us netflix movie review

Cast & crew
User reviews

Adelaide Wilson and her family are attacked by mysterious figures dressed in red. Upon closer inspection, the Wilsons realize that the intruders are exact lookalikes of them. Adelaide Wilson and her family are attacked by mysterious figures dressed in red. Upon closer inspection, the Wilsons realize that the intruders are exact lookalikes of them. Adelaide Wilson and her family are attacked by mysterious figures dressed in red. Upon closer inspection, the Wilsons realize that the intruders are exact lookalikes of them.

Jordan Peele
Lupita Nyong'o
Winston Duke
Elisabeth Moss
3.5K User reviews
576 Critic reviews
81 Metascore
85 wins & 133 nominations

Adelaide Wilson …

Gabe Wilson …

Kitty Tyler …

Josh Tyler …

Zora Wilson …

Jason Wilson …

Russel Thomas …

Rayne Thomas …
Becca Tyler …
Lindsey Tyler …

Young Adelaide Wilson …
Teenage Adelaide Wilson …

All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

The 'Us' Cast's Marvel Connections Go Way Back

More like this

Did you know

Trivia Jordan Peele gave the cast 11 horror films to watch so they would have "a shared language" when filming: Jaws (1975) , Dead Again (1991) , The Shining (1980) , The Babadook (2014) , It Follows (2014) , A Tale of Two Sisters (2003) , The Birds (1963) , Funny Games (1997) , Martyrs (2008) , Let the Right One In (2008) , and The Sixth Sense (1999) .
Goofs Adelaide struggled to reach the fireplace poker (when handcuffed to the table) despite the table being light enough to push/drag closer to the fireplace.

Red : Once upon a time, there was a girl and the girl had a shadow. The two were connected, tethered together. And the girl ate, her food was given to her warm and tasty. But when the shadow was hungry, he had to eat rabbit raw and bloody. On Christmas, the girl received wonderful toys; soft and cushy. But the shadow's toys were so sharp and cold they sliced through her fingers when she tried to play with them. The girl met a handsome prince and fell in love. But the shadow at that same time had Abraham, it didn't matter if she loved him or not. He was tethered to the girl's prince after all. Then the girl had her first child, a beautiful baby girl. But the shadow, she gave birth to a little monster. Umbrae was born laughing. The girl had a second child, a boy this time. They had to cut her open and take him from her belly. The shadow had to do it all herself. She named him Pluto, he was born to love fire. So you see, the shadow hated the girl so much for so long until one day the shadow realized she was being tested by God.

Crazy credits The names of the Tethered are colored red in the credits.
Connections Featured in Diminishing Returns Diminisodes: Super Bowl Trailers 2019 (2019)
Soundtracks Les Fleurs Written by Richard Rudolph , Charles Stepney

User reviews 3.5K

ThatSlackerOnSci-Fi
Mar 24, 2019
How long is Us? Powered by Alexa
March 22, 2019 (United States)
United States
Official Facebook
Official Site
Santa Cruz, California, USA (on-location)
Monkeypaw Productions
Blumhouse Productions
See more company credits at IMDbPro
$20,000,000 (estimated)
$175,084,580
$71,117,625
$256,071,218

Technical specs

Runtime 1 hour 56 minutes
Dolby Atmos
Dolby Digital
Dolby Surround 7.1

More to explore

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

Upcoming Movies and TV shows
Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

What's the Tomatometer®?
Login/signup

Movies in theaters

Opening this week
Top box office
Coming soon to theaters
Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

Fandango at Home
Netflix streaming
Prime Video
Most popular streaming movies
What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

Challengers Link to Challengers
Abigail Link to Abigail
Arcadian Link to Arcadian

New TV Tonight

The Jinx: Season 2
Knuckles: Season 1
The Big Door Prize: Season 2
THEM: The Scare: Season 2
Velma: Season 2
Secrets of the Octopus: Season 1
Dead Boy Detectives: Season 1
Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story: Season 1
We're Here: Season 4

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter

site categories

‘us’: film review | sxsw 2019.

Jordan Peele follows 'Get Out' with 'Us,' a horror film starring Lupita Nyong'o in which the monsters look just like the heroes.

By John DeFore

John DeFore

Share this article on Facebook
Share this article on Twitter
Share this article on Flipboard
Share this article on Email
Show additional share options
Share this article on Linkedin
Share this article on Pinit
Share this article on Reddit
Share this article on Tumblr
Share this article on Whatsapp
Share this article on Print
Share this article on Comment

“We’re Americans.”

That single line will be the portal through which Jordan Peele ‘s fans might seek sociopolitical meaning in Us , an often terrifying thriller whose fantastical premise isn’t nearly as easy to read allegorically as that of his shockingly good debut, Get Out . Clearly the work of an ambitious writer-director who can see himself inheriting the mantle of Rod Serling (the Peele-hosted Twilight Zone reboot launches in less than a month), it offers twists and ironies and false endings galore — along with more laughs than the comedian-turned-auteur dared to include in his debut film. Though probably more commercially limited by its genre than its hard-to-pigeonhole predecessor, it packs a punch.

THR Newsletters

More from The Hollywood Reporter

Why it’s never been easier to land in director’s jail, john logan to adapt cormac mccarthy’s ‘blood meridian’ for new regency, the o.j. simpson movie that owen wilson (among others) won’t be starring in, amy adams to star in ‘at the sea,’ latest drama from kornél mundruczó, awards season calendar: key dates for oscars, emmys, tonys and other major events, hollywood forfeits up to $30b every year because of racial inequity.

an image, when javascript is unavailable

Jordan Peele’s ‘Us’ Will Haunt You

By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

It’s scary as hell, and that’s just for starters. But Us , the new mesmerizing mindbender from writer-director-producer Jordan Peele , also carries the weight of expectation. Get Out , Peele’s smashing debut from 2017, was a brilliantly caustic satire of race division in America that won Peele an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay (he’s the first African-American to triumph in that category) and became a phenom with critics and audiences. How can Peele top that? Short answer: he can’t and doesn’t. In interviews , Peele insists that Us is a straight-up horror show. Not really. Leave it to Peele to blaze a trail by putting a black family smack in the middle of a commercial thriller-diller. That’s more than a novelty, it’s a quiet revolution. And Peele’s hints at the larger conspiracies of race, class and social violence festering inside the American dream resonate darkly. Ding Peele all you want for taking on more than he can comfortably handle, but this 40-year-old from New York who started as one half of the sketch-comedy team of Key & Peele is now shaping up as a world-class filmmaker. Flaws and all, Us has the power to haunt your waking dreams. You won’t be able to stop talking about it.

Related: Jordan Peele on the Cover of Rolling Stone

Critics, in mortal fear of the spoiler police, need to shut the fuck up. Or at least tread carefully as Peele introduces the Wilson family of sunny California. Mom Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o), dad Gabe (Winston Duke) and their two kids — Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and Jason (Evan Alex) — are on vacation in Santa Cruz. Gabe has an unspoken competition with his friends the Tylers (Elisabeth Moss and Tim Heidecker), a white couple with twin daughters given to conspicuous consumption. Everyone is up for a fun time, especially dad (the excellent Duke — looking much like Peele — gets laughs in the unlikeliest places). But Adelaide is not feeling it. In a chilling prologue, set in 1986, we see Adelaide as a child getting majorly freaked out by a trip to a beachside funhouse containing a hall of mirrors. Now the grown Adelaide is back on the same beach where she was traumatized as a child, and she’s taking her own children along. You can cut the foreboding with a knife — or a pair of gold scissors.

Editor’s picks

The 250 greatest guitarists of all time, the 500 greatest albums of all time, the 50 worst decisions in movie history, every awful thing trump has promised to do in a second term.

Scissors figure prominently when the Wilsons are confronted in their driveway by unexpected visitors. Since the scene is included in the film’s trailer, I’m not giving away anything to note that these home invaders — clad in red — are exact doubles of the four Wilsons. And the scissors these zombie-like doppelgängers carry are meant to slit throats. “What the hell are you?” asks Gabe. The answer is croaked out by Adelaide’s evil twin (the only double who speaks) in a voice that induces shudders: “We’re Americans.”

The political implications of that genuinely creepy setup are tantalizing, as are the film’s allusions to Hands Across America — the 1986 event in which a human chain of millions was formed to help alleviate poverty and hunger — and the thousands of miles of empty tunnels that run under the continental United States, including the Underground Railroad that symbolizes African enslavement. Is Peele referencing the Sunken Place of the Trump era in which the new gospel preaches fear of the other? If so, the theme remains frustratingly undeveloped. Yet Peele, the supreme cinema stylist, is on a roll. The violence is unnerving as the doubles set out to untether themselves from their human counterparts. By necessity,the Wilsons become a family that kills together. Even the Tylers get invaded. Kudos to Moss, who takes a small role and runs with it. The scene in which her character’s wild-eyed double smears on lip gloss is an unforgettable blend of mirth and menace.

Still, the acting honors in Us go to Nyong’o, who is actually playing two roles, one as protective mother and another as predator. She is superb as both. And what she does with her voice as Adelaide’s double is impossible to shake. Nyong’o, already an Oscar winner for Twelve Years a Slave , should be in the running again for delivering one of the great performances in horror movie history, right up there with Sissy Spacek in Carrie and Jack Nicholson in The Shining .

Peele, an unapologetic horror fanatic, nods to those films and dozens more in Us , including Invasion of the Body Snatchers , Jaws and Michael Jackson’s Thriller . Yet his style is completely his own, as assured as it is ambitious. With the help of cinematographer Mike Gioulakis, up to his It Follows mischief, and a score by Get Out composer Michael Abels that is built to shatter your nerves, the action never lets up. The Beach Boys anthem “Good Vibrations” is featured in the mix, as is “I Got 5 On It” by the hip-hop duo Luniz. You’ll never be able to hear those songs again in the same way.

SXSW 2019: Jordan Peele's 'Us' Is Terrifying

The first time: jordan peele, 'abigail' is scary, gory, and a fresh-blood transfusion of vampire-ballerina fun.

There are times when Us plays like an extended and exceptional episode of The Twilight Zone , the 1950’s TV series revived next month on CBS All Access and hosted by Peele in Rod Serling mode. But Peele can’t stop himself from reaching higher and cutting deeper. The twisty road he takes us on opens itself to many interpretations. There are times when the film grips us with such hallucinatory terror that you may think it’s another of Adelaide’s PTSD-induced nightmares. Maybe it is. Or maybe it’s a ghastly reflection of the way we live now. Peele uses a Biblical quote from Jeremiah 11:11 that suggests even God has turned his back on us. What is never in doubt is that Peele is using the scare genre to show us a world tragically untethered to its own humanity, its empathy, its soul. If that’s not a horror film for its time, I don’t know what is.

'Shōgun' Exits Not With a Bang But a Whisper — and a Place in TV History

FINALE DESTINATION
By Alan Sepinwall

Watch Jennifer Garner, Mark Ruffalo, Judy Greer Celebrate '13 Going on 30' Anniversary

Flirty and Thriving
By Emily Zemler

Crew Members Injured in Crash on Set of Eddie Murphy Film 'The Pickup'

Accident Prone

Channing Tatum's Private Fantasy Island Turns Nightmarish in 'Blink Twice' Trailer

FKA 'Pussy Island'
By Tomás Mier

Jennifer Lopez Hunts Down AI Simu Liu in New ‘Atlas’ Trailer

AI v. Humankind
By Althea Legaspi

Most Popular

Anne hathaway says 'gross' chemistry test in the 2000s required her to make out with 10 guys: that's the 'worst way to do it' and 'now we know better', how i did it: judith regan remembers the day o.j. simpson (almost) confessed, prince william’s bond with his in-laws sheds a light on his 'chilly' relationship with these royals, saweetie exposes dm from quavo following latest chris brown diss that shades her, you might also like, with guests from jill biden to wynonna to pat benatar, nashville goes crazy for patsy cline at ryman tribute concert, filmed for pbs, travis scott and mercedes-benz light up beverly hills with star-studded launch party for the all-electric g-class, the best yoga mats for any practice, according to instructors, ‘touch’ trailer: baltasar kormákur’s epic romance spans half a century looking for a lost love, deion, colorado still haggling over nike co-branding deal.

Verify it's you

Please log in.

Screen Rant

Us review: jordan peele returns with another terrific horror movie, us manages to be funny, freaky, and thrilling all at once, and marks another step forward in peele's evolving sense of storytelling and craftsmanship..

Jordan Peele caught many people off-guard with his directorial debut on 2017's Get Out . The acclaimed horror-thriller was a big hit that went on to snag an Oscar for Peele's screenplay and firmly established the former Key & Peele comedian as a filmmaker on the rise. As such, moviegoers are a little more prepared for Peele's second movie Us , knowing now that the writer-director is a horror aficinado with someting to say (even if he's not necessarily commenting on racism in America, this time around). Still, even his biggest supporters may not be entirely ready for the twisted concoction that Peele's asssembled for his sophomore feature. Us manages to be funny, freaky, and thrilling all at once, and marks another step forward in Peele's evolving sense of storytelling and craftsmanship.

Naturally, there are parallels between Get Out and Us , like the way that they both start out with characters going on what promises to be a fairly normal trip - even after a foreboding prologue that lets us know that all is not right in this world. In Us ' case, that means a summer vacation to the Wilson family beach house, with husband Gabe and wife Adelaide ( Black Panther costars Winston Duke and Lupita Nyong'o) leading their children Jason (Evan Alex) and Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) along the way. The movie's first act does an excellent job of building up tension in the process, while at the same time laying the foundation for the story developments to come in ways both subtle and overtly threatening. And that's alll before the trouble really hits the fan and the Wilsons look out in their driveway one night to see (bizarre as it seems) doppelgängers of themselves... ones that definitely do not come in peace.

From the very beginning, Us serves to showcase Peele's improvements as a director since his debut on Get Out . The sound editing in the film's prologue alone is richly detailed and specific, as are the subjective camera angles that Peele and his DP Mike Gioulakis ( It Follows , Split ) use to make something as inocuous as a boardwalk carnival appear ominous and dangerous onscreen. These early scenes in particular further illustrate how much better Peele has gotten at using silence and a lack of music to create suspense since he began directing, as does his later usage of Get Out composer Michael Abels' score (which, like his prior work, is fueled by spooky chorus singing and unsettling orchestral compositions). Peele doesn't drop the ball when the movie becomes more action-driven either and succeeds in crafting some genuinely exciting set pieces here, while at the same time carrying over the visual motifs introduced in Us ' first third (reflections, mirror images, doubles, and so on).

Meanwhile, Peele's script here is as carefully structured as his screenplay for Get Out and finds ways to organically weave humor into the mix throughout the story, in ways that befit the movie's generally off-kilter tone. It helps that the main cast is strong across the board and make their characters feel like fully-rounded individuals, both before and after their doubles (aka. The Tethered) show up. Speaking of which: Nyong'o is the standout here in the dual roles of Adelaide and her doppelgänger "Red", which allow the Oscar-winner to flex her acting muscles in surprising and engaging ways. At the same time, she's able to generate real sympathy for both characters and give them distinct personalities, despite the fact that (obviously) they are dark reflections of one another. Duke is also pretty great in the film, especially since his role as the loveably adorkable dad Gabe is worlds apart from his breakout performance as the Wakandan warrior M'Baku.

The one element of Us that might prove to be relatively divisive is the film's central metaphor - or, more specifically, whether it has one. Peele, in another move that signals his continuing maturation as a storyteller, ultimately ties everything together here in a way that makes it clear that there's a deeper parable behind the larger narrative, but leaves room for audiences to interpret it as they will. As such, there are certainly different yet equally valid ways to read into Us , based on the film's themes about trauma, privilege, fractured social identities, and, of course, what it even means to battle your "other self". In that regard, the movie really works as a spiritual descendant of the original Twilight Zone (a series that, fittingly, Peele will revive in April) and skips over spoon-feeding its messages to audiences, in an effort to encourage them to consider the darkness that simmers beneath the surface of our society (quite literally, in the Us universe).

While Peele could've easily rested on his laurels with his sophomore feature and tried to simply recreate what he did so well on Get Out , he instead chose to challenge himself as a filmmaker and tackle a thought-provoking horror allegory that might be even more layered than his breakout effort. Suffice it to say, Us is a must-see for cinephiles and is sure to generate lots of interesting post-screenings discussions about what the film's saying and the symbolism baked into the narrative (not to mention, its clever use of '90s pop songs). For everyone else, Us is just like Get Out in the way that it wants to entertain and make audiences laugh and scream (sometimes within the same scene), while also serving up social commentary without feeling like a sermon. In short: Jordan Peele the director is not only here to stay, he's also just getting started.

Us is now playing in U.S. theaters nationwide. It is 116 minutes long and is rated R for violence/terror, and language.

Let us know what you thought of the film in the comments section!

Key Release Dates

Us review: "A film that sticks with you, leaving you hankering for another look"

GamesRadar+ Verdict

Peele doubles down on his genre love with a flawed but full-bore frightener, ripe for debate. Nyong’o is incendiary.

Why you can trust GamesRadar+ Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about our reviews policy.

“Us is a horror movie,” tweeted Jordan Peele recently, lest anyone got the wrong idea and started calling it ‘elevated horror’ or some such. Two years after Get Out stirred subtexts into suspense with hypnotic dexterity, Peele’s second feature refreshes and – indeed - reveres the influences of George A Romero, John Carpenter, and Wes Craven in recognising and amplifying horror’s scope for tension and implication. True, it doesn’t quite stick the landing. But it’s a twisted funhouse blast on top and detailed enough below to reward revisits, preferably alongside its predecessor for maximum echo-chamber intrigue.

Revisits turn out to be a theme, as Lupita Nyong’o’s Adelaide Wilson returns with goofball hubby Gabe (Winston Duke) and their kids (Shahadi Wright Joseph’s Zora, Evan Alex’s Jason) to the Santa Cruz beachfront holiday spot that – as teased in the prologue – left her traumatised as a kid. We don’t find out for a while what happened in Adelaide’s past but we are alerted to a mythology involving underground tunnels and caged rabbits, establishing a Peele-iverse of echoes right away: remember the tune at the start of Get Out?

Meanwhile, Peele sharpens our focus with a packed barrage of resonant, rhyming motifs before unleashing the mother of all Michael Haneke-inspired home-invasion thrillers. Loaded nods to ’80s movies (Trading Places – ha), Jeremiah 11:11, hardcore band Black Flag’s logo and others mount beside more doubling motifs than you can wave your twin-bladed scissors at. Even a dad-gag about the internet/outernet joins in with the doubled-up fun. More pairing-up happens as the Wilsons hit the beach to join the Tylers (Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker), bickering spouses/parents hitting the spirits (bet they’re doubles) hell for leather. So by the time the Wilsons are visited by a mirror-image family of four that night, your attention has been sufficiently engaged for Peele to shake the shit out of it.

The Us ending left us with a lot of questions, and a fear of scissors

And shake he does, with a taut-as-hell stranglehold on the interactions between framing, fear and feeling. It’s there in terrors glimpsed just off-centre; in static compositions that seethe with threat; and in the way he navigates the thin line between hilarity and hair-raising terror. The scene where Gabe tries to “lighten the mood” before the lights cut out shows an exquisite grasp of how conjoined horror/comedy can be in eliciting physical responses, and yet how different they are in the nature of those responses.

The cast match every tonal swing ferociously in doubled-up roles. Whether she’s quaking with primal fear as Adelaide or dishing the fear as her laser-eyed, guttural-voiced double, Nyong’o’s weapons-grade intensity owns every scene she’s in. Moss flexes strong scare-mongering muscles; Duke expands on the imposing presence and mock-macho wit he brought to Black Panther ’s M’Baku; and Joseph and Alex find ways to make scary kids scary again. And unsettlingly agile.

So it’s a shame the controlled build-up stumbles on elaborate bouts of expository babble and brute-ballet violence for the climax, where Peele’s choreographic know-how isn’t met with cogency – or, at least, any kind of cogency that satisfies. Yet if some of the air is further knocked out of the film by the odd regrettably predictable revelation, the finale does, er, tether striking images to Romero-esque insinuations with layered power and purpose. It’s a film that sticks with you, leaving you hankering for another look and for Peele’s next nightmare. It is every inch a horror movie. And make no mistake: Peele has risen to take his place among the genre’s modern greats.

Love horror? Why not take a look at what we think are the best horror movies of all time, and the upcoming horror movies you should watch out for. Or watch the video below for the best scary films on Netflix right now.

Release date: March 22, 2019
Certificate: 15 (UK)/R (US)
Running time: 116 mins

Kevin Harley is a freelance journalist with bylines at Total Film, Radio Times, The List, and others, specializing in film and music coverage. He can most commonly be found writing movie reviews and previews at GamesRadar+.

Jennifer Lopez is forced to team up with a snarky AI bot to defeat Shang-Chi star Simu Liu in the wild trailer for Netflix’s latest sci-fi action romp

After at least 1,400 layoffs, 7 studios closed, and 29 games canceled, Embracer CEO admits "I deserve a lot of criticism"

Cheetara takes the spotlight in her own ThunderCats spin-off comic

Most Popular

‘Us’ Explained: When the “Why” Is Far More Interesting Than the “How”

If you’re trying to “solve” Jordan Peele’s new movie, you’re going about it the wrong way.

Spoilers ahead for Us .

For the most part, movies are not puzzles. They may have mysterious aspects that lead to an answer, but if your movie just asks you to “solve” it, then the film dies upon its resolution. A far more interesting and lasting picture doesn’t ask for solutions, but instead looks for interpretations. When it comes to Jordan Peele ’s new movie, Us , I can understand the temptation to solve how the doubles work, how they relate to the people above ground, and so forth. But these questions miss the more interesting and engaging subtext the doubles convey.

The text of the doubles is ultimately unsatisfying because it just leads to more questions . The “how” of it is pretty basic. There was a government program where everyone got a double and these doubles lived underground in tunnels. These doubles were created to control the above-ground population, although how this was supposed to happen is never explained. The doubles lived off rabbits (a food source known for its vast replication) and then the program was abandoned. They were given a new purpose by “Red” ( Lupita Nyong’o ), who led an uprising where everyone was set to kill their double and then join hands across America, inspired by the real 1986 benefit event, “Hands Across America”.

A family's serene beach vacation turns to chaos when their doppelgängers appear and begin to terrorize them.

Jordan Peele's 'Us' Gives More Questions Than Answers

Of course, this just raises more questions. How did they feed the rabbits? Where did they get their clothes? Where did they get the scissors? And even if these questions had answers, they would be unsatisfying because the text, itself, is a rabbit hole that doesn’t lead to the more interesting aspects of the film , which is the subtext presented by the doubles.

We’re told that the tethered don’t have souls, but I don’t think it’s as simple as “everyone’s dark side”. Rather, it’s the darkness we choose to ignore . It’s not simply a matter of inverses. It’s not like sociopaths have well-rounded people wandering the tunnels. So why have it uniform? Because it’s far more terrifying that our individuality is an illusion and that there’s nothing special about our brutality. Furthermore, if the doubles are soulless, then they can’t know individuality. However, they’re still tethered to us . Their actions are tied to ours, which isn’t explained. Again, any explanation would probably be unsatisfying, bu t they don’t get any of the benefit of our uniqueness, regardless of the fact. They live sad, hollow lives, and it’s hard to blame them for being a little stabby.

Jordan Peele's 'Us' is a Social Statement

You can also look at the various social reads on this. It doesn’t seem to really work as a slavery or indentured servitude metaphor, because the doubles don’t produce anything and no one seems to rely on their labor. Instead, I see a parallel in how we let our dark sides out . In our interpersonal relationships, we keep things polite and cordial. But in our anonymity -- that is , the uniformity that denies the doubles any individuality -- we lash out. And just as the doubles rise and link hands across America, so too are we becoming far more comfortable expressing hatred and violence and letting that darkness unite us. This can be evidenced by any social media commentary.

'Us' Blu-ray Details Promise Six Deleted Scenes & a Bounty of Behind-the-Scenes Features

There will be those who get hung up on the “how” of Us , but the “why” is far more interesting. Additionally, while we can critique Peele for what he doesn’t do, we shouldn’t miss what he is doing. If he chooses not to paint inverse personalities for the doubles, then we should look at why he chooses to make them largely uniform with only minor variations. In Us , our dark sides are not a fully realized totality. Instead, they are a potent but fractional part of ourselves. The fear comes if we let them out and run wild.

Us is available for streaming on Netflix in the U.S.

Watch on Netflix

Us Movie Explained: What is the film about?

After Get Out , Jordan Peele is back with his second film Us, a Psychological Thriller which delivers the right amount of chills down your spine. The cast includes Lupita Nyong’o in a fabulous role with supporting roles by Winston Duke and Elisabeth Moss (from The One I Love ). Clearly, the film left a lot of open questions in viewers’ minds as I got plenty of requests to write up the Us movie’s plot analysis. So, not wasting anymore time, here’s the Us movie explained, spoilers ahead.

Hollywordle – Check out my new Hollywood Wordle game!

Where To Watch?

To find where to stream any movie or series based on your country, use This Is Barry’s Where To Watch .

Oh, and if this article doesn’t answer all of your questions, drop me a comment or an FB chat message, and I’ll get you the answer . You can find other film explanations using the search option on top of the site.

You can skip ahead to the following FAQs if you are looking for specific details related to the Us movie:

Us Movie Ending Explained – What is the plot twist?

Who are the Tethered (Shadows), and where do they come from?
Why are the Tethered dressed in Red?
What’s with the Scissors that the Tethered are carrying?

What’s with all the Rabbits in Us, the opening sequence?

Us movie: plot explained, the untethering: explained.

At the end of Us, is Jason real, or is he a Tether too?

Why do the Shadows form a Human Chain?

In us, who are the tethered (shadows), and where do they come from.

The Tethered, also called the Shadows, are abandoned clones from a government project in secret tunnels across America. The project aimed at creating clones that were connected to the people through their souls. The purpose of this project was to use the clones to control people like puppets all over America. But the experiments failed, and the Tethered were abandoned underground in a vast network of tunnels.

Why are the Tethered dressed in Red in Us?

Well, two reasons. The symbol for Hands Across America was a string of red paper-men. But also, the T-Shirt that Adelaide was wearing when she was kidnapped was a Michael Jackson Thriller shirt where Michael wears a full red outfit. Do observe that the Shadows are wearing gloves only on one hand. Hee-hee, Aow!

Michael Jackson Thriller Us Red Overall Glove Explained

What’s with the Scissors that the Tethered are carrying in Us?

This goes back to the Hands Across America paper-men. The string of men is created by folding paper and then using scissors to cut out the shape. Also, just before Adelaide was kidnapped, she passes by a couple who are playing Rock Paper Scissors. And one of them says, “You keep doing scissors”. The Scissors are part of Adelaide’s subconscious and are used by her as the choice of weapon. By the way, the couple’s names are Nancy and Glen which are also the names of the central characters from Nightmare On Elm Street where antagonist uses a glove fitted with blades to kill – this is merely a forewarning. Also Johnny Depp played the role of Glen, who is also known for his role as Edward Scissorhands. Peele has thrown in a ton of tribute to other horror films in Us.

Red explains that rabbits were part of the experiments and were also the food that the shadows live off. It’s easy to breed Rabbits as they reproduce real quick. They were are also perhaps part of the whole cloning process, used as test subjects.

The ending of the movie Us, reveals that Red is the real Adelaide. She was switched, and her Shadow took her place in the world above. This explains why Red is the only Tethered who could talk and thought differently, leading the revolt. Red’s voice is damaged because her double choked her, and for years she has not used her voice. This also clarifies why Adelaide, as a child, wasn’t able to talk after she was found at the beach – Shadows don’t know how to speak. Over time, Adelaide’s Shadow learns to speak and becomes a regular person capable of love and laughter and forgets that she is a clone.

Years after the switch, Adelaide is heading out with her family to Santa Cruze for a holiday. She doesn’t like the idea of going back to the beach as it gives her the creeps. They pass by a person who’s died, this is presumably the Jeremiah 11:11 guy who has been killed by his Shadow. Here’s more dope on the 11:11 dude.

At the beach, Jason wanders off to use the bathroom, and Adelaide freaks out when he goes missing. Jason sees a guy on the beach with red overalls. This is presumably the Jeremiah guy’s Shadow who has taken his position in the human chain. Before anything nasty happens, Adelaide finds Jason and takes him home. Later, Adelaide tells Gabriel her story about the house of mirrors, but she’s misremembering it. She’s forgotten that she switched with the real Adelaide. Soon after, there’s a family in the driveway. Wilsons’ shadows have arrived to kill the Wilsons.

Red explains how everything they experienced was a cold and painful version of things that happen in the world above. The raw food that they had to eat. How Red had to marry Abraham because he was Gabriel’s Shadow. Umbrae is the Shadow of Zora but was an evil incarnate born laughing. Jason was a case of a c-section. While Adelaide had doctors do it for her, Red had to do it all on her own. Pluto is Jason’s Shadow – a growling, disfigured, evil version.

Now, there was nothing that robbed the tethered of free will. They could technically do whatever they wanted but didn’t because they never had. They have names that are not the same as the people in the world above. In spite of sharing the soul, they have already exhibited free will and have named themselves differently. Now Adelaide happens to get switched. Given Red is from the world above, she understood free will. Over time she shows the rest of the tethered that they too can decide for themselves. That they could live their own free lives and not merely mimic what the world above does. The untethering took time because as a group of clones, they needed to be taught how to act on their own free will.

The Wilsons are separated by their Tethers. Gabe kills his Shadow on the boat. After the Tylers (the neighbours) are killed by their shadows, the Wilsons regroup at the Tylers’ fancy house. It’s funny how the dying Kitty Tyler tries to get the virtual assistant, Ophelia, to call the police and instead it plays F*k the police by NWA. Haven’t we all had our own fun times repeating sentences to Siri, Alexa, Google or Cortana?

The Wilsons get the upper hand and kill the Shadows of the Tylers. They check the news to see that all over America, the tethered are butchering their counterparts and joining the human-chain.

Zora drives the Wilsons out, but her Shadow climbs on top of the car. Eventually, Zora swings the car flinging her Shadow into the woods where she’s impaled and killed. At the boardwalk, Jason’s Shadow has blocked the passage with Wilsons’ burning car. Before he can blow them up, Jason recollects that his Shadow mimics him. Jason backs away with his arms spread out, and his Shadow backs into the flames and burns. The experiment which planned to use the shadows to control the humans seems to be reversed here. Looks like it was not all a failed attempt.

In this commotion, Jason is taken by Red and Adelaide pursues her. They head into the tunnels below the House of Mirrors where Red explains how she plotted the untethering. How the dance performance made the Tethered see that Red was different. That she would deliver them from their misery. Adelaide kills Red through sheer luck and finds Jason hidden in a locker. Red didn’t kill Jason immediately because she used him as bait to draw Adelaide underground to kill her.

Adelaide leaves with Jason but the events of the untethering bring back her memories. She realizes that she is actually the Shadow. Adelaide turns to her kid and smiles because she made it out alive and has a family and a life. Jason gives her a look of suspicion because he saw his mother murder multiple people in the course of one night. I believe the look is more one of disbelief. Jason does not know that his mother is a Shadow.

At the end of the Us movie, is Jason real, or is he a Tether too?

There are multiple theories on how Jason is actually a Tether because he’s awkward and can control his clone. But the reason why I feel he is not the Shadow is because Tethers don’t talk. There was never a mention of Jason having speech problems in the past. Besides, if something caused Jason to lose his speech in the past in Santa Cruze, Adelaide would never have agreed to holiday there.

Hands Across America is an event that happened in the year 1986, where people across America paid a small sum of money to form a line of humans that was to span across the entire country. While the aim was to raise 100 million as a charity, the logistics got expensive, and only 15 million could go towards the charities. Also, the human line was not continuous. In the Us movie, the last nationwide event that Adelaide had seen before her abduction was Hands Across America. Years later, when she plans the untethering, she uses the human chain, this time successfully, to make a statement – it is the shadows’ time up here!

Barry is a technologist who helps start-ups build successful products. His love for movies and production has led him to write his well-received film explanation and analysis articles to help everyone appreciate the films better. He’s regularly available for a chat conversation on his website and consults on storyboarding from time to time. Click to browse all his film articles

Common Sense Media

Movie & TV reviews for parents

For Parents
For Educators
Our Work and Impact

Or browse by category:

Get the app
Movie Reviews
Best Movie Lists
Best Movies on Netflix, Disney+, and More

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

Best TV Lists
Best TV Shows on Netflix, Disney+, and More
Common Sense Selections for TV
Video Reviews of TV Shows

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

Book Reviews
Best Book Lists
Common Sense Selections for Books

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

Game Reviews
Best Game Lists

Common Sense Selections for Games

Video Reviews of Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

Podcast Reviews
Best Podcast Lists

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

App Reviews
Best App Lists

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

YouTube Channel Reviews
YouTube Kids Channels by Topic

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

Explaining the News to Our Kids

Family Tech Planners
Digital Skills
All Articles
Latino Culture
Black Voices
Asian Stories
Native Narratives
LGBTQ+ Pride
Best of Diverse Representation List

Celebrating Black History Month

Movies and TV Shows with Arab Leads

Celebrate Hip-Hop's 50th Anniversary

Common sense media reviewers.

Peele's bloody, startling, inventive horror movie.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Raises interesting questions about idea of doppelg

The family members (including kids) do what they h

Very scary (jump scares, etc.); also lots of blood

A man is affectionate toward his wife, kissing her

Several uses of "f--k," "s--t," "a--hole," "ass,"

Michael Jackson "Thriller" T-shirt.

Secondary characters drink a lot (wine, whiskey, b

Positive Messages

Raises interesting questions about idea of doppelgangers. But real message here is that movie portrays a rather ordinary, interesting, likable African American family with no strings attached -- which is very welcome. Also promotes idea of the depth of a family's love.

Positive Role Models

The family members (including kids) do what they have to do to survive, including killing doppelgangers in very bloody ways. They rise above an unexpected challenge, but their survival is largely about luck and brute force. A villain's voice is based on the disability known as spasmodic dysphonia, which has caused some controversy.

Violence & Scariness

Very scary (jump scares, etc.); also lots of blood and gore. Blood splatters, pools of blood, dead bodies. Characters bash doppelgangers with blunt instruments (baseball bat, fireplace poker, golf club, etc.). Doppelgangers killing humans by slicing or stabbing them with sharp scissors. A character is ground up by a boat motor. Character hit by car. Choking with chains. Character's leg injured by baseball bat. Female character handcuffed. Boy with burn scars on his face. Boy on fire. Children in peril.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A man is affectionate toward his wife, kissing her, hinting that he's going to have sex with her, and arranging himself on the bed to try to seduce her.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Several uses of "f--k," "s--t," "a--hole," "ass," "anus," "goddamn," and "Jesus Christ" (as an exclamation). In one scene, song "F--k tha Police" by N.W.A. plays, with brief, incessant language, including the "N" word. "Bulls--tty" spoken by a young boy.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Drinking, drugs & smoking.

Secondary characters drink a lot (wine, whiskey, beer, etc.) to comic effect; no hangovers or consequences. Character says he's "going for a smoke."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Us -- a shocking, inventive, often funny horror movie about doppelgangers starring Lupita Nyong'o -- is writer/director Jordan Peele 's follow-up to his enormously popular Get Out . While this film isn't likely to have the same cultural impact, it's still quite good. It's also very scary and violent. There are jump scares, plus many attacks and killings with blood and gore. Characters use blunt objects on doppelgangers, and doppelgangers slice and stab people with sharp scissors. A woman is handcuffed, and children are sometimes in peril. Language is also strong, with many uses of "f--k" and "s--t." The "N" word is heard in a song ("F--k tha Police" by N.W.A.), and a boy uses the word "bulls--t." A man kisses his wife and makes silly comments and gestures to indicate that he'd like to have sex, but it doesn't go any further. Secondary characters are seen drinking heavily in a comic way, without consequences. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

Parents say (47)
Kids say (139)

Based on 47 parent reviews

some violence, a song plays the "N-word"

What's the story.

US begins with young Adelaide enjoying the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk with her parents in 1986. While her father is distracted, she wanders off and winds up in a house of mirrors. The power winks off, and she finds herself standing next to what looks like her own reflection ... except that it's not a reflection. Flash forward to the present: Grown-up Adelaide ( Lupita Nyong'o ) is now married to Gabe (Winston Duke), with a teen daughter, Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph), and a young son, Jason (Evan Alex). While the family vacations at their summer home, Gabe suggests going back to Santa Cruz; though the idea terrifies Adelaide, she reluctantly agrees. Jason is briefly missing, but otherwise the day goes well. But when they get home, they discover a strange family of four standing in their driveway. And they look a lot like the Wilsons ... except that they don't seem friendly.

Is It Any Good?

Jordan Peele 's horror shocker can't compete with its sensational predecessor Get Out , but it doesn't have to. Made with precision, intelligence, and humor, Us is inventive and wildly entertaining in its own right. It can be said that Us has something to do with doppelgangers, but just how far the story goes and what it all means is best left to individual discussion. It's like a carnival ride of crazy ideas -- it's startling and also actually sometimes funny. While Get Out had little pockets of comic relief inserted into strategic places, the laughs in Us , based both on ironic jokes and on the happy feel of relief and release, are scattered throughout. Any character in this film can earn a laugh.

Since Peele -- well known as part of the comedy team Key & Peele -- understands the primal, bodily sensations of both laughter and fear, he approaches the filmmaking in Us with supreme confidence. His camera never shakes but rather moves in such a way to hide or reveal information for maximum impact. He's as precise here as Hitchcock or Kubrick. He also understands the use of music and sound, merging back and forth between a chilling, chanting orchestral score and pop songs, each adjusted at just the right volume or tone. It's an undeniably well-crafted and brutally effective movie, but where Get Out created a sharp, satirical commentary on race relations, this one very simply presents a positive portrayal of an African American family.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the violence in Us . Do the blood and gore seem over the top? Do the violent scenes help tell the story in an effective way? Is it shocking or thrilling? Why? Does exposure to violent media desensitize kids to violence?

Is the movie scary? What's the appeal of scary movies ?

What is a doppelganger? Do you think they exist in real life? Could there be a "good" and "evil" version of a person? Why or why not?

How many movies have you seen that portray an average/regular African American family? How did this one compare? Why is the family's ordinariness notable?

Movie Details

In theaters : March 22, 2019
On DVD or streaming : June 18, 2019
Cast : Lupita Nyong'o , Wilson Duke , Elisabeth Moss
Director : Jordan Peele
Inclusion Information : Black directors, Female actors, Black actors, Latino actors
Studio : Universal Pictures
Genre : Horror
Run time : 116 minutes
MPAA rating : R
MPAA explanation : violence/terror, and language
Last updated : March 5, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

Our editors recommend.

Sorry to Bother You

The Invitation

It Comes at Night

Best horror movies, scary movies for kids.

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

Action/Adventure
Children's/Family
Documentary/Reality
Amazon Prime Video

More From Decider

Sydney Sweeney Sings “Unwritten” Into Glen Powell’s Butt in Iconic...

Holly Madison Calls Bob Guccione A "Horrible Person" For Publishing...

'9-1-1's Oliver Stark Says Season 7 Fan Response Is "A Beautiful Reminder"...

'Deal Or No Deal Island' Star Rob Mariano Says There's "No Masterminds" In...

Jennifer Lopez Sets The Record Straight On 'The View' After Alyssa Farah...

Bill Maher Compares Nickelodeon To Neverland Ranch After Watching 'Quiet...

Woody Allen in Exile: 'Coup De Chance' Finally Arrives On Streaming, Where...

Donald Trump Once Invited 'The View's Joy Behar To Be On 'The Apprentice'...

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘This Is Us’ On Netflix, The Emmy-Winning NBC Series Comes To The Biggest Streamer For The First Time

Where to stream:, 7 shows like ‘one day’ if you’re in the mood for romance and heartbreak colliding, stream it or skip it: ‘the night logan woke up’ on netflix, where 30-year-old family secrets are unearthed after a mother’s death, ‘this is us’ cast honors ron cephas jones following his death: “i am just so sad”.

Since This Is Us ended its six-season run in 2022, it’s been streaming on Hulu. It’s still there, but this week it is also available for streaming on Netflix. Given the fact that the series was a hit during its initial NBC run, with an online discourse that rivaled any prestige streaming series, will the show still get a new surge of popularity thanks to a Suits -like Netflix bump?

THIS IS US : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “This is a fact: According to Wikipedia, the average human being shares his or her birthday with over 18 million other human beings. There is no evidence that sharing the same birthday creates any type of behavioral link between those people. If there is… Wikipedia hasn’t discovered it for us yet.”

The Gist: In a bedroom, we see some packed boxes, including one that says “Family Photos, ’75-’79” on it. Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) sits down naked on his bed, the only thing covering him is a tiny Terrible Towel, which he likely got at a Steelers game. It’s his 36th birthday, and he and his wife Rebecca (Mandy Moore) usually celebrate with her doing a sexy dance in some lingerie before some sexy time together. But she’s immensely pregnant with triplets; she could only get the lingerie over her shoulders. Jack, still finding her sexy as all get out, wants the dance, anyway. She obliges, they start to have their sexy times, then Rebecca’s water breaks, six weeks before her due date.

Also celebrating her 36th birthday is Kate (Chrissy Metz), who stares at the sticky notes she’s written to herself and put on a lot of the food in her fridge, including her birthday cake. She strips down to weigh herself, slips and falls backwards off her scale. Kevin (Justin Hartley), the star of the sitcom The Manny , is celebrating his 36th birthday with two girls ready for some fun, but all he wants to talk about is the Challenger explosion. Then we see Randall (Sterling K. Brown) in his spacious office, seeing an e-mail from an investigator that has a picture of his birth father, right before coworkers come in and sing “Happy Birthday” for his 36th.

This is when we find out that Kevin and Kate are twins, as she calls him in the middle of his Challenger lament to help her. She wants him to tell her to “lose the damn weight” as encouragement, and he seems to demure on that point. Kevin has his own angst to deal with, as we see on the set of his show, where he can’t stand the dumb lines he has to say or the fact that he has to do most of the episodes with his shirt off. He does a dramatic scene with Alan Thicke, who’s playing his father, and when the showrunner tells him to do a lighter version of it, Kevin loses it in front of the studio audience, quits and storms off the set.

Meanwhile, Jack and Rebecca are in the hospital, and they find out that their obstetrician won’t be there, but Dr. Nathan Katsowski (Gerald McRaney) reassures them that he’s “the best of the best”. All Jack wants to hear is positive vibes, but when there’s a problem after the first boy comes out, Dr. K has to operate. It turns out that the second baby, a girl, is healthy, but the third, a boy, was stillborn. Dr. K sits with Jack and tells him he lost his first child, too, which is why he’s an OB. He hopes Jack can in the future talk about how he “took the sourest lemon that life has to offer and turned it into something resembling lemonade.”

Randall drives to Philadelphia to confront his birth father William (Ron Cephas Jones), to tell him that despite the fact that William left him at a fire station as a baby, he’s doing just fine. He ends up inviting William to visit his wife Beth (Susan Kelechi Watson) and daughters Tess (Eris Baker) and Annie (Faithe Herman).

In an OA meeting, Kate meets the funny and self-deprecating Toby (Chris Sullivan) and the two of them hit it off. After their dinner date, where she persuades him to skip dessert, she invites him in, but their nightcap is interrupted by a drunk Kevin lamenting the fact that he just threw a stable acting job away.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? This Is Us spawned a ton of imitators that picked up on its fractured timeline format, most notably A Million Little Things .

Our Take: We watched the pilot episode of This Is Us for the first time in over 7 years; we don’t think we saw it again after it aired the first time in the fall of 2016. Like everyone who saw the pilot, we were shocked by the revelation at the end that ( SEVEN YEAR OLD SPOILER ALERT! ) Jack and Rebecca Pearson were the parents of twins Kate and Kevin, and that they adopted Randall after he was brought to the hospital by the fireman that found him at the station.

Creator Dan Fogelman and his writers did a great job of not only obscuring this fact during the episode (and the promotion leading up to its debut), but doing so in a manner that didn’t distract from the episode’s emotional impact. Fogelman and crew did that throughout the show’s six season run, with twists and redirections that sometimes were maddening, but other times were a direct hit to viewers’ emotional solar plexuses. Watching the episode with the history of the series in our heads was an interesting experience. There were things mentioned during the episode that we knew would come back later on, especially when Dr. K mentioned that one day he hopes Jack would be an old man and finding some solace in the loss of the third triplet ( SEVEN YEAR OLD SPOILER ALERT: that didn’t happen). We watched the beginnings of Kate and Toby knowing what was in store for them as a couple. And we saw just how Randall’s mixed reaction to meeting William was just the tip of the psychological iceberg that Randall spent the entire series trying to discover.

But the emotional impact of the story and the performances were still there. Brown managed to convey Randall’s complexities from the first moments we saw him, and from the first seconds we saw him interacting with Beth, we got that same desire to see an entire series built around Randall and his family.

There were also signs with Kevin and Kate’s stories that there would be the annoyances we felt with both during the show’s run. It was never the performances of Hartley and Metz, which were always excellent; it was the fact that their characters were a bit too inwardly-focused, especially at the show’s start. Both characters made huge advances as the series went on, but it was fascinating to see those signs in this first episode.

As pilots go, though, This Is Us ‘s premiere episode is about as tightly-written and true to the rest of the series as any pilot we’ve ever seen. And even if you know all the spoilers we mentioned, whether you watched the series or not, it’s definitely worth another look.

Sex and Skin: We see Jack’s bare tush as he sits down on the bed with his Terrible Towel. Also, when Kate strips down to weigh herself, we see her from the back, only wearing her panties.

Parting Shot: Jack and Rebecca hold hands while they look at baby Kevin, Kate and Randall, all wearing handmade onesies with the words “The Big Three” on them.

Sleeper Star: McRaney won an Emmy for playing Dr. K, and even though he only appeared occasionally during the run of the series, his impact in that first episode was immense.

Most Pilot-y Line: It was kind of sad seeing Alan Thicke in this pilot episode, knowing that he died suddenly only a few months after the pilot aired.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Even though we knew all the surprises in the This Is Us premiere, the episode still had a lot of emotional resonance with us, which is the sign of some pretty top-notch writing and acting.

Joel Keller ( @joelkeller ) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com , VanityFair.com , Fast Company and elsewhere.

Mandy Moore
Stream It Or Skip It

Does 'Yellowstone' Return Tonight? 'Yellowstone's Season 5, Part 2 Premiere Date Updates

'Bob Hearts Abishola's Billy Gardell Tells ‘Live’ About His Bariatric Surgery and 170 Lb Weight Loss: "I Went From A Young Jackie Gleason To An Old Paul Newman"

Is 'Grey's Anatomy' New Tonight? Here's When The Next Episode of 'Grey's Anatomy' Is On ABC And Hulu

Whoopi Goldberg Confronts Her 'View' Co-Hosts After Nearly All Of Them Fail To Carry Out Guest J. Lo's Request: "How Come Y'all Weren't Dancing?"

'Deal Or No Deal Island' Star Rob Mariano Says There's "No Masterminds" In The Night Owls Alliance: "They're Just Birds"

'9-1-1's Oliver Stark Says Season 7 Fan Response Is "A Beautiful Reminder" Of The Show's Cultural Impact

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, the best netflix original movies and mini-series.

All of the Netflix Original movies and mini-series that our critics have given 3.5-4 stars. These are the best Netflix originals.

May December

Sheila o'malley.

Brian Tallerico

Marya E. Gates

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar

Glenn kenny.

Carlos Aguilar

The Deepest Breath

Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam

Simon abrams.

Bill Russell: Legend

BARDO, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio

My Father's Dragon

Enola Holmes 2

Is That Black Enough for You?!?

Odie Henderson

Entergalactic

Cristina escobar.

Rendy Jones

The Adam Project

Against the Ice

Tickets & Showtimes
Trending on RT

TV & Streaming Shows
Godzilla & Kong
100 Years, 100 Movies
Best & Popular

TAGGED AS: Netflix , streaming , television , TV

(Photo by Netflix)

100 Best Netflix Series to Watch Right Now (April 2024)

Looking for the best shows on Netflix? Look no further, because Rotten Tomatoes has put together a list of the 100 best original Netflix series available to watch right now, ranked according to the Tomatometer. To keep the list fresh with the best Netflix series to watch, the series featured here are currently in production, have been renewed for further seasons, or aired their final episode recently (within the last year or two, so people can still discover them after they’ve ended).

The most popular shows ranking on our guide to the best-reviewed on Netflix include Stranger Things (which aired its fourth season in 2022), phenom Squid Game (which will air its second season in 2023 or 2024), video game curse-breaking adaptations ( Arcane: League of Legends , The Witcher , Cyberpunk: Edgerunners ), crime dramas ( Ozark and Peaky Blinders , which both concluded in April 2022), royal stories ( Bridgerton , The Crown ), and diverse genre works like Black Mirror , The Sandman , Cobra Kai , and Love, Death + Robots . We’re including only series with at least 10 critics reviews, and for series with the same Tomatometer scores, we list the ones with the most critics reviews first.

Most recently we’ve updated with Warrior , American Nightmare , Griselda , The Brothers Sun , and One Day .

The Dragon Prince (2018) 100%

Mo (2022) 100%

Arcane: League of Legends (2021) 100%

Blue Eye Samurai (2023) 100%

Blood of Zeus (2020) 100%

Red Rose (2022) 100%

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners (2022) 100%

Katla (2021) 100%

Derry Girls (2018) 99%

Better Call Saul (2015) 98%

Beef (2023) 98%

Heartstopper (2022) 98%

Lupin (2021) 98%

Kingdom (2019) 98%

Insecure (2016) 97%

Russian Doll (2019) 97%

I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson (2019) 97%

Top Boy (2011) 97%

Hellbound (2021) 97%

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (2015) 96%

The Queen's Gambit (2020) 96%

Unorthodox (2020) 96%

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off (2023) 96%

Aggretsuko (2018) 96%

Our Planet (2019) 96%

Gentefied (2020) 96%

American Nightmare (2024) 96%

Dark (2017) 95%

Documentary Now! (2015) 95%

Squid Game (2021) 95%

Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (2023) 95%

Vikings: Valhalla (2022) 95%

Transatlantic (2023) 95%

Sex Education (2019) 94%

Cobra Kai (2018) 94%

Big Mouth (2017) 94%

Maid (2021) 94%

Teenage Bounty Hunters (2020) 94%

Lost Ollie (2022) 94%

Never Have I Ever (2020) 93%

Peaky Blinders (2013) 93%

Cabinet of Curiosities (2022) 93%

One Day (2024) 91%

Elite (2018) 93%

Warrior (2019) 93%

Stranger Things (2016) 92%

Criminal: UK (2019) 92%

Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous (2020) 92%

Stay Close (2021) 92%

Tribes of Europa (2021) 92%

Dragon Age: Absolution (2022) 92%

You (2018) 92%

Sweet Tooth (2021) 91%

The Last Kingdom (2015) 91%

Monk (2002) 89%

Raising Dion (2019) 91%

The Midnight Gospel (2020) 91%

The Fall of the House of Usher (2023) 90%

Grace and Frankie (2016) 90%

House (2004) 90%

The Flash (2014) 89%

All of Us Are Dead (2022) 89%

The Sandman (2022) 88%

Dear White People (2017) 88%

Dead to Me (2019) 88%

The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020) 87%

Delhi Crime (2019) 88%

Midnight Mass (2021) 87%

Griselda (2024) 87%

Archive 81 (2022) 87%

The Umbrella Academy (2019) 86%

The Midnight Club (2022) 86%

From Scratch (2022) 86%

Love, Death + Robots (2019) 86%

One Piece (2023) 85%

The Lincoln Lawyer (2022) 85%

Grey's Anatomy (2005) 84%

Shadow and Bone (2021) 84%

Warrior Nun (2020) 84%

The Brothers Sun (2024) 84%

Waco: American Apocalypse (2023) 84%

Black Mirror (2011) 83%

The Diplomat (2023) 83%

School Spirits (2023) 83%

Hit & Run (2021) 83%

Ozark (2017) 82%

Bridgerton (2020) 82%

Virgin River (2019) 82%

Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal (2023) 82%

The Crown (2016) 81%

Bodies (2023) 81%

XO, Kitty (2023) 81%

The Witcher (2019) 80%

The Silent Sea (2021) 80%

Freeridge (2023) 80%

The Walking Dead (2010) 79%

Colin in Black and White (2021) 79%

Inside Job (2021) 79%

1899 (2022) 77%

Wednesday (2022) 73%

More Binge Guide

5 TV and Streaming Shows You Should Binge-Watch In April

All 5 Purge Movies In Order: How to Watch the Movies Chronologically

Netflix’s 100 Best Movies Right Now (April 2024)

Movie & TV News

Featured on rt.

DC Animated Movies In Order: How to Watch 54 Original and Universe Films

April 23, 2024

April 22, 2024

Weekend Box Office Results: Civil War Earns Second Victory in a Row

Top Headlines

DC Animated Movies In Order: How to Watch 54 Original and Universe Films –
The Best TV Seasons Certified Fresh at 100% –
Best TV Shows of 2024: Best New Series to Watch Now –
25 Most Popular TV Shows Right Now: What to Watch on Streaming –
30 Most Popular Movies Right Now: What to Watch In Theaters and Streaming –
Box Office 2024: Top 10 Movies of the Year –

Supported by

Critic’s Pick

‘Civil War’ Review: We Have Met the Enemy and It Is Us. Again.

In Alex Garland’s tough new movie, a group of journalists led by Kirsten Dunst, as a photographer, travels a United States at war with itself.

Share full article

‘Civil War’ | Anatomy of a Scene

The writer and director alex garland narrates a sequence from his film..

“My name is Alex Garland and I’m the writer director of ‘Civil War’. So this particular clip is roughly around the halfway point of the movie and it’s these four journalists and they’re trying to get, in a very circuitous route, from New York to DC, and encountering various obstacles on the way. And this is one of those obstacles. What they find themselves stuck in is a battle between two snipers. And they are close to one of the snipers and the other sniper is somewhere unseen, but presumably in a large house that sits over a field and a hill. It’s a surrealist exchange and it’s surrounded by some very surrealist imagery, which is they’re, in broad daylight in broad sunshine, there’s no indication that we’re anywhere near winter in the filming. In fact, you can kind of tell it’s summer. But they’re surrounded by Christmas decorations. And in some ways, the Christmas decorations speak of a country, which is in disrepair, however silly it sounds. If you haven’t put away your Christmas decorations, clearly something isn’t going right.” “What’s going on?” “Someone in that house, they’re stuck. We’re stuck.” “And there’s a bit of imagery. It felt like it hit the right note. But the interesting thing about that imagery was that it was not production designed. We didn’t create it. We actually literally found it. We were driving along and we saw all of these Christmas decorations, basically exactly as they are in the film. They were about 100 yards away, just piled up by the side of the road. And it turned out, it was a guy who’d put on a winter wonderland festival. People had not dug his winter wonderland festival, and he’d gone bankrupt. And he had decided just to leave everything just strewn around on a farmer’s field, who was then absolutely furious. So in a way, there’s a loose parallel, which is the same implication that exists within the film exists within real life.” “You don’t understand a word I say. Yo. What’s over there in that house?” “Someone shooting.” “It’s to do with the fact that when things get extreme, the reasons why things got extreme no longer become relevant and the knife edge of the problem is all that really remains relevant. So it doesn’t actually matter, as it were, in this context, what side they’re fighting for or what the other person’s fighting for. It’s just reduced to a survival.”

By Manohla Dargis

A blunt, gut-twisting work of speculative fiction, “Civil War” opens with the United States at war with itself — literally, not just rhetorically. In Washington, D.C., the president is holed up in the White House; in a spookily depopulated New York, desperate people wait for water rations. It’s the near-future, and rooftop snipers, suicide bombers and wild-eyed randos are in the fight while an opposition faction with a two-star flag called the Western Forces, comprising Texas and California — as I said, this is speculative fiction — is leading the charge against what remains of the federal government. If you’re feeling triggered, you aren’t alone.

It’s mourning again in America, and it’s mesmerizingly, horribly gripping. Filled with bullets, consuming fires and terrific actors like Kirsten Dunst running for cover, the movie is a what-if nightmare stoked by memories of Jan. 6. As in what if the visions of some rioters had been realized, what if the nation was again broken by Civil War, what if the democratic experiment called America had come undone? If that sounds harrowing, you’re right. It’s one thing when a movie taps into childish fears with monsters under the bed; you’re eager to see what happens because you know how it will end (until the sequel). Adult fears are another matter.

In “Civil War,” the British filmmaker Alex Garland explores the unbearable if not the unthinkable, something he likes to do. A pop cultural savant, he made a splashy zeitgeist-ready debut with his 1996 best seller “The Beach,” a novel about a paradise that proves deadly, an evergreen metaphor for life and the basis for a silly film . That things in the world are not what they seem, and are often far worse, is a theme that Garland has continued pursuing in other dark fantasies, first as a screenwriter (“ 28 Days Later ”), and then as a writer-director (“ Ex Machina ”). His résumé is populated with zombies, clones and aliens, though reliably it is his outwardly ordinary characters you need to keep a closer watch on.

By the time “Civil War” opens, the fight has been raging for an undisclosed period yet long enough to have hollowed out cities and people’s faces alike. It’s unclear as to why the war started or who fired the first shot. Garland does scatter some hints; in one ugly scene, a militia type played by a jolting, scarily effective Jesse Plemons asks captives “what kind of American” they are. Yet whatever divisions preceded the conflict are left to your imagination, at least partly because Garland assumes you’ve been paying attention to recent events. Instead, he presents an outwardly and largely post-ideological landscape in which debates over policies, politics and American exceptionalism have been rendered moot by war.

‘Civil War’ Is Designed to Disturb You

A woman with a bulletproof vest that says “Press” stands in a smoky city street.

One thing that remains familiar amid these ruins is the movie’s old-fashioned faith in journalism. Dunst, who’s sensational, plays Lee, a war photographer who works for Reuters alongside her friend, a reporter, Joel (the charismatic Wagner Moura). They’re in New York when you meet them, milling through a crowd anxiously waiting for water rations next to a protected tanker. It’s a fraught scene; the restless crowd is edging into mob panic, and Lee, camera in hand, is on high alert. As Garland’s own camera and Joel skitter about, Lee carves a path through the chaos, as if she knows exactly where she needs to be — and then a bomb goes off. By the time it does, an aspiring photojournalist, Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), is also in the mix.

The streamlined, insistently intimate story takes shape once Lee, Joel, Jessie and a veteran reporter, Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), pile into a van and head to Washington. Joel and Lee are hoping to interview the president (Nick Offerman), and Sammy and Jessie are riding along largely so that Garland can make the trip more interesting. Sammy serves as a stabilizing force (Henderson fills the van with humanizing warmth), while Jessie plays the eager upstart Lee takes under her resentful wing. It’s a tidily balanced sampling that the actors, with Garland’s banter and via some cozy downtime, turn into flesh-and-blood personalities, people whose vulnerability feeds the escalating tension with each mile.

As the miles and hours pass, Garland adds diversions and hurdles, including a pair of playful colleagues, Tony and Bohai (Nelson Lee and Evan Lai), and some spooky dudes guarding a gas station. Garland shrewdly exploits the tense emptiness of the land, turning strangers into potential threats and pretty country roads into ominously ambiguous byways. Smartly, he also recurrently focuses on Lee’s face, a heartbreakingly hard mask that Dunst lets slip brilliantly. As the journey continues, Garland further sketches in the bigger picture — the dollar is near-worthless, the F.B.I. is gone — but for the most part, he focuses on his travelers and the engulfing violence, the smoke and the tracer fire that they often don’t notice until they do.

Despite some much-needed lulls (for you, for the narrative rhythm), “Civil War” is unremittingly brutal or at least it feels that way. Many contemporary thrillers are far more overtly gruesome than this one, partly because violence is one way unimaginative directors can put a distinctive spin on otherwise interchangeable material: Cue the artful fountains of arterial spray. Part of what makes the carnage here feel incessant and palpably realistic is that Garland, whose visual approach is generally unfussy, doesn’t embellish the violence, turning it into an ornament of his virtuosity. Instead, the violence is direct, at times shockingly casual and unsettling, so much so that its unpleasantness almost comes as a surprise.

If the violence feels more intense than in a typical genre shoot ’em up, it’s also because, I think, with “Civil War,” Garland has made the movie that’s long been workshopped in American political discourse and in mass culture, and which entered wider circulation on Jan. 6. The raw power of Garland’s vision unquestionably owes much to the vivid scenes that beamed across the world that day when rioters, some wearing T-shirts emblazoned with “ MAGA civil war ,” swarmed the Capitol. Even so, watching this movie, I also flashed on other times in which Americans have relitigated the Civil War directly and not, on the screen and in the streets.

Movies have played a role in that relitigation for more than a century, at times grotesquely. Two of the most famous films in history — D.W. Griffith’s 1915 racist epic “The Birth of a Nation” (which became a Ku Klux Klan recruitment tool) and the romantic 1939 melodrama “Gone With the Wind” — are monuments to white supremacy and the myth of the Southern Lost Cause. Both were critical and popular hits. In the decades since, filmmakers have returned to the Civil War era to tell other stories in films like “Glory,” “Lincoln” and “Django Unchained” that in addressing the American past inevitably engage with its present.

There are no lofty or reassuring speeches in “Civil War,” and the movie doesn’t speak to the better angels of our nature the way so many films try to. Hollywood’s longstanding, deeply American imperative for happy endings maintains an iron grip on movies, even in ostensibly independent productions. There’s no such possibility for that in “Civil War.” The very premise of Garland’s movie means that — no matter what happens when or if Lee and the rest reach Washington — a happy ending is impossible, which makes this very tough going. Rarely have I seen a movie that made me so acutely uncomfortable or watched an actor’s face that, like Dunst’s, expressed a nation’s soul-sickness so vividly that it felt like an X-ray.

Civil War Rated R for war violence and mass death. Running time: 1 hour 49 minutes. In theaters.

An earlier version of this review misidentified an organization in the Civil War in the movie. It is the Western Forces, not the Western Front.

How we handle corrections

Manohla Dargis is the chief film critic for The Times. More about Manohla Dargis

Explore More in TV and Movies

Not sure what to watch next we can help..

As “Sex and the City” became more widely available on Netflix, younger viewers have watched it with a critical eye . But its longtime millennial and Gen X fans can’t quit.

Hoa Xuande had only one Hollywood credit when he was chosen to lead “The Sympathizer,” the starry HBO adaptation of a prize-winning novel. He needed all the encouragement he could get .

Even before his new film “Civil War” was released, the writer-director Alex Garland faced controversy over his vision of a divided America with Texas and California as allies.

Theda Hammel’s directorial debut, “Stress Positions,” a comedy about millennials weathering the early days of the pandemic , will ask audiences to return to a time that many people would rather forget.

If you are overwhelmed by the endless options, don’t despair — we put together the best offerings on Netflix , Max , Disney+ , Amazon Prime and Hulu to make choosing your next binge a little easier.

Sign up for our Watching newsletter to get recommendations on the best films and TV shows to stream and watch, delivered to your inbox.

The Inventory

Jennifer Lopez's Mecha Movie Is All About Learning to Love Artificial Intelligence

Netflix's atlas just asks us to trust in our ai future, in order to become better, swearier killer giant robot tag teams..

Everyone’s a little freaked out about AI right now—the ramifications of unregulated tech bro start up culture smashing into industries across the board, from journalism, to science, to entertainment, being turned upside down by the hot new trend. But together, Jennifer Lopez and Netflix boldly ask in Atlas the primordial question: what if learning to love AI got us a Titanfall movie with the names filed off?

‘Civil War’: What you need to know about A24’s dystopian action movie

Kirsten Dunst holds a camera in her lowered hand while another hangs off her backpack in "Civil War."

Show more sharing options
Copy Link URL Copied!

A24’s “Civil War,” the latest film from “Ex Machina” and “Men” director Alex Garland , imagines a third-term president ruling over a divided America and follows the journalists driving through the war-torn countryside on a mission to land his final interview. The movie is pulse-pounding and contemplative, as the characters tumble from one tense encounter to the next and ruminate on the nature of journalism and wartime photography.

In his review of the film, The Times’ Joshua Rothkopf wrote, “‘Civil War’ will remind you of the great combat films , the nauseating artillery ping of ‘Saving Private Ryan,’ the surreal up-is-down journey of ‘Apocalypse Now.’ It also bears a pronounced connection to the 2002 zombie road movie scripted by its writer-director Alex Garland, ‘28 Days Later.’”

Starring Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny as photojournalists, alongside Wagner Moura and Stephen McKinley Henderson (and a scene-stealing, nerve-racking Jesse Plemons ), the film carries a reported production budget of $50 million and has already started to recoup the costs at the box office, earning $25.7 million in ticket sales in its first weekend in North America.

“Civil War” has also been a discourse juggernaut. Conversation on social media has focused on the lack of context given for the conflict at the heart of the film. In a recent column, The Times’ Mary McNamara wrote that “forcing the very real political divisions that plague this nation into vague subtext doesn’t even serve the purported pro-journalism nature of ‘Civil War.’”

Catch up on our coverage of the film below.

Review: ‘Civil War’ shows an America long past unraveling, which makes it necessary

Starring Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny as journalists chronicling a war at home, writer-director Alex Garland’s action film provokes a shudder of recognition.

April 11, 2024

Los Angeles, CA - April 02: Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny pose for a portrait as they promote their new film, "Civil War," at Four Seasons Beverly Hills on Tuesday, April 2, 2024 in Los Angeles, CA. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny on the nightmarish ‘Civil War’: ‘No nation is immune’

Writer-director Alex Garland’s controversy-courting political fable about a violently divided America brings together two generation-defining actors.

April 4, 2024

Kirsten Dunst, left, and Cailee Spaeny in 'Civil War'

What ‘Civil War’ gets right and wrong about photojournalism, according to a Pulitzer Prize winner

Carolyn Cole, a veteran L.A. Times photographer who won a Pulitzer Prize for her coverage of civil war in Liberia, breaks down the depiction of her profession in A24’s ‘Civil War.’

April 16, 2024

Actors Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons arrive for "Civil War" special screening

Inside the most unnerving scene in ‘Civil War’: ‘It was a stunning bit of good luck’

With a deeply disturbing turn by Jesse Plemons, one scene in “Civil War” encapsulates the film’s combustible political balancing act. It almost didn’t happen.

April 12, 2024

In trying to hedge its politics, ‘Civil War’ betrays its characters — and the audience

Alex Garland’s powerful war drama is ostensibly a tribute to the fourth estate. But the film is absent the examination of causes and consequences central to great journalism.

April 15, 2024

Two women with press helmets and vests crouch to take a photo in a scene from "Civil War."

Company Town

After ‘Civil War’ and mainstream success, can indie darling A24 keep its cool?

‘Civil War’s’ overperformance at the box office proves that A24’s brand is strong enough to open a divisive $50-million about a dystopian America.

This image released by A24 shows Kirsten Dunst in a scene from "Civil War." (Murray Close/A24 via AP)

Entertainment & Arts

‘Civil War’ unites moviegoers at box office

Alex Garland’s ‘Civil War,’ about a strife-torn, near-future America, knocked ‘Godzilla x Kong’ from the top spot at the weekend box office.

April 14, 2024

More From the Los Angeles Times

A blonde woman with red lipstick and a one-shoulder polka dot dress smiles in front of trees and a building

Anne Heche’s ‘insolvent’ estate cannot settle debts, actor’s son claims in legal docs

Actors Glen Powell, left, and Sydney Sweeney right embrace at the premiere of their film

Sydney Sweeney orchestrated faux Glen Powell romance to plug ‘Anyone But You.’ And it worked

April 24, 2024

Los Angeles, CA - March 19: Portrait of actress Melissa Barrera

Melissa Barrera is not afraid

April 23, 2024

Anne Hathaway sits and leans against a wall in a black-and-white portrait

Anne Hathaway recalls ‘gross’ chemistry tests from the early 2000s: ‘Now we know better’

Netflix’s New Movie Chief Is Tasked With Making ‘Better Films,’ Not Necessarily ‘Fewer Films’

By Rebecca Rubin

Rebecca Rubin

Senior Film and Media Reporter

AMC Theatres Building Distribution Team With New VP Hire After ‘Eras Tour,’ ‘Renaissance’ Box Office Success 3 hours ago
Zendaya’s Tennis Drama ‘Challengers’ Aims to Lead Sluggish Box Office With $15 Million Debut 4 hours ago
Nick Jonas Film ‘The Good Half’ Sells to Utopia, Sets Theatrical Release (EXCLUSIVE) 5 hours ago

REBEL MOON. Sofia Boutella stars as Kora, the reluctant hero from a peaceful colony who is about to find she's her people's last hope, in Zack Snyder's REBEL MOON. Cr. Clay Enos/Netflix © 2023

As Netflix ‘s new film chief, Dan Lin’s mandate is to focus on quality — and quantity.

Netflix’s co-CEO Ted Sarandos shed light on Lin’s strategy as the producer takes over film duties from Scott Stuber, who announced in January he was leaving the streamer .

“There is no appetite to make fewer films, but there is an unlimited appetite to make better films, always,” Sarandos said during the company’s Q1 earnings call. “Even though we have made, and we are making, great films. We want to make them better, of course.”

Popular on Variety

Though Sarandos mostly echoed those sentiments, he made a point to say the New York Times wasn’t directly quoting Lin, nor did Netflix participate in the article.

Lin began working at Netflix in April and now holds one of the most influential jobs in the movie business. In his first month, he laid off around 15 people and reorganized the film department by genre rather than budget level. That structure was set up by Stuber, whose early days at Netflix were defined by a desire to dramatically increase the company’s original film output with expensive tentpoles like “Bright,” “The Gray Man” and “Red Notice.” Near the end of his tenure, though, Stuber pivoted the streamer away from being a strictly volume business and expressed a desire to make those films watchable, as well.

Before he took over as film chief, Lin worked with the streamer on “The Two Popes” and the live-action “Avatar: The Last Airbender” series. But he’s best known for producing the “Lego” film franchise, director Andy Muschietti’s adaptation of Stephen King’s horror novel “It,” and Disney’s “Aladdin” remake through his production company Rideback.

“We’re super excited to have Dan join the company. He [is already] running at 100 miles an hour,” Sarandos said. “We take a very audience-centric view of what quality is. [Dan] understands Netflix and the audience really, really well.”

More From Our Brands

Dionne warwick on her rock hall induction: ‘i’ve never considered myself a rock & roller’, gen zers are spending like maniacs on watches: report, deion, colorado still haggling over nike co-branding deal, be tough on dirt but gentle on your body with the best soaps for sensitive skin, fbi: international casts colin donnell in season-ending arc that will follow luke kleintank’s exit, verify it's you, please log in.

Netflix's official Atlas trailer puts Jennifer Lopez in another generic Terminator clone, but with Titanfall-like mechs

Imagine Gigli... IN SPACE! Thankfully this isn't that movie

When we watched the teaser trailer for Jennifer Lopez's new sci-fi movie Atlas , we said that it looked like a cross between Terminator and The Creator with Neon Genesis Evangelion -like mechs thrown in for good measure. And now that a longer trailer has dropped, we're thinking much the same.

The new Netflix movie looks very entertaining, with lots of big robot suits (similar to the powered exoskeletons you see in films like Edge of Tomorrow) and explosions – always a good thing unless you're watching a period drama. It also has a "can we trust AI?" plot, which is very timely.

In Atlas, Lopez is Atlas Shepherd, a genius data analyst who's trying to save the human race from a rogue AI – but when she crash lands on a hostile alien planet, she finds herself having to team up with a renegade robot that she doesn't trust in the slightest. You can watch the official trailer below.

What to expect from Atlas

It's hard not to notice the sci-fi tropes in this new trailer, from what are (deliberate?) echoes of Sigourney Weaver's Ripley in Alien and Aliens to some distinctly Terminator 2 scenes of AI-powered destruction. And that means our very own Tom Power's worries appear to be valid: "I pray it isn't another generic Netflix film offering," he wrote, adding: "I live in hope it'll be better than I expect."

It certainly looks like it'll deliver some impressive spectacle, and with director Brad Peyton ( Rampage , San Andreas and of course, Cats & Dogs The Revenge ) on board there's likely to be plenty of eye candy on-screen. And there's some impressive talent over the typewriters too, with the writing courtesy of Leo Sadarian ( StartUp ) and Aron Eli Coleite ( Star Trek : Discovery ).

I'm hoping this is going to be more than just some CGI mechs walloping each other. As The Creator on Disney Plus and Hulu recently demonstrated, you can have thrilling action, amazing FX and still tell a compellingly human story even in the most sci-fi settings; that too wore some of its influences (notably District 9 and Avatar ) on its sleeve but was very much its own movie. And let's face it, in the canon of Jennifer Lopez movies it's unlikely that Atlas is going to be ranked alongside Gigli . So it's got that going for it at least.

Atlas will be streaming on Netflix from May 24.

Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox

Get the hottest deals available in your inbox plus news, reviews, opinion, analysis and more from the TechRadar team.

Netflix subscribers can’t get enough of 2019 spy thriller Anna
Netflix movie of the day: May December is a crafty satire
Rebel Moon Part 2 isn't the epic sci-fi sequel we hoped for

Contributor

Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall ( Twitter ) has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than a dozen books. Her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man , is on sale now. She is the singer in Glaswegian rock band HAVR .

Netflix movie of the day: May December is a crafty satire of tabloid true stories and, smartly, itself

Netflix subscribers can’t get enough of 2019 spy thriller Anna – watch these 3 skilful assassin movies next

Does closing apps on your iPhone save battery life? The surprising answer is no –here's why

Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver review – Zack Snyder’s bombastically fun sequel

The divisive director’s sci-fi follow-up is both original and derivative and will be unlikely to convert anyone, but there’s something charming about its sincerity

I s there a contemporary Hollywood film-maker who better epitomizes the modern commerce-v-art quagmire than Zack Snyder ? Snyder has an instantly recognizable style and a deathless dedication to his singular vision; he also, at the behest of various studios, volunteers to think almost entirely in terms of franchises, comic books and self-conscious myth-making – whether he’s trying to interrogate those myths or just build them up so he can smash them down with maximum mayhem.

Rebel Moon, his sci-fi/fantasy franchise for Netflix, pulls both sides of his career to further extremes. It’s a multimillion-dollar two-parter (for now) that’s technically original and highly derivative, with Snyder’s fanboy obsessions taken so far around the bend that they become niche again. Even his hordes of online fans don’t seem to care that much about it. Rebel Moon – Part 2: The Scargiver, following last year’s A Child of Fire kickoff, is supposed to be an explosive finale. But with expanded R-rated cuts of both movies definitely on the way, and ideas rattling around in Snyder’s brain for even more sequels, the whole project feels like one long, never-ending middle.

And yet: maybe this accidental middle ground is exactly what Snyder needs. Structurally, The Scargiver is no one’s idea of a proper stand-alone movie, or even a normal sequel. The first film followed the recruitment efforts of Kora (Sofia Boutella), an ex-soldier whose idyllic life on the humble farming moon Veldt is interrupted by Imperial – er, Imperium forces demanding all of their crops. Kora and Gunnar (Michiel Huisman) set out to find warriors willing to help defend Veldt; by making his failed Star Wars pitch without Lucasfilm, Snyder cut out the middleman on his Seven Samurai ripoff.

Though A Child of Fire ended by kinda-sorta killing off main Imperium bad guy Atticus Noble (Ed Skrein) in a pre-emptive skirmish, he was quickly revived, so that The Scargiver can basically function as Climactic Battle: The Movie. Kora and Gunnar, along with their recruits Nemesis (Doona Bae), Titus (Djimon Hounsou) and Tarak (Staz Nair), return to Veldt and rally the citizens to defend themselves against Noble and the Imperium forces. That’s pretty much the whole movie.

This means almost all of The Scargiver is set on and above Veldt, a disappointing change from the gleeful planet-hopping of the first film. Here, instead of various sequences of nabbing warriors from various Star Wars-y worlds, there’s a single extended scene where the warriors trade backstory secrets, featuring some flashbacks that go off-world, plus a longer one revealing more about Kora’s checkered past. That’s all part of the protracted calm before the laser-blasting storm; during this early section, Snyder also includes a farming montage as only the director of 300 could. When these rebels reap their harvest of grain, they reap hard.

The comparably quieter moments all lead into an extended battle sequence that fuses last-stand westerns with a cartoon version of first world war trench warfare, and brings to mind overloaded early-2000s digital-cinema spectacles like Attack of the Clones or The Matrix Revolutions. (If that makes you shudder, subtract one star from this review’s rating. If you couldn’t stand A Child of Fire, might as well subtract two or three.) Snyder favors barrages over set pieces, and character design (which is often delightful) over character development (which is typically minimal); the nuances of human relationships elude him. He even has trouble with human-robot relationships; Jimmy, the mechanical man voiced by Anthony Hopkins , is still lurking around grappling with his sense of self. This leaves Boutella, a muscular and graceful presence, to sell Kora’s regrets, determination and self-lacerating fury with the kind of physical expressiveness that would be equally at home in silent movies and fantastical motion-capture.

Lucky as Snyder is to have her, the whole movie doesn’t rest on Boutella. There’s also a deranged zeal to Snyder’s muchness. If he’s going to bust out the kind of floating/falling giant airship over-favored by Kevin Feige in half a dozen Marvel movies, at least he stages a terrific sliding-objects fight during the fall. If he’s going to knock off his own versions of lightsabers, they’re going to look sharper and deadlier. If he’s going to utilize his newest favorite directorial party trick – focus so shallow that only a minority of any given image looks sharp at a time – he’s going to do it with the utmost commitment, even when it’s nonsensical (as in establishing shots).

Rebel Moon almost certainly didn’t need to be two multiple-cut movies. It probably could have gotten by as zero. But as a playground for Snyder’s favorite bits of speed-ramping, shallow-focusing and pulp thievery, it’s harmless, sometimes pleasingly weird fun. (That said, the first part is better and weirder.) The large-scale pointlessness feels more soothing than his past insistence on attempting to translate Watchmen into a big-screen epic, or make Superman into a tortured soul. Even Rebel Moon’s shameless attempts at serialization – The Scargiver essentially ends with another extended sequel tease, this time for a movie that stands a decent chance of never happening – feel freeing, because they excuse Snyder from the uncomfortable business of staging an apocalyptic showdown, or, worse, imparting a mournful philosophy. The whole bludgeoning enterprise is so daftly sincere, you could almost call it sweet.

Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver is out now on Netflix

Zack Snyder
Science fiction and fantasy films
Anthony Hopkins
Action and adventure films

3 underrated Netflix movies you should watch this weekend (April 19-21)

At movie theaters nationwide this weekend, the action and horror genres will be well served with the simultaneous debuts of Guy Ritchie’s The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare and the vampire ballerina movie Abigail . (I’m not making that second one up; it exists!) Those movies have their fans, but it’s not a stretch to predict there will be quite a few people who will want to stay home to see what’s on streaming instead.

Anna (2019)

How to be single (2016), inheritance (2020).

The king of those streamers, Netflix , always has something for everyone.And Digital Trends has crafted a selection of three underrated movies currently streaming on Netflix that are worth your time and attention this weekend. One is a guilty pleasure action movie, another is an underrated comedy from eight years ago, and the last one is a little-seen thriller from 2020.

Need more recommendations? Read our guides to the best movies on Hulu , the best movies on Amazon Prime Video , and the best movies on HBO .

If you like The Sopranos, watch these three great modern TV shows now
Check out this great movie before it leaves Amazon Prime Video next week
3 great movies leaving Peacock in April 2024 you have to watch

I’m a sucker for slightly sleazy European-set action movies, so it makes sense that I’m recommending Anna . Make no mistake, this is not as good as La Femme Nikita or even Red Sparrow , the universally trashed 2018 thriller with Jennifer Lawrence as a frequently nude assassin. But Anna has it’s own B movie charms, and offers enough good car chases through narrow cobblestone streets, gunfights in crowded posh restaurants, and respected actors like Helen Mirren and Luke Evans wielding ridiculous Russian accents to be worth your time.

The plot is virtually identical to Nikita ‘s: a downtrodden woman (Sasha Luss) is recruited by a shady organization (in Anna ‘s case, the KGB) to escape her terrible life. If she serves faithfully (i.e., kills people) for five years, she’ll win her freedom. She honors her commitment, but (surprise!) the KGB doesn’t, and tries to eliminate her. Anna ‘s director, Luc Besson, also directed Nikita , so the shameless mimicry is somewhat excused, and he still knows how to craft a good, tense action scene after all these years. Anna won’t win any awards for originality, but it’s the perfect action movie to watch on a lazy Saturday afternoon.

Anna is streaming on Netflix .

This movie is better than it has any right to be. On a surface level, everything about How to Be Single looks generic and unbearable: the Ellen’s Book Club title, which makes it sound like it’s a prequel to the awful What to Expect When You’re Expecting ; the cast, some of whom are among the least funny people around; and the plot, which is straight out of the rom-com factory. But the movie is better, smarter, and funnier than you’d expect, and it’s one of the more underrated movies in the genre.

After dumping her long-term boyfriend, Alice (Dakota Johnson) moves to New York City to live with her older sister, Meg (Leslie Mann). Once there, she befriends wild child Robin (Rebel Wilson) and lovelorn Lucy (Alison Brie). All four women have comic misadventures as they look for love and happiness in the Big Apple. Yes, I know, this sounds like Sex and the City , but it’s not; instead, it’s a humorous roundelay of bittersweet romance, told with a slightly sarcastic tone that tempers the sweetness.

How to Be Single is streaming on Netflix .

For many, 2020 was a lost year for a lot of reasons, so it’s hard to even remember what movies came out that year. That’s unfortunate, as there were several that got lost both then and now, and deserve to be discovered. One of them in Inheritance , a nifty little thriller about the immoral wealthy class.

When New York City business tycoon Archer Monroe (Patrick Warburton) dies, a substantial inheritance is left to his surviving family members: his wife (Connie Nielsen), his son (Chace Crawford), and his daughter, Lauren (Lily Collins). But when a posthumous video confession from her father unearths family secrets, Lauren embarks on a journey of discovering long-kept secrets from the past that threaten her future. If you’re a fan of seeing rich people fight over the spoils of their wealth and utterly insane plot twists, Inheritance is the movie for you. Plus, it has Simon Pegg !

Inheritance is streaming on Netflix .

Editors' Recommendations

The 10 most popular movies on Netflix right now
5 movies leaving Netflix in April 2024 you have to watch now
3 Netflix shows we can’t wait to see in May 2024
5 movies leaving Prime Video in April 2024 you have to watch
Like Inglourious Basterds? Then watch these three WWII movies right now
Streaming Services

April was a bit of a low-key month for movies, but there was still plenty of pleasure to be had at the theater. Indies were well-represented with the surreal sci-fi movie The Beast while multiplexes enjoyed the social commentary and IMAX action set pieces of Alex Garland's appropriately divisive Civil War.

May, however, will be a different story, as the summer season is set to begin on May 3 with the premiere of The Fall Guy, an action comedy starring everyone's favorite actor of the moment, Ryan Gosling. May will also see apes conquesting another planet, a biopic about Amy Winehouse that's already enraged people on social media, a different take on the slasher movie genre, and one of the most highly anticipated prequels of the last decade. Oh, and Garfield's back. Again. Which of these are worth seeing? Find out by checking out our top three picks out of all the movies scheduled for release in May 2024. The Fall Guy (May 3)

The video game adaptation trend continues with Amazon Prime Video's Fallout, and Walton Goggins was among the hit streaming show's standout performers. His casting as the former Hollywood actor and mutated ghoul was pitch-perfect for the dystopic world's atmosphere and sardonic humor.

One of the best character actors around, Goggins typically specializes in morally ambiguous or outright evil characters. Aside from Fallout, the actor has played compelling roles across film and TV over the last decade. Check out these critically praised movies and TV shows if you're looking for more of the Fallout star's career highlights. Justified (2010-2015)

April 2024 has been a pretty big month for horror or horror-adjacent movies at the box office. The First Omen was much better than many suspected, and now we're getting Abigail from directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett. If you loved Abigail's combination of comedy and horror, then you might be surprised by how many other movies hit that same sweet spot.

Abigail, which tells the story of a group of kidnappers who inadvertently kidnap a vampire, is both a horror movie and a comedy, and its ability to strike that tonal balance has been a hallmark of Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett's career to date. Here are three other movies that achieve a similar feat and are worth your time. Ready or Not (2019) READY OR NOT | Red Band Trailer [HD] | FOX Searchlight

IMAGES

Us 2019 Movie Review
Us movie release date, cast and trailer
Us on Netflix full movie review and how the movie ends
'Us' Trailer: Jordan Peele’s New Nightmare Looks Even Crazier Than ‘Get
Jordan Peele's 'Us' Trailer is a Suitably Creepy Follow Up to 'Get Out
Us (2019)

COMMENTS

Us movie review & film summary (2019)
Peele's film, which he directed, wrote and produced, will likely reward audiences on multiple viewings, each visit revealing a new secret, showing you something you missed before in a new light. "Us" begins back in 1986 with a young girl and her parents wandering through the Santa Cruz boardwalk at night. She separates from them to walk ...
Us
Rated 4/5 Stars • Rated 4 out of 5 stars 07/10/21 Full Review Audience Member Didn't love this movie but definietly interesting and not terrible, I can see why it's popular Rated 2.5/5 Stars ...
'Us' Review: Jordan Peele's Creepy Latest Turns a Funhouse Mirror on Us
March 20, 2019. Jordan Peele's new horror movie, "Us," is an expansive philosophical hall of mirrors. Like his 2017 hit, "Get Out," this daring fun-until-it's-not shocker starts from ...
'Us' Ending Explained
R. Horror. A family's serene beach vacation turns to chaos when their doppelgängers appear and begin to terrorize them. Release Date. March 22, 2019. Director. Jordan Peele. Cast. Lupita Nyong'O ...
Us (2019 film)
Us is a 2019 psychological horror film written and directed by Jordan Peele, starring Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss, and Tim Heidecker.The film follows Adelaide Wilson (Nyong'o) and her family, who are attacked by a group of menacing doppelgängers, called the 'Tethered'.. The project was announced in February 2018, and much of the cast joined in the following months.
Us (2019)
Us: Directed by Jordan Peele. With Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker. Adelaide Wilson and her family are attacked by mysterious figures dressed in red. Upon closer inspection, the Wilsons realize that the intruders are exact lookalikes of them.
Us
Full Review | Dec 7, 2022. With "Us" the aim may be a little messy, but Peele brings it together with sharp instincts and a better grasp of scene-to-scene storytelling and tension-building ...
'Us': Film Review
Maybe we're Them and they're Us. Maybe every happy ending is somebody else's catastrophe, and therefore, no horror film is ever really over. Rated R, 116 minutes. Jordan Peele follows 'Get ...
'Us' Movie Review: Director Jordan Peele Horror Film
Short answer: he can't and doesn't. In interviews, Peele insists that Us is a straight-up horror show. Not really. Leave it to Peele to blaze a trail by putting a black family smack in the ...
Us (2019) Movie Reviews
The movie's first act does an excellent job of building up tension in the process, while at the same time laying the foundation for the story developments to come in ways both subtle and overtly threatening. And that's alll before the trouble really hits the fan and the Wilsons look out in their driveway one night to see (bizarre as it seems ...
Us review: "A film that sticks with you, leaving you hankering for
Best Netflix Movies; Best movies on Disney Plus; Movie Release Dates; ... Us review: "A film that sticks with you, leaving you hankering for another look" By Kevin Harley. published 20 March 2019.
'Us' Movie Explained: When the Why Is More Important than the How
Horror. A family's serene beach vacation turns to chaos when their doppelgängers appear and begin to terrorize them. Release Date. March 22, 2019. Director. Jordan Peele. Cast. Lupita Nyong'O ...
Us Movie Explained: What is the film about?
Us Movie: Plot Explained. Years after the switch, Adelaide is heading out with her family to Santa Cruze for a holiday. She doesn't like the idea of going back to the beach as it gives her the creeps. They pass by a person who's died, this is presumably the Jeremiah 11:11 guy who has been killed by his Shadow.
Us Movie Review
Parents need to know that Us-- a shocking, inventive, often funny horror movie about doppelgangers starring Lupita Nyong'o-- is writer/director Jordan Peele's follow-up to his enormously popular Get Out.While this film isn't likely to have the same cultural impact, it's still quite good. It's also very scary and violent. There are jump scares, plus many attacks and killings with blood and gore.
'This Is Us' Netflix Review: Stream It Or Skip It?
Mandy Moore and Milo Ventimiglia are old-school Steelers fans in the new episode of NBC's 'This Is Us.'. Photo: Ron Batzdorff, NBC. Sex and Skin: We see Jack's bare tush as he sits down on ...
Us
A mother (Lupita Nyong'o) and a father (Winston Duke) take their kids (Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex) for an idyllic summer getaway. Haunted by an unexplainable and unresolved trauma from her past and compounded by a string of eerie coincidences, Adelaide feels her paranoia elevate to high-alert as she grows increasingly certain that something bad is going to befall her family. After ...
Netflix's 100 Best Movies Right Now (April 2024)
With thousands of choices on the platform, both original and acquired, we've found the 100 top Netflix movies with the highest Tomatometer scores! Time to get comfy on the couch! New top movies this month: Bonnie and Clyde, Devil in a Blue Dress, The Disaster Artist, National Lampoon's Animal House
The 50 Best Movies on Netflix Right Now
Our critic praised the picture's " offbeat pacing " and "sharp sense of visual detail." (For more Oscar-winning acting, stream " Places in the Heart " and " Darkest Hour ...
Watch Us
Us. 2019 | Maturity Rating: R | 1h 56m ... Watch all you want. JOIN NOW. Last day to watch on Netflix: December 30. Jordan Peele's bone-chilling psychological thriller earned him the 2019 Saturn Award for Best Director. ... Download and watch everywhere you go. Genres. Horror Movies. This movie is... Ominous, Scary. Audio. English - Audio ...
The Best Netflix Original Movies and Mini-Series
All of the Netflix Original movies and mini-series that our critics have given 3.5-4 stars. These are the best Netflix originals. 1.
US Movies
US Movies | Netflix Official Site. From action-packed Hollywood blockbusters to intimate dramas, riveting romances to laugh-out-loud comedies, these films are the best American cinema has to offer.
New on Netflix US in October 2021: shows and movies you can ...
New on Netflix: October 1, 2021. A Sinister Sect: Colonia Dignidad (Netflix Documentary) Diana: The Musical (Netflix Special) Forever Rich (Netflix Film) The Guilty (Netflix Film) MAID (Netflix ...
100 Best Netflix Series to Watch Right Now (April 2024)
The most popular shows ranking on our guide to the best-reviewed on Netflix include Stranger Things (which aired its fourth season in 2022), phenom Squid Game (which will air its second season in 2023 or 2024), video game curse-breaking adaptations (Arcane: League of Legends, The Witcher, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners), crime dramas (Ozark and Peaky ...
'Civil War' Review: We Have Met the Enemy and It Is Us. Again
Rarely have I seen a movie that made me so acutely uncomfortable or watched an actor's face that, like Dunst's, expressed a nation's soul-sickness so vividly that it felt like an X-ray ...
Jennifer Lopez's Mecha Movie Is All About Learning to Love ...
This morning Netflix dropped a more in depth look at the frankly absurd combination of words that is "the Jennifer Lopez mecha movie, Atlas."While the first trailer played up Lopez's ...
'Civil War' explained: Inside Alex Garland's new A24 movie
April 18, 2024 1:42 PM PT. A24's "Civil War," the latest film from "Ex Machina" and "Men" director Alex Garland, imagines a third-term president ruling over a divided America and ...
Netflix to Focus on Making 'Better Films,' Not 'Fewer Films'
Netflix's New Movie Chief Is Tasked With Making 'Better Films,' Not Necessarily 'Fewer Films'. As Netflix 's new film chief, Dan Lin's mandate is to focus on quality — and quantity ...
Netflix's official Atlas trailer puts Jennifer Lopez in another generic
Netflix movie of the day: May December is a crafty satire of tabloid true stories and, smartly, itself Netflix subscribers can't get enough of 2019 spy thriller Anna - watch these 3 skilful ...
Rebel Moon
Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire review - Zack Snyder's Netflix disaster Read more Rebel Moon, his sci-fi/fantasy franchise for Netflix, pulls both sides of his career to further extremes.
3 underrated Netflix movies you should watch this weekend (April 19-21)
The 50 best shows on Netflix in April 2024. Unlike some of its streaming rivals, Netflix has so far been able to weather the slowdown in production from last year's Hollywood strikes. There have ...

The 'Us' Cast's Marvel Connections Go Way Back

More like this

Did you know

User reviews 3.5K

Technical specs

Related news

More to explore

Recently viewed

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Email not verified

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

Movies / TV

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

site categories

John DeFore

Related Stories

THR Newsletters

More from The Hollywood Reporter

Jordan Peele’s ‘Us’ Will Haunt You

Peter Travers

Editor’s picks

SXSW 2019: Jordan Peele's 'Us' Is Terrifying

'Shōgun' Exits Not With a Bang But a Whisper — and a Place in TV History

Watch Jennifer Garner, Mark Ruffalo, Judy Greer Celebrate '13 Going on 30' Anniversary

Crew Members Injured in Crash on Set of Eddie Murphy Film 'The Pickup'

Channing Tatum's Private Fantasy Island Turns Nightmarish in 'Blink Twice' Trailer

Jennifer Lopez Hunts Down AI Simu Liu in New ‘Atlas’ Trailer

Most Popular

Verify it's you

Screen Rant

Key Release Dates

Us review: "A film that sticks with you, leaving you hankering for another look"

GamesRadar+ Verdict

Most Popular

‘Us’ Explained: When the “Why” Is Far More Interesting Than the “How”

Jordan Peele's 'Us' Gives More Questions Than Answers

Jordan Peele's 'Us' is a Social Statement

'Us' Blu-ray Details Promise Six Deleted Scenes & a Bounty of Behind-the-Scenes Features

Us Movie Explained: What is the film about?

Us Movie Ending Explained – What is the plot twist?

What’s with all the Rabbits in Us, the opening sequence?

Why do the Shadows form a Human Chain?

Why are the Tethered dressed in Red in Us?

What’s with the Scissors that the Tethered are carrying in Us?

At the end of the Us movie, is Jason real, or is he a Tether too?

Or browse by category:

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

Common Sense Selections for Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

YouTube Kids Channels for Gamers

Explaining the News to Our Kids

Celebrating Black History Month

Movies and TV Shows with Arab Leads

Celebrate Hip-Hop's 50th Anniversary

A Lot or a Little?

Positive Messages

Positive Role Models

Violence & Scariness

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Products & Purchases

Parents Need to Know

Where to Watch

Community Reviews

some violence, a song plays the "N-word"

Is It Any Good?

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Movie Details

Did we miss something on diversity?

Suggest an Update