Among Tamil and Malayalam films, the share of A-rated titles was under 7%.
| Photo Credit: TH
India’s censor boards certified nearly 18,000 films between 2017 and 2025, and the ratings reveal sharp contrasts across film industries. Among the major ones, Malayalam cinema emerged as the most “family-friendly” in this period, with the largest share of U-rated certificates, followed closely by Tamil films.
On the other end of the spectrum, Bhojpuri films had the smallest proportion of U-rated releases. In fact, Bhojpuri was the only Indian language where a lower share of films were certified U than in English cinema — an unusual reversal.
These conclusions are based on data collated by CBFC Watch, an independent research project dedicated to exploring film censorship actions across India. Film certifications fall into broadly three groups — adults only (A), unrestricted for all ages (U), and parental guidance/general audience (UA).
The analysis includes all films, short films, and music videos with a duration of more than 60 minutes. Given this one-hour cut-off, it is reasonable to assume that most such cases are full-length feature films.
The chart below shows the share (in %) of movies rated U, U/A and A within each language in the 2017 and 2025 period
More A-rated films in Telugu and Kannada
When it comes to A-rated content, only Telugu and Kannada language movies crossed the 10% mark — the only two among Indian languages to do so. English films certified in India, however, topped the list overall, with more than 16% carrying an adult rating. Among Tamil and Malayalam films, the share of A-rated titles was under 7%.
While the above findings focus on the major film industries, including smaller industries shifts the picture a bit. Odia cinema emerges as the most family-friendly, with around 42% of its films rated U. Only 1.2% of Odia films were rated A — the lowest share across all languages — followed by Gujarati, at just 2.3%. Though the number of movies released in these two languages are relatively much lower in comparison.
It is worth noting that an Odia dub of a Tamil film is treated as an Odia release in this analysis. The same applies to other languages. Moreover, there are instances where the same film, when released in different languages, has received different ratings. In such cases, the versions were counted as separate films, since the certification itself is the focus of this study.
Interestingly, most Indian films are rated U/A. In every language, over 50% of films are rated U/A.
The open source data base developed by Diagramchasing.fun can be accessed here https://cbfc.watch/
vignesh.r@thehindu.co.in
Published – September 18, 2025 07:00 am IST
