not yetwith an adult, or to talk about afteralonethe sweet spot
The official US rating is TV-PG; we never go below it, and here we go above: 13. Alone from 13; from 12, with an adult or by talking about it afterwards.
The sweet spot: around 13-15, the age at which you can hold a plot across years, and when arranged marriages, inheritances and the place of servants become dinner-table arguments; old enough, too, to watch Anna's episode and talk about it. Why a sweet spot?
Official US rating: TV-PG; zinema says 13. In France, zinema would say 13.
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Offers in the United States, collected automatically. Catalogues change often.
What it's about
A chronicle of the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family and their servants in the post-Edwardian era, with great events in history having an effect on their lives and on the British social hierarchy.
Why 13
Our readingFifty-two episodes almost entirely spoken in drawing rooms and below stairs; what counts for the age comes down to four moments: the trenches of the Somme, a car crash with a bloodied face, the assault on Anna, off screen but heard, and Thomas found in his bath. None is drawn out, none is repeated. At 13 the series can be followed alone; at 12, a parent within reach for those two episodes.
reading
The assault on Anna, off screen but heardSeason 4, episode 3: during a concert upstairs, a visiting valet drags Anna into a room below stairs; a few seconds of struggle, her screams, then nothing. The following episodes show her bruised and silent, and it becomes the story of the whole season.
Blood three times, a reddened bathThe trenches of the Somme open season 2, a head-wounded soldier carried under shellfire; Matthew, face covered in blood in his overturned car, closes season 3; Robert vomits blood in the middle of a dinner (season 6, episode 5). Season 6, episode 8, Thomas is found unconscious in his bath, wrists cut; he survives and the house gathers round him.
Deaths that matter, shooting parties, wine and cigarettesSybil dies in childbirth in front of her family, Matthew on the road, Lavinia of the flu; they are mourned for a long time. The guns belong to grouse and stag shoots. Wine at every dinner, cigarettes below stairs, a swear word or two per episode.
What the series brings
A house like a town: every character has a place, a job and a secret, upstairs and down.
Fifteen years of English history without a lecture: the Titanic, the war, the flu, electricity, the telephone, women voting.
Characters who change their minds over years, starting with the butler and the dowager countess.
Watching it together
Before
Say before season 4 that one episode is hard on Anna, and watch it together; Thomas's bath deserves a sentence afterwards, about what you do when a friend is not all right.
After
at 13 and up
Anna and Bates, Mary and Matthew: which of them really get to choose their own lives, and who pays for it?
A zinema reading from September 22, 2026 · the 52 episodes of 6 seasons, watched one by one · the age by zinema's rules for the US and France, and a human reading · report an error · how this guide is made