Parents Guide for
Watership Down (1978) More at IMDbPro »

None

Strong (animal) violence. Not suitable for children under seven or eight years, unless they are mature enough. Some of the violence may even frighten very young children, however.

Two rabbits fight in the beginning of the film, no blood.

A rabbit is attacked and killed by a hawk offscreen.

A rabbit is nearly choked to death in a snare, he coughs out blood. Very violent. It appears he is dead, however, we soon learn this is not true.

A rabbit is found beaten, he is covered in scars.

Another rabbit has his ears torn as a punishment. For the rest of the film, his ears are disfigured.

A rabbit is shot in the leg, but he survives. There is a bloody bullet hole in the leg that was shot. The bullet is removed from the wound, and the rabbit requires time to heal. For the rest of the film there is a scar where he was shot.

Two rabbits are hit by a train.

In the final battle, which is likely the goriest scene in the movie, a rabbit has his throat torn out by another rabbit onscreen. We then see his body, he has a large hole in his neck, and blood is everywhere. Two rabbits then fight nearly to the death. They cut each other up, and are shown bloodied. Next, a dog is unleashed upon the rabbits, he bites and tears up many of them. One is even shown being thrown high into the air by the dog, and falling back down, covered in blood. Finally, it is implied that a rabbit is killed offscreen by the dog, no blood or violence but still very frightening.

Two uses of "damn" and one use of the phrase "piss off."

None.

Several scenes contain potentially nightmarish images that may be too strong for the youngest viewers.

The most frightening scene shows rabbits being gassed underground, their heads then form an abstract ghostly head of a rabbit.

In the climatic sequence, a rabbit is caught by a cat who is able to kill him, but the cat's human guardian orders her to back off before she does any harm.

The music and general mood of the film is rather bleak and intense.

This film is also very disturbing because of the strong violence.