Venom and Eddie Brock return this autumn in Venom: The Last Dance. Before you head to the cinema, you can find out everything you need to know about the film, and who it’s suitable for, below.

What is the age rating for Venom: The Last Dance?

We rated Venom: The Last Dance 15 for strong violence, language. This means that no one under the age of 15 may see the film in the cinema. Find our content advice on the film and its themes below, or for a quick glance you can check out our handy visual guide to the age rating and the film’s content here.

Venom: The Last Dance at a glance

After writing the previous instalments of the Venom series, Kelly Marcel makes her directorial debut with Venom: The Last Dance. Tom Hardy also returns in his dual role as reporter Eddie Brock and his powerful alien symbiote, Venom. Recovering from their brief multiverse-spanning bender, the unlikely friends become the target of mysterious agencies and monstrous alien creatures in this sci-fi action adventure, and must go on the run in a desperate bid to stay alive.

What can I expect from Venom: The Last Dance?

​​​​​​​(Please note: this section may contain spoilers!)

Fans of the previous films in the franchise, Venom and Venom: Let There Be Carnage, can expect similar moments of fantastical action violence in which alien entities battle each other with teeth and claws, while Eddie and Venom evade armed forces and take violent retribution on wrongdoers – often with an offbeat sense of humour.

For example, in Venom: The Last Dance, Eddie and Venom stumble across a gang involved in staging illegal dog fights. No animals are harmed, but the same cannot be said for the gang members, whom Eddie and Venom fight using improvised weapons in a humorous sequence which culminates in Venom decapitating four men with swift bites to the neck. Although there is no grisly detail, the beheadings are impactful and include brief sight of blood.

The Venom franchise has typically featured a darker tone and stronger moments of violence than many other Marvel superhero films, drawing instead on aspects of horror in their portrayal of the alien symbiotes, with occasional jump scares and frightening scenes. 

Venom: The Last Dance is lighter in tone than its predecessors, with greater focus on comedy and the relationships between characters, with fewer and milder moments of horror. However, the violence remains strong, with some bloodier moments than the previous films. For example, the alien creatures sent to Earth to hunt Eddie and Venom kill people by eating them and then ejecting their bloody remains from their bodies. During a climactic battle a soldier appears to be bitten in two, and others are left bloodied after being caught by acid spray. There are also moments of human-on-human violence, such as shootings resulting in bloody detail, and the aforementioned decapitation scene.

Our research has shown that in borderline cases, people want us to err on the side of caution. At 12A, our Classification Guidelines state: ‘There may be moderate violence, but it should not dwell on detail. Occasional blood and injuries may be shown, but gory images should be infrequent and justified by context (for example, medical detail, fantasy).’ The bloody moments of violence in Venom: The Last Dance are too frequent and dwell on detail to a degree that surpasses our standards at 12A, and so we classified the film 15 accordingly.

Another classification issue in the film is language. Unless there is special contextual justification, a use of the term ‘motherf**ker’ will typically require a 15 classification under our guidelines. During the climactic battle in Venom: The Last Dance, a man shouts the word while under threat. There is also an implied use of the term, and infrequent use of ‘f**k’. Language is therefore noted in the content advice, alongside violence, as one of the issues that resulted in us classifying Venom: The Last Dance 15. 

You can read more about how we classify violence, language, and threat and horror in our BBFC Guides.