The media studies pupils attended Hoyts Octagon Cinema in Dunedin to watch and rate the unreleased film, Charlie Bartlett, as part of a Censor for a Day programme.
Organised by the Office of Film and Literature Classification, the film was about a high school pupil dealing drugs in order to be popular at his new school, chief censor Bill Hastings said.
The film featured a scene of a pupil being filmed being beaten and then the footage being distributed as a DVD.
"In light of recent events, it was a timely film to show,'' he said.
Earlier this week, a clip of fighting pupils from Auckland Catholic boys college, St Pauls, was posted on YouTube.
"Considering the film shows some students taping some fighting, the students will have to do a bit of thinking about the rating,'' he said.
The New Zealand rating for Charlie Bartlett, which is rated M in Australia, would come from what the pupils thought the film deserved, he said.
Studying censorship as part of their NCEA level-three media studies, pupils were asked to rate the film for sex, horror, crime, cruelty, violence, offensive language and conduct that, if imitated, would pose a risk of serious harm.
The film had been shown to pupils in Nelson, Christchurch and Invercargill, with a further screening in Wellington before its classification was decided.
"We have been doing this programme for about nine years and we find that high school students are spot on with our own classification - or more conservative.
"Certainly, students here [Dunedin] and Invercargill appear to be more conservative than their Christchurch counterparts.''
From a show of hands, Dunedin pupils awarded the film a rating of M, R-13 and R-16, he said.
Invercargill pupils rated the film an R-16, with Christchurch pupils rating the film M - suitable for mature audiences aged 16 and over.
Despite the amount of material available on the Internet, there was still a need for censorship, with the office working with Government agencies to classify objectionable material.
"The Internet presents more challenges, but the challenges are more in the area of enforcement rather than classification".
With agencies monitoring sites, any objectionable material was sent to the censor's office for classification before a fine or prison sentence was imposed.
"My job has changed a lot because of the Internet. Just when you think you have seen everything, you come across something you would never have imagined in 100 years.''
