Movie Review Sites for Christian Parents and Family Movie Night – The Fervent Mama
let’s set the scene…
You’ve chosen the movie, you’ve made the popcorn, everyone is comfortable. you appear in the film and things go well. you are laughing and smiling and enjoying family time. and then it happens, that scene you forgot, or those words that made you cringe.
oh shoot! Wasn’t this supposed to be a kids movie? How could I forget about this?! you cover the child’s eyes while your spouse fumbles around trying to turn it off, or fast forward, or even wait for the power to go out. Give us a break, will you?
You’ve been there, I know you have because I’ve been there too! but I’ll let you in on a little secret that I’ve been keeping for a while. With a simple click, you no longer have to worry if the movie is suitable for children or if it lives up to your convictions.
you’re a new friend
These Christian parenting movie review sites will be your best friend when it comes to your next family movie night! I can almost guarantee that you will find family-friendly movie reviews on the show of your choice through one of these sites.
I find it interesting that none of these websites give you a “don’t watch” or “definitely watch” at the end of the review. To make your decision, you’ll still need to gather information from the reviews and make a judgment call based on your family’s values and expectations.
You may find it helpful to look at more than one site to get a more complete perspective! Fortunately, most of these websites use headers and organize posts so you can quickly find the most important content, such as sexual content, profanity, violence, or nudity.
I’ve put this list in order of preference, so I recommend you start at the top of the list to get the best information, and then work your way down when you can’t find what you need. If you need to make a quick decision, the pigeon site has the most concise information. but if it’s the details you’re after, I’d choose plugged in first every time.
I don’t know how many times we pulled out a movie we watched as kids and fondly remembered, only to watch ten minutes and turn it off in shock. Growing up, growing in faith, and having children of our own certainly changes the way we view content. For this reason, I’m glad we have sites that review older movies and not just the most current content.
8 Movie Review Sites for Christian Parents
plugged in
This is by far my favorite review site to check out. I have used it many times, and not just for children’s movies. we even review videos for ourselves using this site too! never fails to disappoint us with accuracy or detail, the writers at focus on the family really do a great job! if you have tweens, it would be perfectly safe to ask them to read the review of the video in question before they ask your permission. this will give your teens a great overview of things to look at and will also save you significant time as they will do the narrowing down for you.
media with common sense
This next movie review site is my second favorite. As Connected, Common Sense Media is incredibly comprehensive, providing independent reviews based on age, ratings, and other pertinent information you’ll definitely want to know about. This site was started to help parents navigate the digital age and protect their children from the unknown effects of too much media. If you can’t find what you’re looking for on pluggedin, you’ll find reviews of all recent movies here!
types in mind
With a scaled rating of sex/nudity, violence/gore, and language, the system works quite well for this company. Although I expected this movie review site to be aimed primarily at Christian parents, they claim to be independent of all political and religious views.
dove
I didn’t even know dove had its own movie review system. but, they have something pretty good here. I don’t find it to be as detailed as some of the others here, but it could definitely get the job done if you need just a small snippet of information so you can make a quick decision.
movie guide
This is not an old fashioned movie guide (like I thought it was), it’s actually very informative and top of the list for me! While the site doesn’t have much information about its origins, it does have a ton of movie reviews available!
raise children
I had never heard of this site until I started doing some more research on Christian parenting movie review sites. while this one is not Christian-based and not as detailed in information, it covers your bases, so we’ll still list it as a good choice for parenting movie review sites.
box office mom
She’s a huge cinephile, but I feel like she’s a little less informative and a little more reliant on her own opinions when it comes to how her movies are rated. however, she can enjoy that real life review about it. I also love bringing her here to support another mommy blogger!
main previews
parental previews are fine. The problem is that with some of their movie reviews they have a disclaimer that they haven’t seen the movie yet and that the information is collected from an outside source. no thanks.
Looking for more than just a review site?
If you’re looking for clean entertainment and want specific recommendations, you can check out these posts: best clean shows on netflix, clean tv shows on amazon prime, and faith & family movies you need to see too!
you might also like these:
All of these sites are different, so it really depends on your personal preference as to which site you’ll refer to when looking for a family-friendly movie review. The top two listed are my favorites, but you may be happy with what another site has to offer!
