurate. It’s a lot of work for something that should be simple. And even after all of it, you’re still kind of guessing.
The rating system was never really designed to answer the questions that matter most to families — not because nobody cared, but because a single letter grade was never going to be able to. PG-13 covers an enormous range of human experience. TV-14 on one show looks nothing like TV-14 on another. The label tells you what category something fits into. It doesn’t tell you what’s actually inside.
So families adapted. They got resourceful. They learned to piece together information from a dozen different places and make their best call. That works. But it’s never been good enough.
VidAngel Content Guides: The Better Way to Know What You’re Getting Into
VidAngel has always been about giving you control over what you watch — letting you filter out the content you don’t want so you can enjoy the things you love on your own terms. And that’s still exactly what we do.
But filtering assumes you’ve already decided to watch something. What about the decision itself?
Introducing VidAngel Content Guides.
Content Guides gives you a clear picture of what’s actually in a show or movie before you press play, before you set your filters, before anyone’s committed to the couch. It’s not a review. It’s not a rating. It’s a real breakdown, built specifically for people who want to make an informed call about their entertainment.
Here’s what you get with every Content Guide:
What’s It About?
A quick, plain-language overview of what the show or movie is actually about. Not the three-paragraph synopsis that somehow tells you nothing. Just a clear summary so you know what you’re walking into — the premise, the general storyline, and what kind of show it actually is.
What’s In It?
Content Guides gives you a visual breakdown of the available filters for any title, so you can see at a glance what kind of explicit content is present and what VidAngel can filter for you. Language, violence, nudity, sexual content: it’s all laid out, so you can make real decisions instead of best guesses.
No more hunting through forums. No more decoding vague rating descriptions. No more hoping the timestamp you found online is accurate. Just a clear picture of what’s in it and exactly what you can do about it.
What’s In It?
Themes, Tones, and Storylines gives you a heads-up on the emotional and narrative territory of a show or movie. Does it explore sensitive topics that might matter to your family? Are there storylines you’d want to know about before they come up? A show can look like one thing from the outside and go somewhere entirely different once you’re in it. Themes, Tones, and Storylines makes sure you’re never caught off guard by something you could’ve seen coming.
Be Informed Before You Press Play
Here’s how easy it is to make an informed decision before choosing what to watch:
- Check the Content Guide — What’s it about? What are the themes? What’s in it?
- Make the call — Is this right for tonight? For your family? For you?
- Set your filters — Now that you know what’s in it, dial in exactly what you want to skip.
- Press play — Confidently. Without bracing for anything.
VidAngel has always believed you should be in control of your entertainment. Content Guides is the missing first step, the before to filtering’s during. Together, they give you a complete system for watching things on YOUR terms, from the very first decision all the way through to the end credits.
They tell you who’s in it. We tell you what’s in it.
And honestly? The second one matters more on movie night.
Already a VidAngel subscriber? Content Guides is available now — just search any title to see the full breakdown before you watch.
New to VidAngel? Get started now and see not only what types of content your shows and movies contain but also access hundreds of filtering options for profanity, blasphemy, violence, nudity, and more from your favorite streaming services.
