My kids keep finding shows on Netflix that I would rather they not watch. I know Netflix has some parental settings but I cannot figure out how to block specific titles rather than just setting an age rating. Anyone know how to actually do this step by step?
Yes, Netflix does let you block specific titles and it is not that hard once you know where to look. Here is the step by step:
On a browser (easiest way to do this):
- Go to netflix.com and log in
- Click your profile icon at the top right
- Go to Account
- Scroll down to Profile and Parental Controls
- Click on your child’s profile
- You will see a section called Title Restrictions, this is what you want
- Search for the show you want to block and click the lock icon next to it
- Save the changes
That show will now be completely invisible on your child’s profile. They will not see it in search, not in recommendations, nowhere. It just disappears from their view.
A couple of things worth knowing:
- This only works on profiles set up as Kids profiles OR profiles with a PIN lock. If your child is on your main profile, the title restriction still applies but they could theoretically switch profiles.
- You can block as many titles as you want. There is no limit.
- The blocking applies across all devices, TV, tablet, phone. Whatever profile they log into will have the same restrictions everywhere.
The PIN part is important though. Set a profile PIN so your child cannot just switch to your profile and watch whatever they want from there. Go to Account, then Profile Lock, and set a PIN for your main profile. 
Wait I never knew about the Title Restrictions thing?? I have been using Netflix for years and had no idea that feature existed. I always thought it was just the rating filter (like set it to PG and that is all you can do).
Tried it just now actually. Searched for a show my nephew always tries to watch and locked it. Took about 45 seconds. Genuinely surprised that worked so easily. 
One thing I want to add for people reading this: the rating filter and title restrictions work together, not as alternatives. So you can set the profile to only show content rated TV-Y and TV-G AND also specifically block individual titles that might fall within that rating but you still do not want your kid watching.
The rating system alone has gaps. Some shows technically get a lower rating but still have content that is not great for young kids. The title block fills that gap for specific things you know about.
Also for anyone on mobile: you cannot do this from the Netflix app. You need to go to a browser, either on your phone browser or on a computer. The Account settings where Title Restrictions live are not accessible through the app itself. Caught me off guard the first time I tried.
Since this question keeps coming up in different forms, let me do a full rundown of every parental tool Netflix offers so people can see the whole picture in one place.
The Kids Profile
The simplest starting point. When you set up a profile as a Kids profile during account setup or profile editing, Netflix automatically restricts that profile to content rated for children (roughly equivalent to G and PG). The interface also changes to a more child-friendly layout.
How to create or convert to a Kids profile:
- Go to Manage Profiles from the main screen
- Click Add Profile or click Edit on an existing one
- Check the box that says Kid? or toggle the Kids Profile option
- Save
This is a blunt instrument. It blocks everything above a certain rating but does not let you fine-tune within that.
Maturity Rating Filters
For profiles that are NOT set as Kids profiles, you can manually set a maturity level:
- Log into netflix.com
- Go to Account, then Manage Profiles
- Click the profile you want to edit
- Under Viewing Restrictions, set the maturity level (Little Kids, Older Kids, Teens, Adults)
This gives you slightly more range than the Kids profile toggle.
Title Restrictions (The Most Useful Feature)
As Fluxorix already covered, this lets you block specific titles regardless of their rating. This is the feature most parents do not know about and it is genuinely the most useful one.
Worth adding: title restrictions also block trailers and thumbnails. The show will not appear anywhere on that profile. Netflix does a clean job of removing it from the entire interface, not just making it unplayable.
Profile Lock with PIN
Set a 4-digit PIN on profiles you do not want your child accessing. This stops them from just switching to your profile to bypass the restrictions on theirs.
Go to Account, then Profile Lock, enter your Netflix password to confirm, and set a PIN.
What Netflix Cannot Do
Netflix cannot block content within a show (like skipping certain episodes), cannot restrict based on themes beyond the rating category, and cannot send you alerts about what your child is watching. For that level of detail you would need a third-party screen time app.
Quick Summary
| Feature | What It Does | Where to Find It |
|---|---|---|
| Kids Profile | Blanket age filter + child UI | Manage Profiles |
| Maturity Rating | Adjustable age filter | Account > Manage Profiles |
| Title Restrictions | Block specific shows or movies | Account > Profile and Parental Controls |
| Profile Lock PIN | Stops profile switching | Account > Profile Lock |
All four together give you a solid setup.
Okay jumping in with a completely different angle here… I am 16 and I can tell you what actually gets around Netflix restrictions from a teenager’s perspective, since that might help parents plug the gaps 
The profile switching thing is the biggest one. If the parent profile does not have a PIN, kids absolutely know they can just switch profiles. Every teenager I know does this. You set the restrictions on the kid’s profile, kid just taps the parent’s profile icon, done.
The fix for this is so simple though: PIN on the parent profile. That one step closes the most common workaround.
The second thing: Netflix on a family TV does not always prompt for a profile switch PIN if the household is used to just clicking through. So the PIN needs to be something that is actually asked for, not just set and never used. Test it on the TV specifically because sometimes auto-login settings bypass it.
Third: downloads. If a show is downloaded to a device before you block it, the downloaded version can still be watched. The title restriction stops future watching and stops it from appearing, but it does not delete already-downloaded content. If you block something, also check their downloaded titles in the app (go to Downloads in the menu) and delete anything from there.
Not trying to help kids outsmart parents here lol, just being practical about what actually needs to be addressed. 
TriviaNext that downloads point is something I never would have thought of. That is a real gap.
Going to add one more scenario that parents miss: watch history.
Netflix does not just recommend based on profile settings, it recommends based on watch history. If your child watched part of a show that you later blocked, Netflix might still surface similar content through the recommendation engine. The block removes the specific title but not the watch pattern that led to it.
To clear watch history on your child’s profile:
- Log into netflix.com
- Go to Account
- Scroll to Profile and Parental Controls and select the child’s profile
- Click Viewing Activity
- You will see a full history of everything watched
- Click the circle with a line through it next to any title to remove it from history
- It takes up to 24 hours to fully update the recommendations
This is also useful just as a check to see what your kid has actually been watching. The viewing activity page shows timestamps so you can see exactly when something was watched, including in the middle of the night if that is a concern. 
Not suggesting you stare at the history every day, but doing a check every couple of weeks takes about two minutes and gives you a pretty clear picture of what is happening on that profile.
The watch history tip from TechRider is genuinely something more parents should know about. The activity log on Netflix is way more detailed than most people realize.
Slight tangent but related: Netflix also has a feature called Viewing Activity under your account that shows not just what was watched but how much of it was watched. So you can see if your kid started a show, watched 40 minutes, and then stopped. Or if they watched the same episode three times. The granularity is kind of wild for a streaming service.
Anyway, back to the original question. One thing I want to clarify because I see confusion about this online: Title Restrictions on Netflix do NOT require a Kids profile to work. You can apply them to any profile regardless of the age setting. So if your child uses a regular profile (not the Kids profile layout), you can still go into Account settings and lock specific titles on that profile.
The Kids profile layout has its own restrictions built in. A regular profile with manual maturity settings plus title restrictions is actually more flexible because you can tune it more specifically. The Kids profile is all-or-nothing in its visual style and content range. Some older kids find the Kids profile layout annoying and it causes friction. The manual settings approach on a regular profile tends to work better for kids in the 8 to 12 range. 
Something nobody has mentioned yet: what to do when your kid wants to watch a show their friends are talking about but you are not sure if it is okay.
This happens constantly. My daughter comes home and everyone is talking about some new Netflix series and I have never heard of it. The title restriction is useful when you know something is a problem. But for the “I do not know anything about this show” situation, you need a different approach.
Common Sense Media (commonsensemedia.org) is the best free resource for this. You search the show, and they give you:
- Age recommendation
- A breakdown of exactly what content is in it (violence, language, romance, etc.)
- Reviews from both parents and kids
- Whether it has messages or themes worth discussing
It takes about 2 minutes to look up a show and you get a much more detailed picture than the Netflix rating alone gives you. Netflix ratings are pretty broad. A show rated TV-14 can mean very different things depending on what it actually contains.
The workflow I use: kid asks about a show, I look it up on Common Sense Media before saying yes or no. If it is fine, I say yes and do nothing. If there are specific things I want to limit, I either block it or we watch the first episode together. Works better than blanket blocking everything and causing a fight. 
TechRunner1 the Common Sense Media recommendation is a solid one. I use it for video games too, not just shows. Same concept, same site.
Adding something else here because I think VictorHughes original question might have a second layer to it. Sometimes “blocking specific shows” is not just about what the kid watches on their own. It is also about what Netflix autoplay recommends during family viewing.
Netflix autoplay previews are a real thing. You scroll past a thumbnail and it starts playing a loud, dramatic clip from something you did not want playing. This happens on the main TV in the living room when little kids are around and it is pretty annoying.
To turn off autoplay previews:
- Go to netflix.com and log in
- Go to Account
- Under your profile, click Playback Settings
- Uncheck Autoplay previews while browsing on all devices
- Save
You can do this on each profile separately. Turning it off on the kids profile means the thumbnail for a blocked or age-inappropriate show will not suddenly start playing just because the remote drifted over it.
Separate from this: there is also Autoplay next episode. Turning that off on a kids profile means Netflix will not automatically roll into the next episode. Kids have to actively press play again. Small thing but it genuinely reduces the hours kids accidentally clock on a show they started. 
Okay I want to come in with a slightly different perspective because I think this thread is useful but it is also making this sound more complicated than it needs to be for most families.
For a seven year old: set up a Kids profile, done. The built-in filter handles basically everything. You do not need to block specific titles if the rating filter is doing its job correctly. Kids profile plus profile PIN on your adult profile is a five minute setup and it covers 95% of situations.
For a ten to twelve year old: that is when the nuance matters. They are old enough to want to watch things beyond the Kids profile library but young enough that you still want guardrails. This is where Title Restrictions become genuinely useful because you want them to have access to a wider range of content but with specific things blocked.
For a teenager: blanket blocking generally creates more friction than it solves. At that age the conversation matters more than the technical block. Deciding together what is okay to watch and why works better than trying to stay one step ahead technically. Teenagers will always find a way if they are determined, and the relationship is more valuable than the restriction.
Not telling anyone how to parent obviously. Just saying that the right level of technical setup depends a lot on the age group. More features are not always the answer. 
FrontNexus making a good point about age groups. I want to add something practical for people with multiple kids at different ages under the same Netflix account.
Netflix allows up to 5 profiles per account. You can have separate profiles with completely different settings for each child. So if you have a 6-year-old and a 13-year-old, you set up a full Kids profile with a strict filter for the younger one and a Teen-rated profile with more flexibility for the older one.
The thing that trips people up: if both kids share one profile, you can only apply one set of settings. That tends to mean the restrictions are set for the younger kid, which frustrates the older one, and eventually everyone ends up fighting over the settings. Separate profiles solve this.
Setting it up:
- From the main Netflix screen, go to Manage Profiles
- Click Add Profile
- Give it a name (you can literally name it after each kid)
- Set the age and Kids profile toggle appropriately for that child
- Repeat for each child
One more thing: you can set a PIN requirement to access specific profiles. So your teenager’s profile (with slightly looser restrictions) can require a PIN that only they know, which stops the younger sibling from getting into it. Keeps both happy. 
Can I just say this is the most useful Netflix thread I have ever read 
I have had Netflix for like 6 years and did not know half of this stuff existed.
The autoplay preview thing DigiWave mentioned, turned it off immediately on all profiles. My living room TV used to randomly blast trailer audio for things I had not selected and I thought it was just a Netflix thing I had to live with. Fixed in 30 seconds.
Going back to the original question: one small thing that tripped me up when I first tried Title Restrictions. When you search for a show to block it, you need to search by the exact name as it appears on Netflix. Abbreviations or alternate names sometimes do not come up. If the show is not appearing in the Title Restriction search, try typing the full official title.
Also: if a show has multiple seasons listed as separate titles on Netflix (like Season 1 and Season 2 appearing as different entries), you need to block each one individually. They do not always link together under one restriction. A bit tedious if there are a lot of seasons but it is worth knowing so you do not think you blocked something when you only blocked one part of it.
Hopefully that saves someone the confusion it caused me when I was convinced the feature was broken.
My parents set this stuff up on our account, so I have seen it from both sides.
The separate profiles thing TechTrender mentioned is actually the setup I prefer as a kid. When my parents set up a profile specifically for me with settings that made sense for my age, it felt less like I was being locked down and more like I had my own space on the account. I know that sounds minor but it genuinely made a difference in how I felt about it.
The stuff I found annoying growing up was when I felt like the restrictions were treating me like I was younger than I was. Getting access to a slightly wider content range as I got older (even just going from Kids profile to Teen rating) felt like it was keeping up with me rather than ignoring that I was growing up.
My younger sibling is 9 and still has a full Kids profile. That feels right for her age. And because we have separate profiles, her restrictions and mine are completely separate. No arguments, no “why does she get to watch that,” no nothing. It just works.
The one thing I will say from experience: if a parent PINs everything really aggressively without any conversation about why, kids (especially teenagers) tend to feel more frustrated and less trusting. The setup works better when there is some explanation. Just my experience with it. 
Novabust I think that is genuinely one of the most useful things said in this thread and it came from a 15-year-old, which I appreciate.
Practical stuff to close out the thread for VictorHughes: here is the full order of operations for setting this up from scratch.
Step 1 — Set up a dedicated profile for each child if you have not already. Name them clearly, set the age level appropriate to each kid.
Step 2 — If the child is under about 8 or 9, make it a full Kids profile. Simple and effective.
Step 3 — For older kids, set the maturity level manually under Account settings to match their age (Older Kids or Teen depending on the child).
Step 4 — Go to Account, then Profile and Parental Controls, select your child’s profile, and add Title Restrictions for any specific shows you want gone. Do the search carefully and block each title individually.
Step 5 — Turn off autoplay previews on their profile so inappropriate thumbnails do not auto-play while browsing.
Step 6 — Set a PIN on your adult profile so they cannot switch into it.
Step 7 — Check viewing activity every couple of weeks. Two minutes, gives you a clear picture.
That whole setup takes maybe 20 to 30 minutes the first time and then it basically runs itself. Occasional maintenance when new shows come out that you want to add to the block list but otherwise it is set and forget. Good luck 
Coming in super late but wanted to add one thing that is easy to miss: Netflix has actually been updating its parental control interface in 2024 and 2025 so some of the older guides you find via Google are showing outdated screenshots.
If you are following steps from a tutorial and the menu looks slightly different from what you expect, that is probably why. Netflix moved some settings around. The features are still there but under slightly different menu paths on some devices.
The most reliable way to find everything is to go to netflix.com on a desktop browser, log in, and go straight to Account. The full Account settings page on desktop browser is always the most complete version of the settings. The mobile app and smart TV settings menus are trimmed down and do not show everything.
Also worth knowing: Netflix has a dedicated Help page for parental controls that they actually update when the interface changes. If this thread ever goes out of date, searching “Netflix parental controls” directly on help.netflix.com will give you the current official instructions with current screenshots. More reliable than random blog posts that are sometimes three years old and showing a completely different UI. 
VictorHughes hope the whole thread helped. The features you need are all there, just a bit buried. Once it is set up you basically do not have to think about it again.