What is The Birds about?
Thousands of birds flock into a seaside town and terrorize the residents in a series of deadly attacks.
Does it have a happy ending? (spoiler-safe)
It leaves the ending open to interpretation.
An unexplained avian onslaught besieges a coastal town, leaving behind a chilling trail of feathery terror.
Suspenseful and tense. A late-night trip at a measured pace. Emotionally it carries some weight.
Streaming on Peacock.
The Birds parents guide
There is no US rating to lean on, so here is what we tagged: real scares, several jump scares and strong violence.
- Scare
- Properly scary
- Frightening, not just tense.
- 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
- None flagged
- It has no US rating to check against, so treat our zero as unconfirmed.
- Language
- Mild
- Mild words like damn, hell or crap.
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 The Birds scary?
- Yes, properly. The Birds is the real thing without being an endurance test.
- How gory is The Birds?
- Light gore and strong violence.
Cast and crew
Directed byAlfred Hitchcock
StarringTippi Hedren, Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy, Suzanne Pleshette, Veronica Cartwright, Ethel Griffies
More like The Birds
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The Shining (1980)Terrifying · graphic gore · brutal violence · emotionally devastatingA family's isolated winter retreat becomes a slow-burn descent into chilling, surreal madness.
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Insidious (2011)Terrifying · light gore · emotionally heavy · measuredA family's desperate search for their comatose son leads them into a chilling, personal battle with dark spirits.
The Omen (1976)Properly scary · light gore · strong violence · emotionally heavyA diplomat's adopted son brings chilling, bleak horror as a measured, suspenseful evil unfolds.
Jaws (1975)Properly scary · light gore · strong violence · emotionally heavyA seaside town's police chief, a biologist, and a hunter face a monstrous shark in a gritty, tense adventure.
The Birds is on our Scary, not gory; Classics (pre-1970); Peacock; Horror on Peacock; and Thriller on Peacock lists.
More like this feeling
Prompts we typed into CouchRot, and the lists that share its tags.
Lists with the same feel: Late night.
Five more like The Birds
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Uses the TMDB API; not endorsed or certified by TMDB. Intensity, content, tone and pace tags are CouchRot's own.