Megalopolis | 2024 | R | – 7.6.7

Why is “Megalopolis” rated R? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “sexual content, nudity, drug use, language and some violence.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes references to sex with a minor, a woman offering herself to a man several times without success, a woman using coercion to have sex with a man, a few implied sex scenes, an implication of infidelity, numerous scenes of non-sexual partial nudity, a man being shot in the face by a child, a woman being shot with an arrow, a woman drowning in a car, two men being strung up by the feet and beaten by a crowd of people, several arguments, and over 20 F-words and other strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

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A man (Adam Driver) with both a vision for the future and the apparent power to stop time, tries to convince a city’s government to allow him to create a utopia for all citizens. However, others insist on a different path. Also with Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Talia Shire, Jason Schwartzman, Kathryn Hunter, Grace VanderWaal, Chloe Fineman, James Remar and D.B. Sweeney. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. [Running Time: 2:18]

Megalopolis SEX/NUDITY 7

 – A woman orders a man to kiss her buttocks after lifting her skirt and the man does so; she then presses his face between her legs and sits on a table (implying oral sex), and she tells him to take off his pants and get on the table where she straddles him and thrusts, kisses her bare chest (we see cleavage), she straddles his face (implying oral sex) and we see the man’s pubic hair and the woman’s bare buttocks and legs. A woman lies on a bed, a man sits at the foot of the bed and she knees between his legs (suggesting oral sex); the woman straddles the man and thrusts as the man caresses her (we see her bare buttocks) and kisses her bare cleavage. A video is shown where a woman straddles a man in bed and thrusts before they realize that they are being filmed (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details).
► A man jokes about his wife causing him to have an erection, as a blanket over his legs is elevated at his groin (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details). A woman stands on a stage and a man standing behind her pushes his hand through her skirt pushing the fabric in the front to resemble an erect penis.
► A shirtless man lying in bed pulls a woman on top of him; they kiss. A man and a woman lie in bed kissing and embracing. A woman smokes a cigarette and blows smoke into another woman’s mouth before they kiss. A man and a woman lie in bed kissing and embracing. A husband kisses his wife’s bare shoulder and she seems to cringe at his touch. A man and a woman kiss and he caresses her clothed buttock. A woman bends over away from a crowd and wiggles her hips toward them as a man slaps her on the clothed buttock. A man kisses a car window after a woman gets in the car and drives away.
► A woman offers herself to a man; he declines the offer and walks away. A woman tells a man, “Take me. Take my love,” and she leaves when her husband enters the room. A remark is made about several people being the wealthiest children in the world and that there are rumors that they are sleeping together too. A man reprimands a young man about “hanky-panky with your sisters.” A 16-year-old girl is introduced to a crowd as having taken a vow to remain a virgin until marriage. A husband and his wife argue bitterly when she asks him why there is lipstick on cigarettes that she finds (implying infidelity). A man says that people have nothing to fear if they have love in their lives. A woman tells a man that she is pregnant.
► A fully nude cadaver is seen on a morgue table with a tag on its toe (we see bare breasts, abdomen and legs); we understand that the person was pregnant with twins at the time of her death and we see an image of the fetuses. A woman in a tabloid newspaper photograph is fully nude and seated with her bare breasts covered by a black bar (her bare shoulders, cleavage, abdomen, and legs to the hips are seen). People wear costumes at a celebration that reveal bare breasts, abdomens and backs. A man wears only boxer briefs and we see his bare chest, abdomen and legs to the hips. A woman wears straps across her breasts that reveal cleavage and partial bare breasts but no nipples and a man autographs her chest with a marker. A man wears a toga-type dress that opens in the front to reveal his bare legs, hip and lower abdomen. A woman wears a dress of sheer dark fabric that reveals her legs, buttocks and breasts through the fabric. A woman wears low-cut dresses that reveal cleavage, sometimes deep cleavage, in many scenes throughout the movie. People dance in a club and women are shown wearing low-cut dresses that reveal cleavage; two women dance closely together and kiss, and another woman is topless with pasties on her nipples.

Megalopolis VIOLENCE/GORE 6

 – A 12-year-old boy approaches a car to ask a man inside to autograph a book; the man signs and the boy shoots him in the head (blood splatters) and we see the man later with a large hole in the side of his head and his eye (he’s alive). A man jokes about his wife causing him to have an erection as a blanket over his legs is elevated at his groin; when the man lifts the blanket, we see a bow and arrow that he uses to shoot a woman in the chest (she falls back to the floor and we see blood on her chest and mouth), and another man in the buttocks twice as he runs out of the room screaming in pain; we later see another man pulling the arrows out of the man’s buttocks as the wounded man continues to yell.
► A woman is shown underwater in a car after crashing. Images of destruction in a city are seen including the NYC Twin Towers in rubble. A satellite is shown falling into the atmosphere and crashing into a city; plumes of fire follow it and smoke and rubble rise from the ground. Silhouettes of wolves howling in the dark on a city street are seen while police nearby beat people with clubs and unhoused people fight over their possessions in a shopping cart. A video is shown where a woman straddles a man in bed and thrusts before they realize that they are being filmed; people in the audience become upset and start hitting each other and fighting with police, with one man suffering a very bloody nose and mouth. A crowd grabs two men and hits them before stringing them up by the feet and beating them with sticks. Police pull a car over and officers force a man in the backseat out and handcuff him while telling him that he is under arrest for statutory rape; we see the man later in a cell with bloody cuts and bruises. A man calls another man an insulting name and he lunges for him saying, “I will smash your face.” A man yells, “Unleash the mob,” and we see riots breaking out in a city with fires burning, as the man says, “We are taking our country back.”
► Trapeze artists perform high above the ground and when the net is taken away, one man falls but catches a rope before impact. While performing circus acts a woman draws a sword out of a man’s mouth. Riders whip horses pulling them in chariots around an arena. Wrestlers fight in a ring while crowds watch and cheer.
► A man climbs out a window and stands on a sloped roof; he steps toward the edge and nearly falls off. A man and a woman walk out on steel crossbeams attached to cables hanging high in the air. A man and woman ride an elevator up the outside of a multistory building.
► A man accuses another man of poisoning his wife and making her body disappear. A man leans over a motionless woman lying in a bed and braids her hair; we understand that she is dead and assume that the man is imagining that she is there when we see no one else in the room. Newspaper headlines are about the murder of a man’s wife and his trial. A man discusses his wife’s death and implies possible suicide. A man yells, “No, no, no” several times after a gunshot wound to the head. News reports discuss financial crises. We read that teen pregnancy numbers have increased and other reports discuss a recession. A man tells a younger man that he can’t trust him and the first man becomes angry and collapses.
► People carry Confederate flags and a hammer-and-sickle is shown on another flag. A tree stump is carved into the shape of a swastika. A woman tells a man, “Don’t mess with me.” A man asks another man to take him to purgatory. A multistory building is raised while people stand nearby watching and dust and rubble are thrown; protestors nearby chant in rage. A woman tells her adult son, “I wish I had a girl,” as she disparages him. A man pleads with another man to let his daughter go (leave a relationship).
► A cadaver is seen on a morgue table with a tag on its toe (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details); we understand that the person was pregnant with twins at the time of her death and we see an image of the fetuses. A puppy is shown wearing a cast on its leg.

Megalopolis LANGUAGE 7

 – About 21 F-words, 1 obscene hand gesture, 5 sexual references, 8 scatological terms, 7 anatomical terms, 7 mild obscenities, name-calling (enemies, slumlord, stupid, wacko, absurd behavior, hostile, treacherous, venomous, soulless, old fool, warlike, fierce, aggressive, dystopian, stick in the mud, brutes, mindless beasts of burden, bad influence, mongrels, human garbage, martyr, mad scientist, eccentric, immigrants, crazy, has been, kaput, fake, disgrace, wicked stain, putz, bozo, rude spoiled child, disgrace, cruel, traitor, megalomaniac, dingbat, evil), exclamations (oh dear, shut the [F-word deleted] up), 2 religious profanities (GD), 9 religious exclamations (e.g. oh my God, Holy Jesus Christ, oh Lord, thank God, oh my [F-word deleted] God, God’s revenge on mankind, in Heaven’s name, oh for God’s sake). | profanity glossary |

Megalopolis SUBSTANCE USE

 – A man takes a variety of unidentified drugs and drinks liquor while smoking a cigarette in a club scene, a man is shown taking a drug in several scenes, a man snorts a drug from his hand, and a woman licks or snorts what appears to be cocaine off another woman’s bare chest (her dress is low-cut to reveal part of her bare chest and cleavage). People drink liquor and champagne at a wedding celebration, a man drinks from a flask, and a man drinks heavily from bottles in a few scenes. A woman smokes a cigarette and blows smoke into another woman’s mouth, and several people smoke cigarettes in several scenes.

Megalopolis DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Republics, the Roman Empire, the poetry of Sappho, Pandora’s Box, Vestal Virgins, greed, excess, power, wealth, fables, freedom, marriage, history of man, suffering, Shakespeare, Ralph Waldo Emerson, String Theory, Nobel Prize, change, oppressors, civilization, trust, scandal, addiction, morality, statutory rape, destiny, courage, doubt, creation, destruction, manipulation of evidence, empires die when people stop believing in them, science, art, spying, research, literature, laws of physics, advancements.

Megalopolis MESSAGE

 – Love and compassion can make the world a better place.