9 things I learned from the BBFC 2025 annual report

Long-time readers of this blog will know I have an "inside baseball" obsession with film classification. I’m fascinated by film classification, especially BBFC ratings, why films are rated what they are, and decisions that were the source of contention. For me, the release of the BBFC’s annual report is like Christmas; the ultimate chance to indulge my inner film nerd.

Back when I was doing my PhD, and then when I had started my job in Finance, I went on a generational run of reading and summarizing my key takeaways from the Annual Reports from 2016 to 2019. But then my job got very busy, and my actuarial exams got more difficult, forcing my niche hobby onto the back burner, leaving the 2020 through 2024 reports unchronicled.

Being on maternity leave, I can now right some of those wrongs, and thus, for the first time in six years, have the time to pore over the 2025 Annual Report, and tell you what I found interesting! Below are nine things that I learned from reading the 2025 annual report.

1. Complaints for non-standard reasons I

The section of the Annual Report that attracts most attention from BBFC nerds, is the complaints section, because this reveals the temperature of the British public, not just in regards to their pressure points in terms of film content, but broader societal issues as well.

Book review: THE ULTIMATE ACTUARIAL JOKE BOOK (John Lee)

John Lee, whose two books Actuarial Fairy Tales and Confessions of an Actuarial Tutor I have previously reviewed on my blog, continues with his streak of actuarial high jinx with his latest offering, The Ultimate Actuarial Joke Book. I was entertained greatly by those two creations, so I expected more comedy from this book, not least because it is, quite literally, compendium of jokes.

It certainly didn’t disappoint. The book features a wide variety of types of jokes formats, from zingy one-liners, jokes that follow classic ‘knock knock or ‘Doctor, Doctor’ formats, visual comedy in the form of memes, or gags that require more of a build-up before the punchline is delivered. By mixing the way the jokes are delivered, this means reading The Ultimate Actuarial Joke Book never gets stale, with the reader kept on their toes.

Jack Grealish / KDB fanfiction, Chapter 3: Optics

BBFC rating: 12A (one use of strong language and moderate sexual innuendo)

Author's disclaimer: I don't know De Bruyne or Grealish. This story is complete fiction.

Chapter 2, A Spiritual Assist, was here.

As Kevin De Bruyne headed out to the Manchester City Football Academy training ground, he chuckled to himself about how his teammate Jack Grealish had absolutely zero chill around him.

Jack Grealish / KDB fanfiction, Chapter 1: Bruynian Motion

Chapter 1: Bruynian Motion

BBFC rating – U (mild angst)

Author's disclaimer: I don't know De Bruyne, I don't know Grealish. This story is purely the fantastical whimsy of a hyperactive imagination. All feedback welcome, good or bad. If you like the story, let me know so it incentivises me to keep writing!

8 Lessons Learned from the 2019 BBFC Annual Report

The blog is rated 15 for strong sex references and drug references.

On Thursday, the BBFC dropped their 2019 Annual Report, which for film classification nerds, is also known as 'Most Complained about Films to the BBFC Day'. I spent Friday evening poring through the report, looking for clues and new information, and psycho-analysing every adjective used in the report. In short, I was in heaven.

Here were eight prominent things I noticed from reading it:

01. Emma knows her BBFC…

Tale as old as time… that the first point I make every year when discussing the BBFC annual report, is not an observation, but rather, a shameless display of braggadocio. The three most complained about films in 2019 were Joker, The Favourite and John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, and I'd predicted all three of these in my prognostication blog.

Book review: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS AND SNAKES (Suzanne Collins)

Set 64 years before The Hunger Games, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is Suzanne Collins' prequel to her dystopian YA trilogy, a book series whose film adaptations launched the Hollywood career of that awful over-actor and recipient of the most undeserved Oscar win ever, Jennifer Lawrence.

For that reason, then, you'd think that I would dislike The Hunger Games books. But I actually really enjoyed them (I even enjoyed some facets of the films). The world-building exhibited in the books was extremely inventive, and, whilst it may have been a tad derivative of Battle Royale and various Roman and Greek myths, I maintain that most good art contains inflections of other artists that preceded it.

Central to the books was the first-person narrative of Katniss Everdeen, the tribute from District 12. Throughout the trilogy she displayed courage, resilience and resourcefulness beyond her 16 years, and her actions were underscored with familial loyalty to her more fragile younger sister, Prim. Collins shrewdly avoided painting her heroine as a Mary Sue, however, as Katniss was also stubborn, unforgiving, whiny and often downright unlikeable.

Second-guessing which films got the BBFC the most complaints in 2019

This blog is rated 15 for strong sex references and descriptions of violence.

After years of releasing their annual reports every July, 2018's BBFC annual report was instead released in late May. As I really love testing my BBFC senses on a yearly basis, to see how good I am at reading the general public's perception of what BBFC ratings for films ought to be, I thought I'd guess which films got them the most complaints in 2019!

Note, when I refer to a '2019 release', this actually means any film that came out in cinemas in the UK in 2019. So The Favourite, although a 2018 film by American release dates (and eligible for the 2019 Oscars and BAFTAs for that precise reason), didn't hit UK cinemas until January 2019, and is thus a 'UK 2019 release'. 

My guesses:

01. Joker

10 Most Attractive Men in a 2019 Film

2018's list, in case you wanted to get a flavour for Emsy's taste in Hollywood hunks!

10. Lakeith Stanfield, Knives Out (new entrant)

Written in black and white

This blog is rated 12A for infrequent strong language.

Last week, in preparation for watching Octavia Spencer get her Gone Girl on in Ma, I watched Black or White. The film itself was extremely forgettable, with aspirations of Oscar glory but not enough quality to realise those dreams, but the thing that did stick out about the film, to me, was this line:

The BBFC have stated in previous podcasts that the 'MF word' is considered a 15-rated term. It's why Eat Pray Love, a PG-rated film in every other sense, was 15.

8 Things I Learned from the 2018 BBFC Annual Report

This blog is rated 15 for references to violence, sexual violence, and bragging from the author.

The 2018 BBFC Annual Report actually came out a bit earlier this year than we're used to; last year's report dropped on July 19th, whereas 2018's one came almost two month's earlier. However, so switched on are my BBFC-senses that I seemed to anticipate this, as I wrote my prediction blog a few weeks ago!

So, as per tradition for the past three years (2015 et 2016 et 2017), here were some notable points I took when devouring the report!

01. Emma knows her BBFC

This was also one of my takeaways from last year's report, and I'm aware it's a bit self-aggrandising to bring it up again, but it's not like me to self-promote, now is it? 😏

In my anticipation blog, I correctly called that Red Sparrow would be the most complained-about film of 2018, followed by Peter Rabbit, Show Dogs, A Northern Soul and Ready Player One. I even correctly predicted that Love, Simon's trailer would get the BBFC complaints.

Second-guessing which films got the BBFC the most complaints in 2018

Every July, comes Christmas time for film classification nerds, when the BBFC drop their annual report. We love to pore over the report, read between the lines at the BBFC’s evasions and obfuscations, and the PDF enriches our appreciation of film classification, whilst teaching us a thing or two about film overall.

As my Oscar predictions show, I’m somewhat keen on predicting film-related things. Thus, using my experiences of the 2018 UK releases I’ve watched, my observations from how people have interacted with the BBFC Twitter account, and word of mouth from others, here be the 2018 UK releases that I think got the BBFC the most feedback last year. Point of clarification: by '2018 UK releases', I refer to films that came out in UK cinemas in 2018. Something like The Favourite, which had a 2018 US release date, came out here in 2019, so wouldn’t count. You can expect to see complaints for that in 2019's BBFC annual report!

01. Red Sparrow

Jennifer Lawrence is wooden af

OOTD: Okay ladies, now let's get in formation

Top: Primark

Earrings: Aldo

Glasses: Red or Dead

The larger-than-life hoops earrings are a homage to Taraji P. Henson as 'Cookie' in Empire. The next film Taraji's appearing in is the female reboot of  What Women Want, Want Men Want, and I will hopefully be seeing that soon! 

As a point of BBFC nerdiness, I find it interesting that the original Mel Gibson film was a PG-13/12A, yet the reboot is embracing the crude adult humour, and has gotten an R and 15, and even a 16 in Ireland. I'm guessing the film's producers have targeted the grown up audience following the success of Girls' Trip. If What Men Want is half as lulzy as Girls Trip, it will be a trip to the cinema well made!

The Consistency Act

This blog is rated 15 for infrequent strong sex references.

The new Fionn Whitehead film, The Children Act, is one of those curious cases where the film is rated 12A in Britain and Ireland, yet got an R in America.

Sharp Objects gets rated 18 by the BBFC

I finished reading Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects this week. The book has been turned into an 8-part HBO miniseries, and although I’m yet to watch it, it had very much been on my radar due to the expert way it had been marketed: ‘From the director of Big Little Lies, from the producers of Get Out, from the author of Gone Girl, and starring Amy Adams’. Any semi-cineliterate individual will know that that is a killer recipe for success.

‘Killer’ being the operative word. The plot revolves around a journalist, Camille Preaker (Amy Adams), who returns to her stifling Missouri hometown to investigate the disappearance of two young girls in the town. Having a tonne of baggage herself, including strained relationships with her frosty mother, the investigation causes Camille to revisit some of her demons, including the death of her beloved sister Marian, a death she never got over.

Inbetween a 15 and an 18

This blog is rated 15 for strong sex references.

Every year, I like to analyse the BBFC short insight for a film, before I’ve even seen it. Last year, I nerded out to the BBFCinsight for Dunkirk, as it was an unprecedented case of four different adjectives for each of its classification issues.

The year before, I was excited because Suicide Squad got a 15, which is really unusual for a big studio superhero movie. Funnily enough, Suicide Squad’s short insight is actually subsumed in Dunkirk’s, ‘sustained threat, intense sequences, moderate violence, strong language’, yet Dunkirk is a rating lower.

Tangential, but Dunkirk has Harry Styles (a singer-turned-actor) and Suicide Squad has Cara Delevingne (a model-turned-cocaine addict). They used to ‘date’ each other. I daresay one was substantially more successful at acting than the other.

2018’s bout of ‘Emma critiquing the BBFCinsight of a film having not even seen the movie’ comes for the upcoming The Festival. For this film, Iain Morris and Damon Beesley, the creators of The Inbetweeners, collaborate again, as director and producers, respectively.

The Death of Specificity

This blog is rated 15 for infrequent very strong language and strong sex references.

The Death of Stalin, Armando Iannucci’s razor-sharp historical satire, explores the power struggles that unfold immediately after Joseph Stalin dies from a stroke, with hilarious consequences.

10 Lessons Learned from the 2017 BBFC Annual Report

I’ve waited long and hard, but Christmas for Emma has arrived! The BBFC Annual Report for 2017 dropped today, and here are the ten main takeaways I got from consuming it!

01. Emma knows her BBFC

Just as I’d predicted in my anticipation blog, the film which got the most complaints to the BBFC last year was Logan. 

Battle of the Sex Scenes

This blog is rated 12A for moderate sex references.

Despite the BBFC constantly palming me off with less-than-satisfactory templated e-mails of little substance whenever I pose them a query, I always seem to come back for more.

Perhaps this is because my brain is so film classification-geared, that I’m hungry to have movie discourse of any kind, and the BBFC did act on my Call Me by Your Name e-mail earlier this year, showing that they are receptive to suggestions, once in a blue moon.

My most recent e-mail to them was about Battle of the Sexes, rated 12A for infrequent moderate sex. The oh-so-informative extended insight reads:

In one scene, two women have sex; however, there is no strong detail.

My attempt at writing a BBFC report for BEAST (2018)

It was William Shakespeare who remarked ‘brevity is the soul of wit’, and with regards to that quote in many walks of life (for example, intolerable guys who’s arrogance would make Gaston from Beauty and the Beast appear modest droning on about how oh-so-clever they are for having passed their CFA exams), The Bard was not wrong.

Second-guessing the films that the BBFC got the most complaints in 2017

This blog is rated 15 for references to child abuse and strong sex references.

The BBFC drop their Annual Reports around July every year, where they discuss all facets of their guidelines and the film classification process in the UK. I await these reports with the same eagerness I await the Oscars with, and I think it's fun to try and predict which titles cause the BBFC the most complaints every year!