The Dog Stars (2026)

What earned the score

• Tokenistic Diversity Casting

  A sneak-preview attendee reported that several scenes appeared to result from a central casting memo to 'send me one of everything,' suggesting tokenistic diversity casting inserted for ideological compliance rather than narrative necessity.

• Anti-Religious Messaging in Survivor Encounter

  A tense sequence with a group of fellow survivors contains lazy anti-religious messaging that feels tonally disjointed from the rest of the post-apocalyptic thriller.

Details

After the world's population has been ravaged by a pandemic, a man lives a lonesome existence in a Colorado airplane hangar with his dog and a dour gunman he has befriended. When a mysterious transmission comes through on the radio while he’s flying his old Cessna, it sparks a hunt for the provenance of the sound.

Starring

Jacob ElordiMargaret QualleyJosh BrolinGuy PearceAllison Janney

Director

Ridley Scott

Writer

Peter HellerMark L. Smith

Genre

Science FictionAdventureThriller

Release Date

Aug 28, 2026

Parents Guide

• Sex None

  A quick kiss and a joke about making love.

  Girl has no bra but has a shirt fully covering her, not played to be sexual it's an apocalypse so there's not really a need to conform to past standards.

  Guy is shirtless and in his underwear.

• Violence Severe

  A character is beheaded by a plane propeller. Very brief, but bloody.

  A building is exploded.

  A character suffers severe burns to the face, shown in detail.

  Severe wounds shown up close, including the tending to and stitching up of severe explosion wounds.

  Characters are shot, stabbed, axed, beheaded and exploded.

  A dog is killed offscreen.

• Profanity Moderate

  Use of "God d**n", hell.

  65 Uses of f**k, around a dozen uses of s**t, also ass, b**ch, godd**n, son of a b**ch, Jesus.

  Very frequent use of "f**k" in the first half. 65 throughout.

• Drugs Mild

  Characters smoke Cigars and cigarettes, possibly cannabis.

  Characters drink.

• Frightening Scenes Moderate

  Cut up and bagged Heads and body parts are visible.

  The main character is depressed and talks about suicide by flying his plane into the side of the mountain he and his wife used to visit.

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