What is Big Little Lies about?
The tale of three mothers of first graders whose apparently perfect lives unravel to the point of murder.
Does it have a happy ending? (spoiler-safe)
There is a twist, and that is all we are saying.
Big Little Lies (2017)
Three mothers' perfect lives unravel into a gritty, intimate drama, building to a suspenseful and melancholy climax.
A full-attention watch at a measured pace. Emotionally it is devastating.
Streaming on Max.
Big Little Lies parents guide
For a TV-MA, this one goes further: strong sex and nudity. Beyond that, strong violence and frequent strong language.
- Scare
- Mildly scary
- A few tense or eerie moments.
- Jump scares
- None noted
- Gore
- Light gore
- Some blood or injury, briefly.
- Violence
- Strong violence
- Violence is frequent or intense.
- Sex and nudity
- Strong
- Strong means explicit or repeated sex, extended nudity, or sexual assault shown on screen, attempted or completed, even partly off screen. Any one of these is enough.
- Language
- Strong
- Frequent strong profanity or slurs.
How we rate: an AI reads what is known about each title and tags it 0 to 3; we check the tags against a hand-rated set and correct them by hand when readers tell us. Estimates, not a scene-by-scene review. Spot a mistake? Tell us.
Three questions
- Is Big Little Lies scary?
- Only a little. Big Little Lies has a few tense moments, nothing that follows you to bed.
- How gory is Big Little Lies?
- Light gore and strong violence.
- What is Big Little Lies rated, and is it OK for kids?
- It is a TV-MA, with strong sex and nudity, strong violence, and frequent strong language. Keep it for adults.
Cast and crew
Created byDavid E. Kelley
StarringNicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Shailene Woodley, Laura Dern, Alexander Skarsgård, Adam Scott
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Big Little Lies is on our Limited series and Drama on Max lists.
More like this feeling
Prompts we typed into CouchRot, and the lists that share its tags.
- “a movie that will make me cry”
- “a thriller with a twist, no spoilers”
- “funny but not stupid, under two hours”
Lists with the same feel: Tearjerkers.
Five more like Big Little Lies
Say the mood. Five picks with where they stream, right here.
Uses the TMDB API; not endorsed or certified by TMDB. Intensity, content, tone and pace tags are CouchRot's own.