What is The Poseidon Adventure about?
When their ocean liner capsizes, a group of passengers struggle to survive and escape.
Does it have a happy ending? (spoiler-safe)
No. Brace yourself.
Survivors of a capsized ocean liner face relentless, gritty challenges in an epic struggle for escape.
Suspenseful and pulpy. A full-attention watch at full speed. Emotionally it is heavy.
Not on a US subscription service as of Oct 30, 2026.
The Poseidon Adventure parents guide
For a PG, this one goes further: some innuendo or implied sex and light gore. Beyond that, mild language and a few tense moments.
- Scare
- Mildly scary
- A few tense or eerie moments.
- Jump scares
- A couple
- One or two sudden jolts.
- Gore
- Light gore
- Some blood or injury, briefly.
- Violence
- Some violence
- Some fighting or peril.
- Sex and nudity
- Mild
- Mild means innuendo, or sex implied off screen, with no nudity.
- Language
- Mild
- Mild words like damn, hell or crap.
How we rate: an AI reads what is known about each title and tags it 0 to 3; we check the tags against a hand-rated set and correct them by hand when readers tell us. Estimates, not a scene-by-scene review. Spot a mistake? Tell us.
Three questions
- Is The Poseidon Adventure scary?
- Only a little. The Poseidon Adventure has a few tense moments, nothing that follows you to bed.
- How gory is The Poseidon Adventure?
- Light gore and some violence.
- What is The Poseidon Adventure rated, and is it OK for kids?
- It is rated PG and nothing we tagged runs past mild, but a PG from 1972 could carry more than one does now. Check the guide first.
Cast and crew
Directed byRonald Neame
StarringGene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Stella Stevens, Shelley Winters, Jack Albertson, Red Buttons
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The Poseidon Adventure is on our New Year's Eve, Disasters and 1970s lists.
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Uses the TMDB API; not endorsed or certified by TMDB. Intensity, content, tone and pace tags are CouchRot's own.