Cinema Paradiso

Parents need to know that Cinema Paradiso is a 1988 Italian coming-of-age movie in which a young Sicilian boy is taken under the wing of an older man who teaches him about the love of movies and helps him find his purpose in life. It's a charming tale of friendship and the love of movies that's the perfect introduction to foreign films for teens, despite some iffy scenes -- including a scene where young teens are obviously (if not explicitly shown) masturbating in a theater to a Brigitte Bardot movie, and a man who spits on those below him while in the balcony of the theater eventually gets pelted in the face with feces. Expect brief shots of exposed breasts in black-and-white movies. A man grabs a woman's breasts and starts to moan and grind his body into hers. There is some profanity throughout ("s--t," "bitch"), and two kids smoke a cigarette. A man is shown catching on fire in a projection booth and is rescued by a young boy who drags him down the stairs of the burning building. There is also some bullying -- a young boy is slapped in the head and hit with a ruler by a teacher when he doesn't know the answer to a multiplication problem, and a young man is punched in the face by a bully while trying to woo a beautiful woman. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails.