Parents Guide for
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) More at IMDbPro »

Suggested MPAA Rating: PG for Intense Sequences of Adventure Action and Violence, scary images, sensuality, and some language (Given the content below, it was obviously released before there was a PG-13)

Sex and Nudity: 4/10

A silhouette of a woman's body can be seen through a silk dress. Very close to nudity.

The film's villain, watches a woman change into a formal dress. However, he and the audience only see her bare back in the mirror as she takes off her bra.

The two leads have sex (we see them about to in bed, and then the scene ends as they start kissing and writhering). In the morning, after the sex, we can tell the heroine is not wearing any clothing, though she is covered by the blankets.

We see the non-sexual, tribal rear nudity of an Indian tribe.

Violence: 8/10

Violence is shown throughout the film, mainly punching and shooting, and there is some blood and blood splatteriong in these situations.

A man is skewered by a booby trap; we see his bloody remains in a "jump moment". There are spears going through his head, and his body. It is fairly graphic, and very bloody, but we see for about a second.

A man's body is revealed to have many poison darts in its back. His shirt has bloodstains around the wounds. Bloody/

During a bar fight, a man is shot in the face, with spurting blood. Another man is shot in the back of the head and blood dribbles from his mouth (wound not shown).

In a market place fight, a man is run through with a sword and then fruit, we see the fruit falling off the sword as it is pulled back through the man.

A man is shot while driving a truck, it shows a close up of his hand covered in blood, but not the wound.

A big thug is taken out by a spinning propeller, splattering blood all over the plane, but we don't see his body.

A car is shown being driven off a very high cliff, and the bodies of the men in it are shown to be flailing along side the car as it falls.

A man is shown being run over by a truck, with his arms and legs flailing up when he is run over by the front, and then the rear tires.

A thug accidentally stabs one of his allies.

Twice in the movie half-rotted skeletons are shown. They can be frightening.

The end scene is very frightening and very graphic. A man's face melts completely on screen, another man's face shrivels up with blood coming out of the mouth, and another man's head completly explodes on screen, though slightly hidden by fire. Blood splatters.The rest of the Nazis have lightning struck through their bodies (see disturbing and intense scenes for more detail).

Profanity: 4/10

1 use of s--t

2 uses of son of a b---h

2 uses of b-----d

2 uses of g*ddamn

Several uses of d--n and what the h--l.

Alcohol, Drugs and Smoking: 3/10

Indy is shown drinking in a bar with the monkey. Men in an Egyptian bar are seen smoking hookahs. Karen is shown smoking once and drinking in two other situations. A Nazi is shown smoking, where after he throws the cigarette in a pipe on a ship.

Intense Scenes: 8/10

The first scene is very frightening and intense, where Indy finds a man with a spear through his head and runs from a moving boulder, among other things.

We see ghosts flying around in the air. A female ghost with a very pretty face flies up on center screen. Then, on center screen in an instant, she and all of the other beautiful ghosts turn into very scary creatures symbolizing death and brutally kill all of the bad guys. A man's head explodes (blood splatters everywhere). A man's face melts and we see his eyes roll out, his face shrivel up and blood spilling out, and another man's face melts with a lot of blood. The scary creatures then fire lightning bolts that kill all of the other bad guys. They turn into pretty ghosts again and reenter the Ark of the Covenant. This scene is very disturbing, bloody and violent, almost an R.

Indy and Marion are shown trying to escape from a room while snakes are threatening their lives.

Skeletons could be frightning.