Why Is All Quiet on the Western Front Rated R? Parents Guide

Over the last few years, Netflix has had major success with international original films and series, from La Casa de Papel, or Squid Game, to the German show Dark. Seeing that success, they upped the ante, and now, we’re getting a ton of awesome international shows and movies, like the new Netflix original movie, All Quiet on the Western Front. But why is it rated R?

All Quiet on the Western Front is rated R by the MPAA for strong, bloody war violence and grisly images. We regularly see characters stabbed, shot, blown up, burned alive, etc.; all images you can expect in a war film. There’s also some sexually explicit content, profanity, and alcohol consumption.

The movie is certainly not for children, but I honestly recommend it for older teenagers who are on the cusp of trying to establish themselves and choose a profession. The movie shows how not everything is as it seems in life when you’re young and bold, and the messages in this film leave a strong impression. Let’s get a bit more detail about All Quiet on the Western Front.

All Quiet on the Western Front: A brief synopsis

All Quiet on the Western Front is a new Netflix Original film produced and developed in Germany. The entire film is in German and French and is originally titled ‘Im Westen Nichts Neues,’ which roughly translates to ‘Nothing New in the West.’ The movie picked up great reviews and is rated 7.9/10 on IMDb for a good reason.

The story follows three German teenagers, Paul, Albert, and Muller, with Paul being the focal point of the story. They voluntarily enlisted to join the German Army for World War I, as many young men had the ‘patriotic fever’ and wanted to serve their country.

However, their enthusiasm quickly disappeared once they saw the horrors of war. Not only that – Paul starts to question his own ideology, patriotic views, and the rights and wrongs of the aforementioned war. Is he even on the right side? Is there a right side at all? Paul does his best to keep his sanity and stay alive, wanting nothing more than for the war to end.

It’s a phenomenal movie that is the official submission of Germany for the Best International Feature Film category of the 95th Academy Awards that’ll be held in 2023. It’s a remake of sorts of the movie of the same name that came out way back in 1930.

Why is All Quiet on the Western Front rated R? Parents Guide

All Quiet on the Western Front is rated R by the MPAA for numerous reasons, but mainly due to strong, bloody war-related violence and grisly, gory images.

The violence includes stabbing, shooting, blowing up, burning alive, crushing, and slashing people (mainly soldiers) to death. The director didn’t hold back on vividly showing corpses, and highly graphic injuries, such as blown-up limbs, exposed bones, and organs. There’s a scene of a character having their arm amputated, and it’s highly graphic as well.

There’s also a scene containing suicide, where a severely injured soldier repeatedly stabs himself in the neck.

Apart from violence and gore, All Quiet on the Western Front is rated R due to sexual content, profanity, and alcohol abuse. The sexual content is not graphic, though, but only referenced between the characters. Soldiers are also seen passing around a pair of ladies’ underwear.

As for the profanity, it includes some mild language, several expletives, curses, scatological terms, etc. The most serious cases of profanities happen in a couple of instances where characters use mild curses referring to deities and other religious terms.

Several characters are seen smoking and drinking socially, which is expected to be seen in such a nightmarish environment as war.

The R rating means ‘Restricted,’ and parents are advised not to watch this movie with children, especially those under the age of 14. In some countries, the self-applied age limit is 18+.

Is All Quiet on the Western Front a sequel?

All Quiet on the Western Front isn’t a sequel but rather a remake of the movie of the same name, released in 1930. While there are some similarities – such as the lead characters going to war voluntarily and then regretting their decision, the war being WWI, etc. – the new movie is much more graphic due to better technology and advances in the movie industry.

Is All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) also rated R?

While the 1930 version of All Quiet on the Western Front was initially rated R due to the standards of the time, it was re-rated numerous times over the years and is now considered PG-13, at most, in almost all countries.

There are some intense war scenes (such as a grenade blowing up near a soldier’s face, who then goes blind and screams in agony), but the scenes are not nearly as graphic as the ones in the new version. Hence, if you plan on showing any version of this movie to your kids (tweens, for instance), then I recommend you show them the older version instead of the 2022 remake.