Love Lies Bleeding | 2024 | R | – 7.8.10

Why is “Love Lies Bleeding” rated R? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “violence and grisly images, sexual content, nudity, language throughout and drug use.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes several sex scenes between two women, and between a man and a woman, with partial nudity, several kissing scenes, several scenes of beatings that leave very bloody injuries and one person dead, a flashback to a fatal shooting, a few gunshot injuries, a character that seems to grow to an unnatural size and we hear veins and skin stretching, several scenes involving drugs (presumably steroids) being injected, several arguments, discussions of spousal abuse, discussions of gun running, and over 60 F-words and other strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

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A gym manager (Kristen Stewart) falls hard for a visitor (Katy O’Brian) on her way to Vegas for a bodybuilding competition, not knowing how their love affair will change their lives. Also with Dave Franco, Anna Baryshnikov, Jena Malone, Eldon Jones and Ed Harris. Directed by Rose Glass. [Running Time: 1:44]

Love Lies Bleeding SEX/NUDITY 7

 – A woman kisses another woman, they kiss passionately, and they bump into a wall, lie on a bed and have sex: one woman removes her top (we see her bare breasts and abdomen), the other woman pulls off her underwear and is shown with her head between the other woman’s legs as the other woman moans. Two women have sex and we see one woman’s bare breasts and shoulders as the other woman moves between her legs. A married man thrusts into a woman (not his wife) from behind in a car and yells until he climaxes.
► A woman caresses another woman and asks her to show her how she masturbates; the second woman puts her hand between her thighs and moves rhythmically, as the other woman puts her own hand between the woman’s legs and she moans. A woman masturbates on a sofa and we see rhythmic movement.
► Two women hug and kiss in bed. Two women kiss in a few scenes. A woman guzzles something and another woman licks it as it dribbles down her chest. A young woman kisses a woman on the neck and asks her to meet her later; the woman declines. A woman watches another woman lifting weights and posing in several scenes.
► A fully nude woman answers a telephone (we see her bare back, buttocks and legs). Men in a gym are shown shirtless in a few scenes, we see their bare chests, abdomens, and backs and the camera focuses on one man’s nipple. Women in a gym wear sports bras and tight-fitting pants or shorts that reveal cleavage, bare abdomens, backs and legs to the lower buttocks. A woman wears a cropped tank top and shorts that reveal cleavage, bare abdomen, and back and legs to the lower buttocks in several scenes. A young woman wears a camisole that reveals cleavage in a few scenes. A woman injects another woman in the buttock (we see her partially bare buttock) with a drug. Several women wearing skimpy bikinis pose onstage during a bodybuilding competition (we see cleavage, bare abdomens, buttocks, and legs to the hips). Several men wearing bikini trunks pose onstage during a bodybuilding competition (we see their bare chests, abdomens, backs and legs to the hips). Lotion and oil are applied to women’s bodies before a bodybuilding competition. A woman wears thong underwear and straddles another woman in bed (we see her bare buttocks).

Love Lies Bleeding VIOLENCE/GORE 8

 – A man hears a noise in his house and when he goes into another room he is attacked by someone from the shadows; he is struck and falls to the floor, then slammed against a table until we hear a crunch (we see him later with his jaw dangling off his head and lying dead in a pool of blood). A body wrapped in a rug and in the back of a truck moves and thumps on the truck bed; a woman uncovers the body and strangles the person before dragging the body out of the truck and leaving it on the side of the road.
► A woman is splattered with blood and turns to see a young woman falling to the ground after having been shot (we see a bloody bullet wound in her head and face); the shooter then holds the gun on her before running away. A few flashbacks show a man being shot in the head in slow motion and falling. A man shoots a woman and she shoots him (we see him with blood on his shirt) and then hits him in the face with the gun. A woman is shot in the leg and falls to the ground (we see the bloody wound); the shooter stands over her preparing to kill her, pushes his finger into her leg wound, she screams and the man holds a gun to her head (he does not shoot). A woman grows unnaturally large, towers over a man and picks him up in one hand (we hear crunching), pins him on the ground with his arms spread apart and another woman pushes a gun into his mouth (we see blood streaming from his mouth but she does not shoot). A man watches a woman from a distance as she poses and shadow boxes; he shoots toward her startling her (she is not struck). A woman shoots at another woman twice, and then shoots several times in the air.
► Several women laugh and mock another woman and she attacks one of them, punching her repeatedly until she is pulled away by security and we see her in jail in handcuffs. A woman slaps a man in the face when he grabs her arm and he punches her hard in the face, knocking her to the ground. A woman head-butts another woman, she stumbles back to the floor and we see her bloody mouth. A woman is struck hard in the back of the head and we see her bound and gagged later.
► A woman imagines vomiting another woman while onstage (we see the woman emerging from the woman’s mouth covered with goo and she flops onto the stage); we then see a pile of goo on the stage where the woman actually did vomit. A young woman vomits on a porch (we see goo). A man grabs a woman’s arm and yells at her when she tries to help him after spilling food in his lap.
► A woman screams and pushes another woman. A woman is shown unconscious in a hospital with a badly bruised and swollen face and eye (presumably after her husband beat her). A woman becomes enraged when she sees another woman in the hospital after being beaten and she kicks furniture, yells and cries. A woman grips a chair arm tightly and scratches it as we hear crunching and see the veins in her arms and hands protruding. A man’s knuckles are shown bruised and bloody. A police officer climbs down a rope into a deep chasm and calls out, “There’s more”; we understand he means there are more bodies in the pit and we later see photos of human remains (skulls and skeletons).
► A woman cleans blood from a murder scene (we see blood splatters and a tooth stuck to a stuffed bear’s fur) and rolls a body in a rug; she and another woman put the body in the trunk of a car, drive it to a chasm in the ground, pour gasoline on it and push it over the edge; it explodes and we see flames and a plume of smoke. A woman rolls a dead body in a rug and hides it behind a sofa before carrying it and pushing it down a flight of stairs later. We hear stretching and cracking when a woman flexes in a few scenes and she seems to be growing unnaturally large. A woman sleeps under a highway overpass.
► A man teaches a woman to shoot and she takes target practice. A gun range shows people taking target practice and we hear a lot of gunfire. A scene shows guns being wrapped in plastic and packed in crates with other material to disguise them for transport.
► A woman says, “I wanna kill him.” A woman yells at another woman about having had sex with a man and they argue. A woman says, “I was a fat kid,” and we understand that she was bullied, which inspired her to start bodybuilding and learn how to fight. A woman talks about being estranged from her father. A woman screams when she is told that her husband is dead. A woman threatens a man and accuses him of beating his wife. People seem concerned about others telling the authorities about things they have done.
► A woman in a restroom is shown with her hand plunged in a toilet and pulling out feces and clots of goo; we see the toilet bowl swirling with more goo as it flushes. A woman brushes her teeth and spits (we see goo). A woman cracks eggs and separates the yolks; we see yolks piling up in the garbage. A woman complains that a toilet is blocked and overflowing (we do not see anything in this scene). A cat licks blood pooling on the floor from a body. A man talks about a “Hercules larvae” and we see a squirming bug; the man later eats a large beetle with horns after breaking its tank.

Love Lies Bleeding LANGUAGE 10

 – About 63 F-words, 9 scatological terms, 6 anatomical terms, 3 mild obscenities, 1 derogatory term for Lesbian, name-calling (tramp, straight girl, dumb, smelly, muscle chicks, fat kid, ungrateful brat, crazy, monster, dumb dumb, liar, freak, weird, psycho, the bug guy, stupid, idiot, rat, moron, grade A [derogatory term for Lesbian deleted]), exclamations (jeez, shut-up, oh my gosh), 13 religious exclamations (e.g. oh my God, oh God, God, Jesus, Christ, Holy [F-word deleted], Jesus [F-word deleted] Christ). | profanity glossary |

Love Lies Bleeding SUBSTANCE USE

 – A woman injects another woman with a drug (implied to be a steroid), a woman injects herself with a hypodermic needle in several scenes (we see the needle entering the flesh and one scene shows her injecting between her toes), and we hear news reports about crack cocaine. A man drinks liquor and smokes in a restaurant, a man drinks a shot of liquor at home, and a woman drinks a bottle of beer. A woman smokes cigarettes in several scenes, a woman listens to smoking cessation tapes in a few scenes and they refer to addiction to nicotine, people smoke cigarettes in several scenes in a gym, a woman smokes a cigarette and offers another woman what looks like a cigarette but could be marijuana (she does not smoke it), a woman is tempted when she sees a pack of cigarettes in a dead man’s pants pocket but does not take them (she’s trying to quit), and a man smokes a cigarette outside a bar.

Love Lies Bleeding DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Bodybuilding, gun running, love, family, spousal abuse, horror stories, lies, revenge, steroids, betrayal.

Love Lies Bleeding MESSAGE

 – Love can drive people to take extreme actions.