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MPAA

Also called: MPA, Motion Picture Association, Motion Picture Association of America

The MPAA — renamed the Motion Picture Association (MPA) in 2019 — is the trade association of the major Hollywood studios and streamers. It lobbies governments on their behalf, fights piracy, and runs the voluntary rating system that labels American films G, PG, PG-13, R or NC-17.

What it does: Represents the biggest studios in Washington and abroad, fights piracy, and assigns the G to NC-17 ratings through its rating board.
Use it when: You need a rating for a U.S. theatrical release, or you want to understand why studios lobby, sue pirates or cut films the way they do.
Watch out: The MPA is a private industry group, not a government censor — its ratings are voluntary, but theaters and advertisers treat them as binding.
Try this prompt: Rating check: list every shot with violence, sex, drug use or strong language and note which rating each one pushes the film toward.

What is the MPAA?

The Motion Picture Association of America was the trade body of Hollywood's major studios. In September 2019 it dropped "of America" and became the Motion Picture Association (MPA), folding its domestic and international operations under one name. Most people still say MPAA; both names mean the same organization.

A trade association works for its members, not for the public or for individual filmmakers. The MPA's members are the largest producers and distributors of film and television: long-standing studios such as Disney, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Universal and Warner Bros., plus Netflix, which joined in 2019 as the first streaming company, and Amazon, which joined in 2024. The roster shifts as studios merge — Fox, for example, disappeared as a member after Disney bought it.

The MPA is one of the central institutions of the film industry. It does not make films and has no legal power over what gets made; its influence comes from speaking for the companies that release most films in American theaters.

A short history: from the Hays Office to the MPA

The organization was founded in 1922 as the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), with former Postmaster General Will Hays as its president. Studios created it to head off state and federal censorship after a string of Hollywood scandals, and it became known as the Hays Office.

Key dates:

1930–1934 — the MPPDA adopts the Production Code and then starts enforcing it: every film needs a seal of approval before release. That rulebook is covered in detail in the Hays Code article.
1945 — Eric Johnston succeeds Hays and the group is renamed the Motion Picture Association of America.
1966 — Jack Valenti becomes president and stays until 2004, the longest and most influential tenure in the group's history.
1968 — with the Code no longer enforceable, Valenti replaces it with a rating system that launches on November 1 with G, M, R and X.
1984 and 1990 — PG-13 is added between PG and R; X is replaced by NC-17.
2019 — the MPAA becomes the MPA under chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin.

The shift in 1968 is the one that matters most to filmmakers. The Code decided what a film could contain. The rating system accepts almost any content and instead decides who may buy a ticket.

What does the MPAA do today?

The MPA's work falls into four areas:

Lobbying and policy. It represents the studios before Congress, federal agencies and foreign governments on trade, tax incentives, market access and intellectual-property law. It backs strong copyright protection, and it supported the SOPA anti-piracy bill that was shelved in 2012 after large online protests.
Anti-piracy. Camcorder recordings, leaked screeners and ripped streams — the bootleg trade — are a permanent target. Since 2017 the MPA has led the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), a coalition of studios and media companies that goes after illegal streaming sites and pirate services worldwide.
Ratings. Through the Classification and Rating Administration (CARA), run jointly with the National Association of Theatre Owners, it rates films submitted to it and approves the trailers and posters that member studios release. The green band shown before a trailer comes from this process.
Title registration. Members register working titles through the MPA so two studios do not release films under the same name.

The common thread is protecting the value of what the studios own — the films themselves, the markets they sell into and the terms on which they reach an audience, from the studio system era to streaming.

How the MPAA rating process works for filmmakers

The rating system is voluntary. Member studios submit all their theatrical releases, and independent producers can submit too, paying a fee scaled to the film's budget. A board of parents watches the film and votes on a rating, with a short descriptor that explains it — "for strong violence and language throughout," for example.

If the rating is harsher than you need, you have three options:

Cut and resubmit. The board explains which elements drove the rating, you trim or replace them, and the new cut is rated again. Many R films reach PG-13 this way, and many NC-17 films reach R.
Appeal. An appeals board of industry members can overturn a rating by a two-thirds vote. Blue Valentine (2010) won its appeal from NC-17 to R without cuts.
Release unrated. Nothing forbids it, but many theater chains, TV networks and ad outlets treat an unrated or NC-17 film as hard to book, which limits the release.

Because the stakes are commercial, ratings are best planned in prep, not discovered in the edit. On a FlashBoards board you can mark the shots that carry rating risk — a gore insert, a nude scene, a drug close-up — right next to their storyboard frames and keep reference or generated alternates for a softer cutaway, so the coverage for a PG-13 version is shot on the day rather than faked later. The full letter-by-letter guide lives in film rating system.

Criticism of the MPAA

The rating board has been criticized almost since it started. The most common complaints:

Sex versus violence. Critics argue that brief sexuality or nudity draws a harsher rating than sustained, bloodless violence.
Studios versus independents. Independent filmmakers have long claimed that member studios get more detailed guidance and gentler treatment.
Secrecy. Raters were historically anonymous, and the board does not publish detailed standards, so decisions can feel arbitrary.

Kirby Dick's documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006) put these complaints on screen and pushed the MPAA to share more about how the board works. The basic structure has not changed: the ratings remain industry-run.

MPAA vs. film rating system

The two terms get mixed up because the MPA's ratings are the best-known ratings in the world, but they are not the same thing:

MPAA / MPA is an organization: a trade body with lobbying, legal, anti-piracy and rating operations.
A film rating system is a classification scheme for audience suitability. The MPA runs one of them, for the United States. The BBFC in the UK, the FSK in Germany and other national boards run their own, often backed by law.

So "rated R by the MPA" is correct, while "the MPAA rated it 15" mixes two systems. For the meaning of each letter and how countries compare, see the film rating system article.

FlashBoardsDirect the MPAA on one board

Keep the reference frames, prompts and every generated take side by side — images and video in one canvas.

Open FlashBoards

FAQ

5 questions

What does the MPAA do?

The MPAA, now called the MPA, is the trade association of the major Hollywood studios plus Netflix and Amazon. It lobbies governments on copyright, trade and tax policy, leads anti-piracy work through the ACE coalition, registers film titles for its members, and runs the voluntary rating board that gives American films their G, PG, PG-13, R or NC-17 ratings.

Is it MPAA or MPA?

Both refer to the same organization. It was the Motion Picture Association of America from 1945 until September 2019, when it shortened its name to the Motion Picture Association (MPA) to reflect its global work. Ratings are now credited to the MPA, but many people, articles and older posters still use MPAA.

Who rates movies in the US?

The Classification and Rating Administration, run by the MPA together with the national theater owners' association. A board of parents watches each submitted film and votes on its rating. Producers who disagree can cut the film and resubmit, or appeal to a separate appeals board of industry members, which needs a two-thirds vote to overturn a rating.

Do you have to get an MPA rating?

No. The rating system is voluntary and no law requires it. Member studios rate all their theatrical releases, and most independent films that want a wide U.S. theatrical run also submit, because many theater chains, broadcasters and advertisers are reluctant to handle unrated films. Festival, streaming-only and limited releases often go out unrated.

When did the MPAA ratings start?

The rating system launched on November 1, 1968, replacing the Production Code, often called the Hays Code. It began with G, M, R and X. M became PG in the early 1970s, PG-13 was added in 1984, and NC-17 replaced X in 1990, giving the five ratings used today.