Children’s movie The Good Dinosaur has been criticised a week into its release, following suggestions the animated Pixar film is a brutal affair.

Parents have complained of their children screaming throughout the animated feature film, which centres on a dinosaur named Arlo, who learns to confront his fears and makes a human friend along the way.

The PG-rated film does not open in Australia until Boxing Day, but has already received good reviews from international critics.

Most critics have highlighted the film’s emotional subject matter, as well as the film’s candid depiction of family trauma.

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Parents have been less positive, noting in various online reviews that their children were scared.

“My husband’s sleeve was soaked from my 10-year-old’s tears, the two-year-old was terrified, and I could hear the five and eight-year-old crying throughout the movie,” wrote one mother on Common Sense Media.

“We brought a group of children aging from almost three to six into this sorry excuse for a children’s movie. Less than an hour later, we walked out,” wrote another annoyed parent.

Jane Horowitz wrote in the The Washington Post that the film was honest in portraying the struggles of characters.

“The trials that Arlo and Spot survive are truly harrowing, especially in 3D, from rushing rivers to landslides to lightning, huge storms and flying dinosaur predators eager to eat any small mammal, including Spot,” she wrote.