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2025’s biggest movies are family-friendly PG flicks and R-rated horrors

Thrill-seeking adults and children accompanied by parents have been propping up the box office this year.

11/26/25 7:07AM

As we step further into the holiday season, the all-too-familiar argument of which movie to watch with miscellaneous relatives — young, old, sometimes conflicting — will once again rear its head.

This festive period, it’s likely that the kids will get their way, given that PG movies constitute many of 2025’s biggest hits; though it’s not as probable that they’ll be allowed to stay up while the rest of the family settles in for one of several box office-topping horror films from this year.

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We’re in the midst of a golden era for family-friendly flicks, as detailed in a Wall Street Journal piece last week. Indeed, the incredible success of PG-rated films like “Lilo & Stitch” and “A Minecraft Movie” in recent months could be matched, or even bested, by new “Wicked” and “Zootopia” installments.

However, just as animated youngsters have dragged their parents to sing-alongs and spin-offs on the big screen, the overwhelmingly R-rated horror genre has been another frighteningly bright spot in an otherwise inconsistent year for movies.

PG & R-rated movies storming box office 2025 chart — Sherwood News

Though PG-rated movies, per data from The Numbers, have seen their share of domestic box office ticket sales drop to 31.7%, at the time of writing, since overtaking PG-13s last year, R-rated movies have captured a 34.5% share to date in 2025.

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The box office was once dominated by PG-13s — a genre “just edgy enough to appeal to movie-loving youngsters but nowhere near grizzly enough to give them sleepless nights,” as we noted last December.

This year, however, with G-rated films effectively becoming extinct, titles that cater to the two more extreme ends of the demographic spectrum are clearly matching the pull of PG-13s. Still, despite their mainstream appeal, R-rated horror and PG-rated movies don’t often attract any real Best Picture Oscar buzz — though that could change this awards season with fan favorite “Sinners.”

Millie Giles17h

The most popular male and female names in the US, according to the latest Census

New data published Tuesday by the US Census Bureau has revealed the most common names provided in the 2020 Census, in the first release to include forename data since 1990.

As described in the brief, Michael was the most popular name for males in the US, with roughly 3.5 million American men reporting having this name or a close variant. This is up from fourth place in the 1990 Census, when the top US male name was James — though there were still 3 million Jameses in 2020’s tally.

Despite a three-decade gap, Mary remained the top name for American females in both censuses, with the 2020 survey counting almost 1.8 million females with this given name. Interestingly, Mary was one of just two predominantly female names that broke the top 10 given names in the US, with the overall list dominated mostly by male monikers.

Most popular names US census 2020 chart — Sherwood News

In all, American females had far more first-name diversity than male counterparts: 16% of US males had one of the top 10 most frequent names among men, compared with 7.8% of women. Zooming out, almost 3x as many given names were needed to cover a quarter of the US female population than that of males.

Max Knoblauch & Tom Jones4/14/26

6 months after hiking Game Pass prices by 50%, Xbox determines it may be too expensive

Microsoft’s new Xbox chief, Asha Sharma, thinks the division’s recent price hikes have been a mistake, per an internal memo to employees seen by The Verge.

“Short term, Game Pass has become too expensive for players, so we need a better value equation,” Sharma’s memo reportedly read.

It’s an interesting take, given that Xbox hiked the price of its Game Pass subscription by 50% in October, before Sharma took over. The memo is a signal that Sharma’s tenure — which began in February, taking the industry by surprise — will include some big changes for Microsoft’s gaming strategy.

Whether Game Pass prices will drop is not yet clear. Last month, The Information reported that Sharma and Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters have “kicked around ideas” about potential bundles. That would fit with Netflix’s renewed gaming ambitions.

Xbox Game Pass ‘has become too expensive,’ says Microsoft’s new gaming chief in leaked memo

Millie Giles

LIFELINE

4/14/26

Will a resolve to reduce screen time see a revival of landline telephones?

For parents trying to limit their kids’ exposure to smartphones, the answer could be yesterday’s tech.

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IN THE GREEN

4/13/26

Rory McIlroy just secured a second consecutive Masters title — and the biggest prize pot to date

Winning a sixth major title in the year of a record purse, McIlroy is now the Masters’ highest-earning golfer.

Max Knoblauch4/13/26

Roblox announces age-based accounts for young users as child safety lawsuits pile up

Roblox on Monday announced its first accounts created specifically for young children and teens, furthering its efforts to increase child safety on the platform.

In June, Roblox Kids (for ages 5 to 8) and Roblox Select (for ages 9 to 15) will roll out, following the company’s global launch of mandatory age checks in January.

The new account types will feature different default settings — chats will automatically be set to “off” on Kids accounts — and limit access to games of certain ratings depending on age.

Child safety lawsuits and social media bans are piling up for Roblox, whose shares have dropped more than 30% year to date. In February, Los Angeles County sued the platform, alleging it created a “largely unsupervised online world” in which “child predators can readily locate, contact, and interact with minors.”

Roblox Introduces New Age-Based Accounts and Expanded Parental Controls for Users Under 16

Roblox gaming platform says it is ready to make changes to get Russian ban lifted