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Empire’s BBFC Ratings Podcast Special

In an Empire Podcast first, readers posed their Twitter questions, queries and grievances about movie ratings direct to the man who oversees them on a daily basis, BBFC [British Board of Film Classification] executive director David Austin. Why was Gremlins rated 15? What ever happened to What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?’s 18 rating? What’s a 12A for, anyway? And what happened with A Good Day To Die Hard?

I thought this was a fascinating podcast about how the BBFC works: how they decide on a film’s rating, the way they choose the criteria for each rating, and changing attitudes towards adult content in films. It’s a very candid interview: Austin answers all of the questions head-on, in a very honest and reasonable way.

If you have any interest in film or cinema, then I think it’s definitely worth a listen.