11 October,2026 07:52 AM IST | Mumbai | Tanisha Banerjee
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A family walks into a cinema hall. The lights go down, the popcorn is passed around and then the screen shows a woman confronting sexual violence, a student speaking about caste, a character taking drugs, or a family tearing itself apart behind closed doors. At what point does the story become too problematic to watch together?
The question is particularly relevant now, as the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) has revised its film-certification guidelines for the first time since 1991. The new framework retains the requirement that films receiving unrestricted public exhibition should be "suitable for family viewing" - meaning all members of a family, including children, should be able to watch them together. At the same time, the guidelines retain the U/A age markers, allowing films to be classified U/A 7+, U/A 13+, or U/A 16+ depending on their content, with parental discretion for younger children. They also introduce a specific statutory warning for scenes depicting the consumption or trafficking of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances.
But in 2026, what exactly does "family-friendly" mean?
For Aditi Giri, 27, "family-friendly" cinema is less about a checklist of forbidden subjects and more about what she chooses to share with her mother. Having lived away from home for nearly a decade, watching films together has become a way of spending quality time. "My mom and I are hardcore Hindi movie buffs," she says, explaining that their shared choices tend to be light, easy, and something they can laugh about together. Even a "brainrot" film such as Tees Maar Khan (2010) can work because, as she puts it, "we can watch it and then we laugh it off."
That does not mean Giri consciously avoids films dealing with serious issues. She simply would not pick them for this particular kind of viewing. "I wouldn't sit with her and watch a film like Padman (2018) just because I want to do timepass with her," she says. Instead, she would choose something like Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani (2023) or Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (2008). "What might be easy to watch for you with your parents might not be to somebody else who watches with their parents," she explains.
That subjectivity is precisely what concerns 24-year-old Abhinav Jha, who is an aspiring filmmaker and a film student. He feels that a directive to make cinema suitable for family viewing can feel like a creative "chokehold". He sees the language of protection and morality in Indian censorship as part of a larger paternalistic relationship between the state and its citizens.
He says, "The state looks at the people of this country like children who need to be corrected."
Jha is particularly wary of what such guidelines can do to filmmakers before a film even reaches the certification process. "As people in the creative space, I think there is a great degree of self-censorship that is happening," he says. More troublingly, he feels the guidelines are not always applied consistently. Films containing violence or degradation of women can pass, he points out, while consensual intimacy between adults can face scrutiny.
Giri, meanwhile, would rather have filmmakers tell audiences what they are getting into than have a certificate make that choice for them. "I would want a film or a film director to tell me about what the content is about rather than a certificate telling and controlling it for me," she says. "Why do we need to be constantly reminded of drinking and smoking disclaimers?" Jha asks, "Why is a scene involving intimacy getting censored from a film for adults?" His despair also comes from the limitations visible in alternative mediums.
At the heart of this debate, the problem lies with the CBFC giving the illusion of choice. The need to sanitise a film, irrespective of the movie rating, snatches creative liberty away. As Jha rightly puts it, "I know there is a lot of censorship in other countries because of which filmmakers have to rely on subject and a lot of nuance to tell their story. But why should I be nuanced because of certain restrictions? Why should I rely on subtext to tell a story the way I want to tell it?"
Filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee says, "Our puzzling over what is âfamily friendly' is a perfect example of being cornered into the self-censorship trap," calling it a "word salad" that diverts attention from who gets to decide what audiences should watch. "Some of our most thought provoking and confrontational films, mine included, have navigated those laws and have been exhibited. It happened because there was room to consider the âfilm' rather than the âguidelines'. State censorship works in: Repressive laws. Unlawful censorship through goondagardi. Restricting spaces for free speech and thought."
Film Youtuber Harshad Pawaskar talks about how CBFC has taken a regressive turn at a time when audiences have evolved
The idea of a family film still conjures up a certain kind of cinema for photographer and film YouTuber Harshad Pawaskar, 46. "A typical family-friendly movie would be anything that is made by Rajshri Productions," he says, pointing to films such as Maine Pyaar Kiya (1989) and Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! (1994). These films, he says, had romance, comedy, and action, but "they don't cross the limit". The violence was lighter, the romance was restrained, and even the hero getting beaten up remained part of the fun.
Today, Pawaskar sees that balance slipping. "Take an example of this Dhurandhar (2025) movie. It's a blockbuster movie but it is not something I can sit and watch with my son," he says. Action, he argues, has become increasingly graphic, with filmmakers setting "a benchmark so high" that every action film seems to involve "ripping heads, chopping off hands".
Audiences, he believes, have evolved, while certification has gone in the opposite direction. "They are taking a reverse gear wherein they want everything to be goody, goody," he says.
