What is The Sinner about?
In a small New York town, a haunted detective hunts for answers about perplexing crimes while wrestling with his own demons.
Does it have a happy ending? (spoiler-safe)
It leaves the ending open to interpretation.
A haunted detective in a small New York town wrestles his own demons while hunting for answers to perplexing crimes.
Suspenseful and bleak. A full-attention watch at a measured pace. Emotionally it is devastating.
Streaming on Netflix.
The Sinner parents guide
No surprises for a TV-MA: moderate sex and nudity, and strong violence.
- Scare
- Mildly scary
- A few tense or eerie moments.
- Jump scares
- A couple
- One or two 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
- 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 The Sinner scary?
- Only a little. The Sinner has a few tense moments, nothing that follows you to bed.
- How gory is The Sinner?
- Light gore and strong violence.
- What is The Sinner rated, and is it OK for kids?
- Rated TV-MA, and it earns it: moderate sex and nudity, strong violence, and some strong language. Not one for kids.
Cast and crew
Created byDerek Simonds
StarringBill Pullman, Frances Fisher, Alice Kremelberg, Neal Huff, Cindy Cheung, Ronin Wong
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The Sinner is on our Whodunits, Anthology series and Crime on Netflix lists.
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.
Five more like The Sinner
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.