How 1984’s ‘Red Dawn’ Starring Charlie Sheen and Patrick Swayze Inspired a PG-13 Movie Rating

Before Red Dawn opened in 1984, there were only four movie ratings: G, PG, R and X. The new PG-13 rating was invented when the teen-war hit — about high school guerrillas played by Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson and Jennifer Grey — depicted kids being gunned down in schoolyards, civilians getting executed and other carnage that wasn’t exactly kid stuff and still not extreme enough for an R rating. The legacy of Red Dawn is that today, most movies get a PG-13!