Parents Guide for
The Dark Knight (2008)

Bruce and Rachel kiss.

Rachel and Harvey kiss.

Bruce walks into a room where we see a man and a woman buttoning their clothes up. It is implied that they were having sex.

(NOTE: Despite the film's PG-13 rating, the violence level, even though nearly bloodless, is very intense)

The Joker has paint over his face and around his mouth he has two razor cut scars that are swollen.(we don't see him get them, it happened before the movie)

A fake Batman is hung - The Joker kills someone every day. The fake Batman is the most violent.. When the fake hits the window after being hung, we see a bloody smear on the glass from the blood on his face from where the joker cuts it open.

Batman drops a man from a building and we see his legs almost crunch, but he doesn't die.

A woman is thrown off a building.

Many guns are fired.

The Joker takes 3 or 4 people by the throat and holds a knife to them harshly. -In holding one of these people, The Joker rips through the side of the man's mouth, but we do not see anything, you just hear it.

The Joker fires a gun at Batman many times.

A truck explodes with someone inside

The Joker blows up a few buildings - One of the buildings has a main character in it, who dies. Another building is a hospital and it is unknown if everyone makes it out ok.

A woman punches a man.

Batman gets in fist fights with many men.

The Joker slams a man's head into a pencil sitting vertically on a desk. (PG-13 style)

There is an intense bank robbery scene. Very violent. (People shoot each other every which way, the Joker sticks a bomb in a man's mouth.It ends up being a smoke bomb but we don't know right away. )

A man is seen stitching his arm after being bitten by dogs.

A man is found to have a bomb surgically implanted into his body; scar is graphic, and you see the bomb's light inside of him.

Two Face has a coin that he flips and if it lands on a certain side, he shoots the person. This is done without us seeing the man but we hear it, and he disturbingly does not hesitate.

The feel of and the violence in this movie is very real and very intense. Much more so than any recently released R rated movie.

At least 5 hells, 2 asses, 2 damns, 1 S.O.B., 2 uses of "Jesus" and 1 use each of "G-damn," "God," "God-awful," "Oh Jesus," "Oh my God," "Sweet Jesus" and "Swear to God." One "save my ass".

A man is seen smoking. In many scenes people are seen smoking and drinking wine and alcohol at parties.

The Joker could be very frightening to young children, with his voice, his laugh, the way he kills people, and even the way he looks. There is also very intense music that plays anytime the Joker is about to strike. The film is very intense with many fights, car chases, explosions, etc. The final battle is very intense.

The Joker gives two boats detonators to blow the other boat up, and the two boats have to decide which one lives, this can be very intense as both boats do not think it would be bad to blow the other one up.

Two-Face comes very close to shooting a man's wife or little boy.

Harvey Dent is very frightening and disgusting as Two-Face.(towards the end). We do see him catch on fire and he is screaming because his one love was blown up, then his half side catches. The left half of his face is horribly burned and scarred, you can see his teeth through his cheek, he is almost like a skull with charred skin, his eye would be the most bothering as it looks out of place. It looks like it is popping out of his head because his eyeball is unharmed but his face has sunken in, and may be frightening to young children or those that are easily disturbed.

The Joker holds many people hostage. All of those scenes can be a bit disturbing

The Joker, as mentioned above, is a very intense character and throughout the movie, he makes several violent threats that are very implicative or disturbing for a PG-13 movie and could disturb some people.