The Electric State
This Netflix sci-fi adventure (released March 14, 2025, rated PG-13) follows an orphaned teen and a small robot on a road trip through a retro-future America to find her missing brother, with a big-budget cast and plenty of action. The content is a real step up from typical family fare: ongoing robot-vs-human battles involving guns and explosions, a string of mild-to-moderate profanity, creepy deteriorated robot designs, and a gut-punch climax involving a child in a comatose state and a mercy-death decision that skews firmly toward older teens.
Confident sci-fi fans around 13 and up; the climactic themes of a sibling's mercy death and child exploitation are likely too heavy for younger or sensitive viewers.
If you’d rather skip
A news-report sequence shows a robot-vs-human battle: a robot hurls a BBQ from a rooftop that explodes and sends soldiers flying backward; deaths are implied but there is no gore.
Backstory is established: Michelle lost her parents and believed she lost her brother in a car crash, and has since moved through multiple foster homes without a stable family.
Michelle's foster father is shown as neglectful and verbally dismissive; he physically shoves her to the ground when she resists him.