How to Make a Killing (Un ours dans le Jura): what age is it for? 13 alone, 12 with a parent
13 alone, 12 with a parent.
In France, zinema would say 13.
Alone, or with you
Alone from 13; from 12, with an adult or by talking about it afterwards.
The sweet spot: around 14-16, this is the age when you start to see that a couple can be mended by a bad deed, and that this is exactly what the film is saying without ever saying it. Before that, it is just a story about found money. Why a sweet spot?
The trailer
What it's about
Michel and Cathy, wed for longer than they can remember, lead a quiet but monotonous life in the mountains. When a bear bursts out in front of Michel’s car, accidentally killing two drug dealers and revealing a €2 million loot in the process, their life takes an unpredictable turn, especially when they decide to cover up the incident and keep the money! But their plan leads them to stumble upon an unexplained trail of dead bodies. More used to being honest than crooked, Michel and Cathy’s clumsy cover-up efforts soon put an interfering inspector hot on their trail.
Why 13
- Our readingNot rated in the US. We say 13: A comedy that laughs at a dead man and his money. Nothing is very bloody, but guns come out often, and the film asks you to understand that it is mocking its characters, otherwise all that is left is the lesson: keep quiet, keep the cash, it works. That is what calls for thirteen.reading
- Deaths talked about, money keptTwo people die early on and the bodies are mostly kept off screen, but the deaths are discussed again and again, coldly, as a problem to solve rather than a tragedy. The whole story runs on what the couple decides to do with the cash.
- Guns out, oftenFirearms and a knife are handled repeatedly, gunfire is heard, and a few scuffles turn rough. It stays short of graphic, but the threat is constant and real inside the joke.
- Swearing, and plenty of itCrude language runs through the dialogue from the first minutes, roughly forty coarse words across the film, plus a handful of insults between characters.
- Wine, cigarettes, drug talkDrinking is a fixture of these evenings, cigarettes are lit on screen, and drugs are named often in the dialogue as part of the criminal world the couple stumbles into.
- Dark nights, screams, tearsA large part of the film plays in near darkness, with shouting, crying and frightened faces. The unease is real even when the scene is meant to be funny.
- The joke is the hard partHalf the film is played for laughs, which softens the violence for an adult but can mislead a younger viewer. A teen needs to see that the film is mocking these two, not applauding them.
What the movie brings
- A sharp look at how money and silence can eat away at a couple.
- Black comedy that asks you to judge the characters rather than follow them.
- A reminder that small lies grow fast when nobody speaks up.
Watching it together
Tell them up front that this one laughs at people behaving badly, so that the laughs do not read as approval.
at 13 and up
Did the film want us to like Michel and Cathy, or to laugh at them?
See the facts
For the same age, on zinema
- Borgen 17
- The Madison 17, 16 with a parent
- Suits 14
- The Good Wife 14
The latest guides
- Runner 13
- Lady Bird 17
- Vivre 13, 12 with a parent
- About Time 17
A zinema reading from September 26, 2026 · the whole movie, watched in full · the age by zinema's rules for the US and France, and a human reading · report an error · how this guide is made