Common Sense Note

Parents need to know that Picnic at Hanging Rock -- an eerie allegorical mystery about three students and an instructor who inexplicably vanish during a field trip -- has powerful sexual and violent undertones, though very little is shown. Instead, an ethereal, ghostlike quality permeates the film, which gives no easy answers to the central mystery, but nevertheless, feels creepy and complex.

Sexual Content

A maid is shown in bed, partially clothed in the arms of a shirtless man, presumably having an affair with him.

Violence

A girl is found dead after presumably falling to her death from a window into a greenhouse. A character is shown scratched up and bleeding as he searches for the missing girls and teacher. While the disappearance of the girls and teacher is never shown directly, viewers hear a shrieking scream.

Language

Rare "hell."

Social Behavior

Themes include innocence and sexuality, civilization and nature, Christianity and Paganism, but messages are up to a variety of interpretation.

Consumerism

Not applicable

Drugs / Tobacco / Alcohol

Adult characters are shown smoking. Two of the younger male characters pass a large beer bottle back and forth, taking sips. Later in the film, the Headmistress is shown drinking from a whiskey bottle and acting drunk.