See here how the number of new movie releases AND their MPAA ratings have changed since 1997. Can you guess which rating is trending up?

It is hard for me to enjoy a movie.  My mind wanders.

I wondered how the number of movies has changed over time and their assigned ratings.  Many suggest movies have become coarser, more violent, more sexual, etc.  The rating system is suppose to give us some guidelines as to the nature of the content of each movie. Not a perfect system, but let's go with it here.

Using historical data from THIS WEBSITE  I plotted, going back to 1997, the number of movies released at the different ratings we are all familiar with.  You can see the color-coding for each one with the key on the right.

I connected the beginning data point and the last one (dotted line) to give you are reference.

In absolute terms, R-rated movies dominate.  I was surprised by the relative flat lining for G and PG rated movies.  Notice any trends??

Here is the data I used to create the graph above.

Empirically, it appears PG-13 rated movies have grown the most consistenly over that time period.  Here is a table that  may shed some light as to why (source HERE)

R-Rated  are produced, BUT  PG-13 rated movies are where the money is made.  With a combined market share of 74% for both ratings  over 17, I expect it to continue.