Death Note poster

Death Note (2017)

Film · 1h 41m · Rated R

Crime, Fantasy, Horror

A dark notebook grants a student godlike power, sparking a gritty cat-and-mouse game with grim humor.

Suspenseful and pulpy, with dark satire. A full-attention watch at a brisk pace. Emotionally it is heavy.

Streaming on Netflix.

Death Note parents guide

No surprises for an R: a few tense moments and several jump scares.

Scare
Mildly scary
A few tense or eerie moments.
Jump scares
Several
More than a couple of sudden jolts.
Gore
Light gore
Some blood or injury, briefly.
Violence
Strong violence
Violence is frequent or intense.
Sex and nudity
Moderate
Moderate means a sex scene or nudity on screen, even brief, or sexual violence that is described or implied but never shown.
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 Death Note scary?
Only a little. Death Note has a few tense moments, nothing that follows you to bed.
How gory is Death Note?
Light gore and strong violence.
What is Death Note rated, and is it OK for kids?
Rated R, and it earns it: several jump scares, moderate sex and nudity, and strong violence. Not one for kids.

What is Death Note about?

Light Turner finds a supernatural notebook and uses it to mete out death, attracting the attention of a detective, a demon and a girl in his class.

Does it have a happy ending? (spoiler-safe)

It leaves the ending open to interpretation.

Cast and crew

Directed byAdam Wingard
StarringNat Wolff, LaKeith Stanfield, Margaret Qualley, Shea Whigham, Willem Dafoe, Jason Liles

More like Death Note

Death Note is on our Slashers and Horror on Netflix lists.

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Prompts we typed into CouchRot, and the lists that share its tags.

Lists with the same feel: Horror, not scary; and Dark.

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Uses the TMDB API; not endorsed or certified by TMDB. Intensity, content, tone and pace tags are CouchRot's own.