Preteen girl looking at a cell phone with her parents

Personalized picks at your fingertips

Get the mobile app on iOS and Android

Get the app
Parents' Guide to

Star Trek: First Contact

By Charles Cassady Jr., Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 12+

Intense, gory Starfleet adventure earns series' first PG-13.

Movie PG-13 1996 111 minutes
Star Trek: First Contact Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

See all
age 12+

Based on 3 parent reviews

pillsbur
pillsbur Parent of 8 and 12-year-old
December 27, 2020
age 13+

Fine except for that one scene...

Fairly standard sci-fi violence with movie gore (this is not just an episode from television). The Borg Queen is the riskiest aspect for families. She’s designed with bare-shoulders sensuality and the writers “went there” by having her (basically) seduce Data with provocative language and a full-screen kiss. Our kids (12 & 9) still get very uncomfortable by on-screen things having to do with sensuality so I quickly tried to fast forward past the scene. The story itself is fun and the drinking is mostly played for laughs even if it’s worth a deeper analysis of alcoholism as a disease. Overall, our budding Trek fans in the household really liked the movie..
AllAges
AllAges Parent of 8-year-old
August 13, 2020
age 12+

The Best TNG Film. Excellent flick, deserving of PG-13 rating.

Not as gory as Wrath of Khan, but it has it’s moments. Excellent movie.
See all 3 parent reviews

What's the Story?

A theatrical spin-off of the fine TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation, STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT gets right to business with the most compelling of the villains from the program, the Borg, an army of ghoulish cyborgs from deep space, out to conquer all humanoid life. Responding to an attack on Earth by the Borg, the starship Enterprise (a new model since the previous one got trashed in the last film) discovers the invaders have sent a Borg expedition back in time, to a war-devastated 21st-century Earth. By striking at this crucial interval, the Borg will absorb humanity at its weakest point, altering history and preventing the founding of Starfleet. Following in the same time warp, the Enterprise crew split into two teams; one beams to the wilderness of Montana of 2063, to find a genius inventor-pilot named Zephraim Cochrane (James Cromwell), responsible for faster-than-light space travel -- but he turns out to be a gangly wastrel, aghast that he's destined to be regarded as the planet's greatest hero. That's played on a comic level; more serious events unfold on the Enterprise, where Borg have taken root like an infection and are spreading throughout the ship.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (3 ):
Kids say (15 ):

Kids (heck, adults too) who have absorbed Treklore on the level of their Pokemon or Buffy the Vampire Slayer scholarship should be delighted by the well-modulated space adventure. Though it comes on like gangbusters (or Borgbusters, as the case may be), as with many Star Trek movies, knowledge of the dense TV mythology is crucial to comprehending this maximum-warp theatrical expansion. Someone who has not seen the cliffhanger episodes in which Capt. Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) is captured and turned into a Borg, will be a bit lost -- and Star Trek: First Contact not only references them but also connects, to varying degrees, with Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager, among others. In-joke lines and cameos that made audiences cheer in 1996 may seem puzzling and out of context today.

While the relatively tame stuff on Earth with Zephraim Cochrane seems to have drifted in from an entirely different (and more lighthearted) film, it gives you vital breathing space in between the Borg conflict, in which the stakes are literally a fate worse than death. Indeed, the vibe is not unlike Alien as the purposeful zombies take over deck by deck -- only to meet their match in human will and loyalty.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about why the Borg are standouts among all the alien menaces on Star Trek. Why are they such memorable adversaries?

  • What about the side-story about Zephraim Cochrane, the legendary inventor who turns out to be an extremely reluctant hero? Can you think of any real-life equivalents in human history?

  • The theme of Moby Dick and obsessive vengeance arises, a reference that also came up in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. What similarities are there in the stories?

Movie Details

Inclusion information powered by

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

See all recommended movie lists

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

See how we rate