See How They Run | 2022 | PG-13 | – 3.5.5

Why is “See How They Run” rated PG-13? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “some violence/bloody images and a sexual reference.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes a couple of near kisses, discussion of infidelity, a drawing of a nude woman, a few murders by strangulation, blunt force trauma, and poisoning, a gunshot wound with blood shown, a couple of fights and struggles ending in property damage, and at least 1 F-word and other strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

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Set in 1953 in London’s West End: a bedraggled and alcoholic police inspector (Sam Rockwell) arrives at the scene of a murder and is assigned an inexperienced constable (Saoirse Ronan) to assist. Also with Ruth Wilson, Oliver Jackson, Tomi Ogbaro, Reece Shearsmith, Sian Clifford, Adrien Brody, David Oyelowo, Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, Ania Marson and Harris Dickinson. Directed by Tom George. [Running Time: 1:38]

See How They Run SEX/NUDITY 3

 – A man talks to a woman promising her a lead role in a movie and moves close to her, wiggling his tongue toward her (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details). A man moves to kiss a woman and she interrupts him. A woman sits on a married man’s lap and he vows to divorce his wife to marry her; his wife enters the room and he stands up, dumping the woman onto the floor (no injuries are seen).
► A man seems to be flirting with another man in a couple of scenes. A man seems jealous when another man talks to other men. A man talks about women being swayed by “the promise of a pair of nylons.” A man asks a hotel manager if another man was in arrears, and the manager makes a remark about it seeming sexual in nature. A man says that his wife was 8 months pregnant with another man’s child when she left him.
► A line drawing of a seated nude woman (we see her bare back, buttocks and hip) is shown. Women wear low-cut evening gowns that reveal cleavage at a party. Women wear low-cut dresses that reveal cleavage in several scenes. A man is shown asleep in bed wearing briefs that reveal his bare legs to the upper thighs in a couple of scenes.

See How They Run VIOLENCE/GORE 5

 – A man hears noises when searching through a dark backstage area for a change of clothes; a person moves toward him from the shadows and strikes him with a snow ski, he falls to the floor and throws things at the attacker, who wraps a cable around the man’s throat; the man cuts himself free, runs toward a door that turns out to be a stage prop and he is struck hard with a sewing machine and is killed (we hear a crunch and later see him dead with blood on his head, face and shirt). A man is strangled to death and we see him struggle and then fall limp on the floor. A man drinks a cup of tea laced with rat poison and collapses (we see him seated motionless on a sofa later and is presumably dead).
► A man with a gun holds a woman around the neck while another man holds a gun at him; a woman throws a flaming bottle against the wall in the room setting the area on fire, the man with the gun lets the woman go and aims at the other man as another woman jumps across the scene knocking the intended victim to the floor as the gun is discharges (we see blood on the man’s arm and the woman’s hand). Several people back into a room when a man with a gun threatens them; he drags a woman wrapped in a rug into the room and unfurls the rug to let the woman out.
► A man believes that another man is making advances toward his wife and threatens to fight him by taking off his jacket; the other man charges toward him and knocks him back into a multi-tiered cake; we later see that the charging man is struck and falls onto a table filled with seafood (there are no injuries shown, but there is a lot of food spilled on the floor and one man’s suit is smeared with cake and food). A woman on-stage enacts being strangled. A man is struck in the face with the butt of a gun. A woman hits a man in the head with a shovel and he falls to the floor where blood pools under his head; she raises the shovel over him but is stopped and told that the man is dead. Two men argue bitterly, they each hold onto a script and it tears in half; one man falls back knocking down a lamp and breaking it and threatens the other saying, “I’ll kill you for that.”
► A man investigating a murder, evaluates the victim and says that it looks like someone tried to pull out his tongue (we see a bruised tongue in the victim’s mouth). A man drives up on sidewalks and over curbs in a few scenes and it is implied that he drives drunk; in one scene the car comes close to a woman pushing a stroller on a sidewalk (no injuries are seen). A mouse skitters backstage in a theater and a man steps back to avoid it, and ends up under a hanging sandbag and is struck (we see him with a bandage on his head later). A man hits his head on a door when opening it. A man cuts a jigsaw puzzle with a saw while drinking alcohol. An inebriated man stumbles out of a pub and insists that he can drive himself; a woman drives him home and puts him in bed fully clothed. A woman chases a man through a theater and he knocks things over, she catches up to him and hits him in the head with a shovel; he dreams that he wakes up in a snowy setting where a man (who is dead) mixes him a drink at a bar and he becomes concerned that he is not wearing pants; he then wakes up in a jail cell bed.
► A man yells at another man in an unidentified language (without subtitles) in a few scenes. A woman asks a police inspector how long he will “… keep us hostage,” when waiting to be questioned after a murder. A man tells a subordinate, “You are in the crosshairs.” Someone says, “Since father died.” A woman says that a man was acting like she, “Put a gun to his head.” A woman says that a man was “Stuck in theatrical purgatory.” A man says that his wife was 8 months pregnant with another man’s child when she left him. A man talks about his young brother dying at the age of six when he was neglected in foster care. A man describes being sick to his stomach.
► A man sneezes into a handkerchief several times. A man’s hotel room is shown in disarray with overturned bottles and a broken lamp on the floor. A man is shown wearing a brace on his knee and he limps in a few scenes; we hear that he was injured in war.

See How They Run LANGUAGE 5

 – At least 1 F-word, 2 scatological terms, 1 anatomical term, 4 mild obscenities, 2 derogatory terms for women, name-calling (Limeys, cash cow, temperamental Neapolitan, public relations disaster, escaped lunatic, crackpot, plain, homely, oaf, village idiot, uptight, most sensitive writer, Wolfie, bumbling psychopath, bean pole, barbaric, dreadful, preposterous, poppycock, bloody pigsty, cry baby, charlatan, macabre, crass, lazy, moribund, cockamamie, amateur, old, soporific, tired), exclamations (oh you’re joking, oh jeez, clear off, honestly, oh gosh, oh for goodness sake, blimey, how dare you, shame on you), 2 religious profanities (GD), 8 religious exclamations (e.g. oh God, what in God’s name, good God). | profanity glossary |

See How They Run SUBSTANCE USE

 – People drink alcohol at a party, a man drinks heavily at a party, a man orders a pint of liquor after drinking several glasses of champagne, a man drinks from a whiskey bottle, a woman spikes a cup of tea with rat poison, and people are shown drinking in a couple of pub scenes.

See How They Run DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Agatha Christie, the play “Mousetrap,” glamour, the theater, movie making, greed, social services, abuse, trauma, revenge, rage, modernization, infidelity, taxidermy, taking chances, foster care, child neglect, death of a sibling, jumping to conclusions, trust.

See How They Run MESSAGE

 – Uncovering the truth can be difficult.