About CineGuard

What CineGuard is

A free, public database of content warnings for movies. Every warning can carry timestamps, so instead of a vague "contains violence" label you get a timeline: at 01:12 there is a graphic injury, at 01:34 a flashing-light sequence. You can look away, skip, or skip the film.

Browsing, searching and reading timelines never requires an account. An account is only needed to contribute, save films to a watchlist, review, or discuss.

Who it's for

• Photosensitive viewers — people with epilepsy or migraine who need to know about flashing lights and strobing before a scene starts.
• People with specific phobias — emetophobia, needles, spiders, heights, confined spaces. A single scene can ruin an evening; a timestamp prevents that.
• Trauma survivors — viewers avoiding depictions of sexual violence, self-harm, suicide, child harm or pregnancy loss.
• Parents and carers — deciding what is appropriate, with more detail than an age rating gives.

How the data stays accurate

We would rather be honest than sound authoritative. Here is the actual process:

1. Films are added by request. Anyone with an account can submit a film through the request form. A moderator reviews the submission and approves it before it appears in the catalog, which keeps duplicates and junk entries out.
2. Warnings and timestamps are moderator-written. Content warnings, severities and timestamps are currently added and edited by moderators. Anyone can propose a warning or a correction — through a discussion thread on the film, or by using the report button — and a moderator applies it. This is deliberately narrow: a wrong timestamp is worse than no timestamp.
3. Anyone can flag a problem. Every film page has a report control for warnings that are inaccurate, missing, or mis-timed. Reports go to a moderation queue and are triaged; corrections are applied to the timeline directly.
4. Discussion sits next to the data. Reviews and threads on each film let viewers describe how a scene actually landed for them — context a severity label can't carry. Discussion is not the source of truth; the timeline is.
5. Gaps are visible, not hidden. If a film has no timeline yet, we say so and offer you a way to add it, rather than implying it is safe. Absence of a warning is not a guarantee.

Timestamps refer to runtime from the start of the feature and can drift between cuts, regional releases and streaming versions with different intros. Treat them as accurate to within a few seconds, not frame-exact.

Help improve it

Read how it works to see the timeline format and how to submit or correct one, or browse the warning reference to see every trigger we track.