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Titanic | 1997 | PG-13 | - 6.6.5
The infamously unsinkable ship sinks spectacularly in this love story directed by James Cameron: An upper crust girl (Kate Winslet) engaged to a wealthy man (Billy Zane) and a third-class passenger (Leonardo DiCaprio) fall in love while aboard the iceberg-bound ship. Also with Frances Fisher, Gloria Stuart, Bill Paxton, Kathy Bates and Victor Gaber. Directed by James Cameron. [3:14]
SEX/NUDITY 6 - It is implied that a 17-year-old girl and a young man have sex in a car (we see a hand on a steamed-up car window and he gropes her clothed breast): we see the young man on top of the girl (implied to be post-coital) with a portion of his bare back visible and a blanket wrapped around the girl's chest; the young man pants and we see them kissing passionately.
► A 17-year-old girl tells a young man that she wants him to draw her wearing only a necklace and we see her drop her robe slowly (a portion of her bare buttocks and her bare breasts are shown as she poses on a couch), we see the young man glancing back and forth at the girl's nude body as he draws and we see the drawing of the girl's nude body appear on the paper, including her bare breasts as a woman narrates that she (as a 17-year-old girl) had enjoyed herself, and saying it was "the most erotic thing in her life"; a man makes a rude remark to his teenage fiancée about the girl "putting her clothes back on." A woman slowly washes mud from a drawing of a 17-year-old girl (full-frontal nudity, including her bare breasts is visible); we then see the drawing being displayed during a television report and a woman tells a man that she is the young woman in the picture. A 17-year-old girl flips through a series of drawings of nude models (bare breasts are visible in the drawings) and a young man jokes that lots of women in Paris are willing to take their clothes off; the girl asks the young man if he had an affair with a woman whose drawing we see multiple times, and the young man dismisses it. A man discovers a nude drawing of his teenage fiancée (we see her bare breasts in the drawing).
► A 17-year-old girl and a young man kiss passionately. A young man and a 17-year-old girl kiss and the girl wraps her arms around the young man's neck. A young man and a 17-year-old girl kiss passionately and hold hands while two young men watch them and one young man makes a remark that the young man and the girl are "warmer." A young man and a 17-year-old girl kiss multiple times. A 17-year-old girl and a young man embrace and kiss.
► A young man holds a 17-year-old girl close to his chest as they dance. A young man wraps his arms around a 17-year-old girl's waist, holding her hands. A young man kisses a 17-year-old girl's hand. A man kisses another man on the cheek in celebration. A young man kisses a 17-year-old girl's hand in greeting.
► A man shouts at a young man for touching the man's teenage fiancée. An elderly woman jokingly asks a group of people if she needs to explain that she (as a 17-year-old girl) and a young man "did it" (meaning sex). A 17-year-old girl tells a man that he should read into Freud concerning the man's obsession with size and the man later remarks that he does not know Freud. A 17-year-old girl tells a young man that a woman designs "naughty lingerie." A 17-year-old girl tells a young man that a man's wife (a teen girl) is pregnant and it is scandalous, but does not explain.
VIOLENCE/GORE 6 - We watch as many people drown in icy water after a massive vessel sinks; we hear people screaming in the distance and see lifeless frozen bodies floating in the water next to a young man and a 17-year-old girl. A young man struggles in the water near a 17-year-old girl floating on a piece of wood and assures the girl that she will live and "die an old lady in her bed"; we watch as the young man slowly becomes frozen in the water, the girl tries to wake him and realizes he is dead, and she lets go of the young man's frozen hand and his body quickly sinks.
► Men on a lifeboat slowly make their way through crowds of dead and frozen bodies; we see many bodies, including a woman holding an infant in her arms and people with twisted, frozen expressions on their faces.
► A man shoots a man as he tries to leap onto a boat and he shoots a second man who falls to the ground (we later see blood on the life vest that was removed from the dead man); moments later as a crowd watches, the man turns the gun on himself and fires (the impact of the shot sends his body overboard as people watch in horror).
► We see various people resign themselves to dying on a sinking ship, including a man telling a 17-year-old girl and a young man that he is going to "go down with the ship"; an older man and older woman are seen lying side by side on a bed as water rises around them; a woman tucks her young boy and girl into bed and it is implied that they all drown; an older man and a young man tell a man that they are "going to die in their finest"; and we see the windows of a room where a man is standing shatter and the room instantly fills with water.
► A boat is seen sinking and many people are seen leaping from the side of the boat into freezing water (it is implied that they all die); water quickly fills rooms, the water pressure sucks a man through a window, water pours through a cabin, we see many people swept up in the water and moments later we see a woman's lifeless body float through the water-filled cabin.
► Men and women slide down a sinking ship's deck as it becomes upright in the water. A man leaps from the edge of a boat; we see his body slam into a propeller. A boat begins to buckle and snap in half; we see people scream as the ship crashes down on other people trying to swim away. Many people try to hold onto a boat as it tips sideways; we see people falling, including multiple people losing their grip and hitting pipes and gates as they fall to their deaths. Half of a ship is sucked underwater and we see a 17-year-old girl surface, unable to locate a young man in the crowd of screaming people fighting to swim; a man grabs the 17-year-old girl's head to try to stay afloat when a young man punches the man in the face.
► Many people shove against gates trapping them in a sinking ship; a man pulls a gun and two other men pull out axes as the people try to surge against the gates while several young men use a bench to break through the gate.
► Several men and women shout and surge toward a boat, and another man shouts and threatens to shoot them "like dogs." We see a man using an oar to shove people away from lifeboats. A man grabs a woman and pulls her off a lifeboat.
► We see as a large boat crash into an iceberg, the ice tears through the side of the boat, water pours in through the ripped metal and we see men running as the water pours in; many men are seen running to escape the water, including men trapped in quickly filling rooms; ice cracks and pours onto the deck of the boat, and two men are struck by chunks of ice as a young man and a 17-year-old girl back up for safety.
► A young man lifts up a crying child as he and a 17-year-old girl run through a flooding hallway, a man grabs the child from the young man's arms and seconds later we see a surge of water fill the hallway, knocking down the man and the child (they are presumably killed); the water pushes the young man and the 17-year-old girl against a gate and moments later, before the water fully covers them, he unlocks the gate and they escape. Several people attempting to swim away from a boat are implied to be killed when cables snap and a pipe falls on top of them.
► A man chases a young man and the man's teenage fiancée; he fires an entire clip of bullets at the two as they run through a flooding ship. Men pull groups of men and women apart. A man grabs a woman and places her into a boat as she shouts.
► A young woman punches a man in the face, and the impact causes him to hit a wall and his nose is bloodied. A man is about to punch a young man in the face but punches another man, who falls to the ground as the young man runs away. A man slaps his teenage fiancée, and her head whips back from the impact as he grabs her arms. A man shouts at his teenage fiancée, he grabs her arm and spits in her face. A man screams at a 17-year-old girl (his fiancée) and angrily flips over a table when another teen girl (a servant) comes to her aid. A 17-year-old girl shouts and shoves a man into an elevator. A man shoves his way past a group of people; we see one of the men spin around from being shoved. A man roughly grabs a young man at another man's instruction, and we see the man pull off the young man's coat and accuse him of stealing a necklace; a third man roughly pulls the young man away, handcuffing him as he is shouting that he's innocent and we see the young man handcuffed to a pipe as a man cocks a gun and tells another man that he will watch the young man. We see two men arm wrestling. A woman shouts at a teen girl (her daughter), chiding her as she violently yanks the laces of the girl's corset.
► A young man instructs a 17-year-old girl to use an axe to cut his handcuffs and she successfully snaps the chain. As a young man, handcuffed to a pipe watches water pour into the room he is standing in, he remarks to himself, "This is going to be bad." A man tries to calm his visibly upset daughter, who cries as he assures her that they will meet up again later.
► A man tells a group of men that a boat will sink in an hour, two hours at most. A 17-year-old girl tells her mother that over half the people on a boat will die. A man tells another man that over half of 2,200 people on board a ship will die when the ship sinks. We see a man show an elderly woman a digital recreation of a boat sinking, snapping in half and sinking and the man makes dramatic noises.
► An elderly woman tells several people that 1,500 people had died from freezing and drowning after a boat sank, and of the 1,500 people there were only six people (including herself) that had been rescued from the water. An elderly woman tells several people that a man had "put a pistol in his mouth" after losing his money. A man tells another man that everyone who knows about a diamond should be "dead." A young man tells a teen girl that his parents had died. While narrating a film, a man says that if windows on a submarine would give way it would be "sayonara." A 17-year-old girl tells her adult fiancée that she had been leaning over the edge of a boat and almost slipped, but a young man had saved her. An elderly woman dramatically narrates that as a young woman she boarded a ship as though it were a "slave ship" and she was being "taken back in shackles." A 17-year-old girl tells a young man that she feels like she is in the middle of the room screaming and no one hears her. A young man dramatically tells a 17-year-old girl that she will "die" if she remains in a relationship with a man.
► A young woman pants and cries while running across a boat's deck, she climbs onto the bough and is about to jump, a young man watches her, she leans over the edge, the young man tells her not to jump, she threatens to jump, the young man warns her that jumping into cold water is like having "a thousand knives all over your body" and moments later he helps pull her to safety when she slips and almost falls over the edge; with the help of several men, she pulls herself over the edge and is unharmed but shaken.
► We see a man being examined for lice, and we later hear a young man tell a man that he and another young man "do not have lice" after the man asks if they have been through inspections. We see several dogs being walked and a young man makes a crude remark about dogs defecating. A young man instructs a 17-year-old girl how to spit (we hear the young man making snorting and "hawking" noises) and we see both the young man and 17-year-old girl spit and the young man is surprised by a woman and swallows his spit.
► A young man playfully punches another young man in the arm. A young woman and a young man playfully run through a hallway, accidentally running into a man.
LANGUAGE 5 - At least 1 F-word, 1 obscene hand gesture used by a teen girl, 13 scatological terms, 3 anatomical terms, 24 mild obscenities, name-calling (moron, gutter rat, undertaker of a man servant, no picnic, spoiled little brat, almost pass for a gentleman, vulgar, boyo, rude, uncouth, presumptuous, annoying, crazy, filth, poor little rich girl, moron, liar, far too difficult to impress, look a fright, stupid, limey, out of your mind), exclamations (shut that hole in your face, bullocks, bugger me, shut up, blimey, bloody), 8 religious profanities, 25 religious exclamations.
SUBSTANCE USE - We see two young men and two men drinking liquor and smoking cigarettes, a man offers a teen girl brandy, a man drinks champagne, a man sprays several other men with champagne and drinks some of it, several people including a teenage boy and girl drink champagne, we see men and women and teenage boys and girls drinking beer, a teen girl remarks that she "knows how to drink," a young man teases a teen girl that they will "drink beer until they throw up" and chew and spit tobacco, a woman tells a story and we hear the punch line that a man had been drunk, a teen girl tells a young man that several men smoke cigars and drink brandy, and a man orders a brandy. A teen girl smokes a cigarette, a teen girl's mother chides her for smoking and the teen girl's adult boyfriend takes the cigarette out of her mouth, throughout the movie we see a young man smoking cigarettes (including bumming cigarettes from men), throughout the movie we see men smoking, and a man throws a cigar overboard of a ship.
DISCUSSION TOPICS - Disappointment, the historic crash of the Titanic, star-crossed lovers, class differences, fate, risk, abusive relationships, keeping secrets.
MESSAGE - True love never dies.
CAVEATS
Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.
We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.
Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.
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We are a totally independent website with no connections to political, religious or other groups & we neither solicit nor choose advertisers. You can help us keep our independence with a donation.
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Become a member of our premium site for just $2/month & access advance reviews, without any ads, not a single one, ever. And you will be helping support our website & our efforts.
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We welcome suggestions & criticisms -- and we will accept compliments too. While we read all emails & try to reply we do not always manage to do so; be assured that we will not share your e-mail address.