Love, Death & Robots, Volumes 1-3

What’s it about?

Terrifying creatures, wicked surprises and dark comedy converge in this NSFW anthology of animated stories.

Whilst all seasons contain graphic violence & horror, season 3 does not have a content warning for offensive language.

The facts

• Directed by Tim Miller and David Fincher
• Starring actors like Mary Winstead (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World), Topher Grace (Spider-Man 3), Michael B. Jordan (Black Panther), and Samira Wiley (Orange Is the New Black)
• English language
• 35 episodes amongst the first three seasons, averaging 14 minutes each

Why did it get this rating?

This series was self-rated by Netflix. You can find out more about self-rating by streaming providers here.

Love, Death & Robots is an anthology containing new stories and different animation styles every episode. Because of this, each episode contains varying levels of inappropriate content. Some episodes, such as those with more realistic animations, may be more impactful than others.

Violence

This film contains frequent depictions of graphic and intense violence in various forms. Characters are often beaten and murdered, and many episodes take place during brutal wars. Despite the show being animated, the violence is very gory and displays almost every way a physical body can die.

Where Volumes 1 & 2 have only a few episodes depicting gore, Volume 2 has excessive gory violence in almost every episode.

Some of the strongest moments of violence include:

• A person is impaled through the chin by another character by a number of blades that exit from their hand. The object is seen piercing through the top of their head. They then have their head stomped in by a high heel shoe, which caves their head inwards, exposing a detached eyeball and a gory mess of brain matter. It is revealed that the character is still alive as this was a cyborg body they were only using, but it is still shocking and very graphic.
• A vampiric creature bites off a chunk of flesh from a character’s neck. It then impales the victim with its hand and tears him vertically in half, with layers of their body falling of one by one. Despite it being brief and in the style of a 2D comic book, this scene is extremely graphic and gory.
• One character pushes down on the sides of another’s mouth, until their jaw bends inwards and breaks, killing them in a disturbing and slightly bloody death.
• There is a graphic closeup of a sword slicing through a character’s neck, before they are fully decapitated and their severed head rolls down some stairs.
• During a flashback, a nude, dead woman’s body is shown suspending from ropes during a cult sacrifice, with her stomach cut open and organs pouring out.

Sex scenes and nudity

This show comprises episodes with graphic nudity, including full-frontal female nudity and sex scenes.

Lots of male genitalia is shown, which is largely animated. There are some depictions of female genitalia but they are also animated and less severe than the male depictions. Some episodes contain nudity and some don’t.

There are crude jokes about male and female genitalia sprinkled throughout. 

Volume 1 contains multiple sex scenes and the majority of the show’s nudity, which gets less frequent and graphic as the show progresses.

Volume 2 contains one sex scene and almost no nudity, besides genitalia which is on display in a circus in the final episode, “The Drowned Giant”.

Volume 3 contains no sex or graphic nudity and is minimal compared to the previous seasons.

Suicide

In the Volume 1 episode “WHEN THE YOGHURT TOOK OVER” there is a brief suicide scene after yoghurt comedically takes over the world after it becomes sentient. The scene depicts an animated cartoon character shooting themselves in the head from behind, with no blood.

In episode “THE SECRET WAR”, a realistically animated man is seen to shoot himself in the head as bloodthursty aliens approach him to avoid dying painfully. It is very brief and we see brain matter splatter out from his head.

Sexual assault

In Volume 1 episode “GOOD HUNTING”, a woman describes as we watch the flashback of her being drugged, strapped to a medical table, and having her limbs sawed to turn her into a robot. She describes how a man “could only get hard for machines”, and when she told him she didn’t want him to rape her, he beat her with his fists. The man’s cartoon penis is shown clearly, and the woman ends up killing him.

Drug use

In some episodes, alcoholic drinks are shown and characters smoke cigarettes and use drugs.

There is one episode where a man sees hallucinations which lead him to become reckless and fall off a cliff to his death. It is implied that he was high on some sort of drug.

Offensive language

This show contains some episodes with offensive language, including words like “f**k,” “c**t,” “sh*t,” and “b*tch.” Some episodes also contain racial slurs.

When content stays with you: 

We all have our boundaries, and it’s completely okay if something you’ve watched is weighing on your mind. If certain content lingers with you, consider having a chat with friends or whānau to debrief about what you’ve just seen. But if you’re still feeling affected, please reach out to any of the following helplines for support.  

• 1737
• Safe to talk
• Lifeline
• Youthline

Further information

• Why are ratings and content warnings important for me and my whānau?
• Brain development – how it works, why it matters