Adolescence: what age is it for?
Official US rating: TV-MA. In France, zinema would say 16.
Alone, or with you
The official US rating is TV-MA, and we never go below it. Alone from 17, and not before, even with an adult.
What it's about
When a 13-year-old is accused of the murder of a classmate, his family, therapist and the detective in charge are all left asking: what really happened?
Why 17
- The official rating, firstRated TV-MA in the US (mature audiences only). zinema never goes below the country's rating: it explains it.rule
- A knife murder, told and glimpsedA thirteen-year-old schoolgirl is stabbed seven times by a boy in her class. The body is never shown: the detective lists the wounds, and CCTV footage shows the attack from a distance. The series follows the dawn arrest by armed police, the custody procedure, the strip search of a thirteen-year-old child, then his detention.
- Online bullying and the manosphere, word for wordKatie mocked Jamie on Instagram with coded emojis: the red pill, incel, the 80/20 rule. A topless photo of her had gone round the whole school. A teenager explains these codes to his police-officer father, then Jamie owns them in front of the psychologist: she was weak, so she might like him; he had a knife, she was scared, he did not touch her, and that makes him better.
- Despair with no way out, on both sidesJamie breaks down, wets himself, screams at the psychologist then begs her to like him; Katie's best friend has no one left; the father turns fifty with a slur painted on his van, throws a teenager to the ground, then weeps in his son's bedroom. Swearing is constant.
What the series brings
- Four episodes each shot in a single take: you are locked in with the characters, no way out
- What parents do not see: the closed door, the screen still on at one in the morning, the codes of an online culture
- A conversation to have with a teenager about humiliation, consent and boys' violence towards girls
Watching it together
Watch it with your teenager rather than before them: the third episode, with the psychologist, gives you the words to talk about it.
at 17 and up
What happens behind a closed bedroom door, and whose job is it to ask?
Season by season
the reading per season, episode by episode · expand
Season 1 · 4 episodes, 57 min on average · zinema reading 12, 11 with a parent · France 12
1 episode out of 4 at the top of the series. What's in each episode, without telling the story:
| Episode | What's in it |
|---|---|
| 1 · Episode 1 | Deaths told; meanness; some swearing; drugs mentioned. |
| 2 · Episode 2 | Deaths told; lots of weapons; a lot of swearing; drugs mentioned. |
| 3 · Episode 3 | Deaths told; a scene of cruelty; a lot of swearing; drugs mentioned. |
| 4 · Episode 4 | Deaths told; bullying; a lot of swearing; drugs mentioned; alcohol. |
See the facts
A zinema reading from September 9, 2026 · the 4 episodes of season 1, watched one by one · the age by zinema's rules for the US and France, and a human reading · report an error · how this guide is made