How do movies get rated?

Question

I’m watching Monday Night Football and now seen two movie trailers that looked like Rated R, but both turned out to be PG-13. So how does the rating system work? Checklists? Focus group gut checks? This is probably easy to google but I’d like to have it eli5.

In: 5

Answer 1

Fun fact. These ratings aren’t required, they’re technically voluntarily done by the filmmakers/studios.