What is Platoon about?
As a young and naive recruit in Vietnam, Chris Taylor faces a moral crisis when confronted with the horrors of war and the duality of man.
Does it have a happy ending? (spoiler-safe)
No. Brace yourself.
A naive recruit confronts the horrors of Vietnam, facing moral decay amidst the gritty, bleak landscape of war.
A full-attention watch at a measured pace. Emotionally it is devastating.
Streaming on MGM+, Kanopy (free) and The Roku Channel (free).
Platoon parents guide
Heads up on strong sex and nudity. That is past what the R on the box suggests. Beyond that, brutal violence and frequent strong language.
- Scare
- Mildly scary
- A few tense or eerie moments.
- Jump scares
- Several
- More than a couple of sudden jolts.
- Gore
- Graphic gore
- Blood and wounds shown clearly.
- Violence
- Brutal violence
- Our top level for violence.
- 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 Platoon scary?
- Only a little. Platoon has a few tense moments, nothing that follows you to bed.
- How gory is Platoon?
- Graphic gore and brutal violence. If graphic gore is a dealbreaker, skip it.
- What is Platoon rated, and is it OK for kids?
- Rated R, and it earns it: strong sex and nudity, brutal violence, and frequent strong language. Not one for kids.
Cast and crew
Directed byOliver Stone
StarringCharlie Sheen, Willem Dafoe, Tom Berenger, Kevin Dillon, Forest Whitaker, Mark Moses
More like Platoon
Full Metal Jacket (1987)Dark satire · gritty · full attention · brutal violenceA pragmatic marine endures the dehumanizing grind of boot camp and the bleakness of war-torn Vietnam.
Schindler's List (1993)Bleak · full attention · brutal violence · graphic goreA German businessman confronts the bleak realities of war, saving lives with earnest defiance and measured hope.
Apocalypse Now (1979)Bleak · full attention · brutal violence · graphic goreA soldier's intimate, surreal journey upriver reveals the bleak, gritty heart of war.
Braveheart (1995)Epic · full attention · brutal violence · graphic goreA Scottish warrior's personal tragedy ignites a gritty, epic war for freedom against English rule.
Fury (2014)Gritty · full attention · brutal violence · graphic goreA battle-hardened tank crew faces overwhelming odds on a relentless, gritty mission behind enemy lines.
Saving Private Ryan (1998)Gritty · full attention · brutal violence · extreme goreA squad of soldiers battles across a war-torn landscape to save one man, as history unfolds around them.
Band of Brothers (2001)Gritty · full attention · brutal violence · graphic goreAn earnest, gritty, and bleak true story unfolds with measured pace through epic WWII battles.
Beasts of No Nation (2015)Gritty · full attention · brutal violence · graphic goreA child soldier navigates the bleak, gritty realities of West African civil war, torn between revulsion and fascination.
Platoon is on our 1980s, The Roku Channel, Drama on The Roku Channel, Action on The Roku Channel and Kanopy lists.
More like this feeling
Prompts we typed into CouchRot, and the lists that share its tags.
- “a movie that will make me cry”
- “funny but not stupid, under two hours”
- “a thriller with a twist, no spoilers”
Lists with the same feel: Tearjerkers and Most violent.
Five more like Platoon
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.