Starship Troopers poster

Starship Troopers (1997)

Film · 2h 9m · Rated R

Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Young soldiers fight giant alien bugs in a relentless, high-octane, and darkly satirical space war.

Pulpy, with dark satire. A full-attention watch at full speed. Emotionally it carries some weight.

Streaming on Netflix.

Starship Troopers parents guide

It stays inside its R, with moderate sex and nudity, and brutal violence.

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
Moderate
Moderate means a sex scene or nudity on screen, even brief, or sexual violence that is described or implied but never shown.
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 Starship Troopers scary?
Only a little. Starship Troopers has a few tense moments, nothing that follows you to bed.
How gory is Starship Troopers?
Graphic gore and brutal violence. If graphic gore is a dealbreaker, skip it.
What is Starship Troopers rated, and is it OK for kids?
Rated R, and it earns it: moderate sex and nudity, brutal violence, and some strong language. Not one for kids.

What is Starship Troopers about?

Set in the future, the story follows a young soldier named Johnny Rico and his exploits in the Mobile Infantry. Rico's military career progresses from recruit to non-commissioned officer and finally to officer against the backdrop of an interstellar war between mankind and an arachnoid species known as "the Bugs."

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

Bittersweet. It earns its ending, but not everyone gets what they want.

Cast and crew

Directed byPaul Verhoeven
StarringCasper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards, Jake Busey, Neil Patrick Harris, Clancy Brown

More like Starship Troopers

Starship Troopers is on our Aliens, Dystopias and Thriller on Netflix lists.

More like this feeling

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

Lists with the same feel: Most violent and Edge of your seat.

Five more like Starship Troopers

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.