What is Elephant about?
Several ordinary high school students go through their daily routine as two others prepare for something more malevolent.
Does it have a happy ending? (spoiler-safe)
No. Brace yourself.
Ordinary high school routines mask a creeping dread as malevolent plans unfold with measured, bleak suspense.
Suspenseful and melancholy. A full-attention watch at a measured pace. Emotionally it is devastating.
Not on a US subscription service as of Oct 28, 2026.
Elephant parents guide
Of what we could confirm, nothing runs past an R: brutal violence and some strong language.
- Scare
- Mildly scary
- A few tense or eerie moments.
- Jump scares
- None noted
- Gore
- Light gore
- Some blood or injury, briefly.
- Violence
- Brutal violence
- Our top level for violence.
- Sex and nudity
- None flagged
- It is rated R, so treat our zero as unconfirmed.
- Language
- Moderate
- Some strong profanity, a few f-words.
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 Elephant scary?
- Only a little. Elephant has a few tense moments, nothing that follows you to bed.
- How gory is Elephant?
- Light gore and brutal violence.
- What is Elephant rated, and is it OK for kids?
- No. It is rated R, with brutal violence and some strong language.
Cast and crew
Directed byGus Van Sant
StarringAlex Frost, Eric Deulen, John Robinson, Elias McConnell, Jordan Taylor, Carrie Finklea
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Elephant is on our Video games list.
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 and Most violent.
Five more like Elephant
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.