Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is rated PG - we go into the reasons behind the movie's rating and if it is suitable for children to see.

Warning: Major Spoilers for Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse Below!

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is a family-friendly movie, but its themes and Spider-Man action help explain its PG rating. The sequel to 2018's animated hit Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Across the Spider-Verse follows the young web-slinger Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) as he battles a new supervillain known as the Spot (Jason Schwartzman). With the Spot able to open portals to other universes, Miles joins forces with his fellow web-slinger from another world Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) to stop the Spot with the help of the Spider-Society.

Across the Spider-Verse has enjoyed an arguably even more positive reception than the highly praised Into the Spider-Verse, while Across the Spider-Verse's cliffhanger ending sets up the third chapter in the series, 2024's Beyond the Spider-Verse. Like Into the Spider-Verse, Across the Spider-Verse is rated PG, and as an animated movie, this might raise some slight concerns for parents of younger children. While Across the Spider-Verse is by no means an inappropriate movie for children, numerous elements of the movie help put its PG-rating into context.

Why Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Is Rated PG

Per the description of the movie's MPAA rating, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is rated PG for "sequences of animated action violence, some language, and some thematic elements." When it comes to the animated superhero action of Across the Spider-Verse, the movie does indeed ramp things up substantially from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. While Across the Spider-Verse has very little in the way of blood and no truly graphic violence, its web-slinging action scenes are nonetheless some of the flashiest and most intense of any Spider-Man movie to date.

Additionally, Across the Spider-Verse has its share of profanity, though nothing out of the ordinary for what a PG-rated movie usual indulges in. All told, there are numerous tangible elements from Across the Spider-Verse that make its PG rating easy to understand. With that said, Across the Spider-Verse also earns its PG-rating for some of the more intense themes of its story mentioned in the MPAA's ratings description, and they indeed do get intense.

Across the Spider-Verse Tells A Much More Grown Up Story

Compared to the light-hearted and joyful web-slinger team-up of Into the Spider-Verse, Across the Spider-Verse tells a story with much darker and more adult themes. The movie wastes no time in getting started on this with Gwen revealing to her father that she is Spider-Woman, right as he considers her the number one suspect in the death of her universe's Peter Parker. With this marking a big shift in Gwen's life as Spider-Woman, Miles has his own difficulties in his personal life, including a rift with his parents over Miles's constant disappearances and their worries about his future.

While Across the Spider-Verse expands the scope of Into the Spider-Verse exponentially with the sheer number of wall-crawlers who appear, its cliffhanger ending is also quite dark. In the final scene of Across the Spider-Verse, Miles finds himself held captive in an alternate universe by a living Aaron Davis (Mahershala Ali) and an alternate Miles who is the Prowler of his universe. Though Gwen, Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson) and numerous other Spider-people are on their way to rescue Miles, Across the Spider-Verse's ending nonetheless demonstrates why it is rated PG.

Across the Spider-Verse Deals With Heavy Subjects Like Death

With Across the Spider-Verse seeing Miles and Gwen grapple with issues about their adult futures and family relationships, the movie is also much more focused on the concept of mortality than Into the Spider-Verse. After meeting the Spider-Society, Miles discovers that sacrifices are inherent to the "canon" of every Spider-person, which usually entails the death of their Uncle Ben, a police captain they're close with, or an equivalent loved one their life. With his father Jefferson Davis (Bryan Tyree Henry) seemingly fated to die at the hands of the Spot as part of Miles's canon, Miles sets about trying to save his father.

In doing so, Miles also learns from Miguel O'Hara a.k.a. Spider-Man 2099 (Oscar Isaac) that he was never supposed to become the Spider-Man of his world, and that this caused a ripple effect that led to the death of his Earth's Spider-Man. With Across the Spider-Verse pulling back the curtain on the multiverse, it brings a lot of fun, web-slinging action and infinite possibilities into play for every Spider-Man variant's cinematic future. At the same time, the movie's themes of adulthood, mortality, and destiny make it a very intense Spidey adventure, and while certainly appropriate for kids, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse still packs an extra emotional wallop to earn its PG-rating.

Key Release Dates

• Kraven the Hunter

  Release Date: 2024-08-30