Every “Love, Death & Robots” Episode Ranked

“Love, Death & Robots” is a Netflix anthology series comprised of many animated short films. As a published short story writer myself, does that mean I have a professional say as to whether these stories are up to snuff? Sure, why not.

One of the best aspects of this show is that it’s extremely varied … but that does mean the episode quality also differs wildly. So how would I rank all forty-five episodes? And beware of major SPOILERS – I can’t talk about these short stories without mentioning their premises and endings.

Before we begin, you can check out some of my related blog posts below:

Every “Hannibal” Episode Ranked

EVERY Friends Episode Ranked

Death Note – Every Episode Ranked

“Cyberpunk: Edgerunners” – Every Episode Ranked

Terrible

45 – Smart Appliances, Stupid Owners

Even if a short story’s premise or execution was bad, I could almost always appreciate the craftsmanship that went into it. For the case of “Smart Appliances, Stupid Owners”, however, the second-hand embarrassment was too much to bear.

It’s a series of short clips where household appliances lament how stupid their human owners are. Is it a humorous and scathing critique of our society? Well, I guess so. If you’re willing to stomach the cringey, surface-level “humour” and the static settings.

Bad

44 – All Through the House

For context, I binged all four volumes of “Love, Death & Robots” in the first two weeks of September. A Christmas-themed episode felt quite out-of-season as a result.

“All Through the House” is a very short story with one core idea – Santa is a grotesque monster who barfs out presents. That’s it. That’s the short. I’ve seen a few other people’s episode rankings and they consistently put this short high up, sometimes in their top ten. Am I going insane? How is this an acclaimed short?

Above all else, the premise is immersion-shattering. If Santa is a monster, surely other kids or parents would have noticed? If kids on the “naughty list” get killed, as is implied in the story, does this universe just have loads of missing kids? Is everyone subservient to the unkillable Santa monster? There are too many unanswered questions!

43 – Night of the Mini Dead

“Night of the Mini Dead” is a short that everyone seems to love, and I get it. A zombie movie parody but with miniature, high-pitched models is a funny premise which is executed well.

Unfortunately, this just wasn’t for me. It passes by at such a ridiculous pace that I thought it was a TikTok short. The humour is decent, but I was never properly tickled. I’m also not a big zombie film fan. That made it zero for three.

This is the one episode where I admit my opinion is probably wrong. I simply wasn’t the target audience.

42 – The Screaming of the Tyrannosaur

I’m not a Mr. Beast fan. I’m a bit of a hater, in fact. You can imagine my immeasurable disappointment when I clicked “Next Episode” and the first voice that played through my eardrums was that annoying, soulless man.

Luckily, he’s not in it all that much … but the rest of “The Screaming of the Tyrannosaur” is still pretty bad. It’s an action-packed dinosaur race to the death with some surface-level societal critiques sprinkled in too. It’s the kind of thing a teenager might write for a creative writing assignment.

41 – Can’t Stop

If it wasn’t for the fact I really like the song “Can’t Stop”, then this glorified Red Hot Chili Peppers music video would’ve been in the Terrible tier – maybe even at the very bottom.

It’s a strange, uncanny puppet show. The audio recording isn’t even that great to begin with.

40 – Sucker Of Souls

“Love, Death & Robots” was clearly made by a bunch of cat lovers – cats play an important role in like a dozen of these episodes!

My least favourite of these cat-themed shorts was “Sucker Of Souls”, a story about an archeological dig which uncovers a demonic beast … who is conveniently terrified of cats. Not a bad premise, but the cat angle, the cringey humour and the fact it ended on an unnecessary cliff-hanger knocked it down a tier.

Meh

39 – The Other Large Thing

Apparently “The Other Large Thing” is a prequel to the “Three Robots” series. Cool. It was still boring as hell.

When a lazy couple buy a robot that can do all the housework for them, their pet cat conspires to use it to take over the world. And somehow pulls it off within days. Sure. As I said – these episodes were written by cat lovers.

38 – 400 Boys

“400 Boys” had the potential to be great … but it had some of the worst, least-intelligible worldbuilding in the series.

Let’s start with the positive – the animation. The desolate city looks awesome, and the final fight scene had lots of great action.

But what the hell is going on in this world? Why are there enormous babies? Were they the “giants” that destroyed the world? Why can everyone use telekinetic powers … and why are those powers so useless? Like the Santa-monster episode, I had too many questions by the end.

Just make this a gang fight episode. Get rid of the huge babies and make it a post-apocalyptic turf dispute. That would’ve been a much cooler, tighter episode.

37 – Golgotha

At first I thought the live-action elements would be off-putting (especially with Rhys Darby’s specific humour), but it was actually okay. The episode itself, however, fell flat.

“Golgotha” sees an alien race coming to earth and lambasting us for our treatment of the ocean. Gee, I wonder if the writers are subtly telling us to treat our oceans better …

36 – Close Encounters of the Mini Kind

While the zombie premise of “Night of the Mini Dead” was perhaps lost on me, I could appreciate the alien invasion in “Close Encounters of the Mini Kind” a lot more.

The same critiques apply – namely that it buzzes by far too quickly – but I enjoyed the humour and storytelling a touch more this time around.

35 – Ice Age

I don’t mind the premise of “Ice Age”. A couple move into their new house and discover that their fridge is harboring a sped-up evolution of a tiny civilization’s history. Kooky, that’s for sure, but a good idea for a short story.

The episode sadly doesn’t do much with it. The couple gawp at this tiny civilization while it advances to a futuristic society, annihilates itself and then starts again. It feels like there’s hardly any resolution – and I was left wondering what the point of the story was supposed to be.

34 – The Drowned Giant

By far the slowest, most introspective episode in the series. “The Drowned Giant” sees an enormous body wash up on a shore, and the local populace soon treat it as a run-of-the-mill landmark.

It’s a fascinating look at how quickly we move on from spectacle – the transient nature of the awe-inspiring. I only wish it was presented in a way that didn’t put me to sleep.

33 – Alternate Histories

“Alternate Histories” was too weird for me. It sees Hitler dying in strange and comical ways as part of a timeline-altering machine’s exhibition.

The open-ended premise ends up shooting itself in the foot – if you conceive of a story where anything can happen, then what we see feels limited and like a waste of potential.

I had to give the episode bonus points, however. It was nice to see Hitler dying in ridiculous and painful ways.

32 – The Very Pulse of the Machine

Like “The Drowned Giant”, “The Very Pulse of the Machine” is a slower, quite existential episode. The snail’s pace is ultimately what lets it down.

It’s a fever dream of audio and visuals. I like the cosmic, impossible aesthetic, but in the end I thought the episode didn’t have much of substance to say.

31 – Kill Team Kill

“Kill Team Kill” goes for pure 80’s action spectacle. In that sense it does the job … but as a short story it was very thin.

A group of commandos have to kill a deadly, bio-engineered bear. There’s lots of death and gore, plenty of cringey jokes, and it plays out pretty much as you’d expect.

Okay

30 – Fish Night

I absolutely adored the premise of “Fish Night”. If deserts used to be the sea bed millions of years ago, does that mean the fish of the era now haunt the deserts as ghosts?

The amazing premise and wondrous visuals are the only things this episode has going for it, however. I didn’t care about either of the salesmen as characters, and the way the plot played out was straight-up bizarre. I genuinely thought it was going to be a dream … but nope. That apparently happened.

29 – When The Yogurt Took Over

A very short, humorous story about a sentient yogurt taking over the world. There’s not much else to add other than I slightly enjoyed it.

28 – The Dump

A man has been living in a junkyard for his whole life, and an outsider tells him to clean up his act. It goes just about as well as you’d expect.

“The Dump” is a pretty gross episode of the show, which makes sense. It’s explicit, otherworldly and unsettling. That’s basically this show’s modus operandi, now that I think about it.

27 – For He Can Creep

Another cat-centric episode. “For He Can Creep” has a good story at its core, but again … why so many goddamn cats?!?

A poet is being tormented in his cell by Satan, and it’s up to the prisoner’s cat to save him. The scene where all the cats come together made my eyes roll but at least it worked as a resolution.

26 – Ice

This episode is pure style and worldbuilding over substance and story. I liked it better than I thought I would, but I still prefer the plot-focused short stories.

“Ice” follows a pair of brothers – one augmented and the other a regular human – as they join a group of rebellious young adults for a job (or a hobby, maybe?). I don’t know why they needed the Frost-Whale to chase them across the ice, but at least it was a cool visual.

25 – The Tall Grass

This is one of those episodes that regularly appears near the bottom of other reviewer’s lists, which I don’t understand. “The Tall Grass” is far from high art but it’s a fun, self-contained horror story.

I loved the visuals of the glowing zombies in the tall grass, and the terror was palpable. Is it weird that the train conductor was super chill with his train stopping in known zombie-infested lands? A little, but I thought that added to the mystique.

24 – Swarm

Can I be the first to say yuck.

“Swarm” is a fascinating glimpse of an alien species operating under a hive mind societal structure. The relationship between the two scientists was a bit rushed, and the ending felt more shocking than profound, but on the whole I could appreciate what they were going for.

23 – The Witness

“The Witness” is an award-winning short by Alberto Mielgo. It’s about a woman in a cyberpunk-esque city who witnesses a murder and then flees for her life, with the murderer in hot pursuit.

This episode is an intense acid trip, I’ll give it that. It’s visually overstimulating and outright nauseating at points. Some people love the looping nature of the ending, but I was lukewarm towards it – why is it a loop? Are these two characters in purgatory or something? Is it an allegory for victims of crime perpetuating more crimes, and the vicious cycle is a problem baked into our society?

All in all, a thought-provoking yet one-note short.

22 – Three Robots: Exit Strategies

As a direct sequel to “Three Robots”, I was already a bit bored by “Three Robots: Exit Strategies” mere minutes into the runtime. I didn’t think there was much more story to tell … but here we are.

Still, the titular robots have quirky and fun personalities, and their critiques of society are poignant once more. Let’s just forget about the cringey cat ending. Those goddamn cats …

21 – How Zeke Got Religion

To be honest, “How Zeke Got Religion” is a pretty bad and misleading title. The character Zeke doesn’t go through much of an arc, and religion plays a miniscule part of the plot. This short is all about horror and action. It probably should’ve been called “Holy shit, there’s a fucking demon shredding our plane and our crew”.

A bombing crew interrupts some sort of satanic ritual, but as a result they get attacked by a demon. There are some gnarly kills here, and the demon only gets injured by a crucifix. So yeah. Apparently Zeke “gets religion” after this deeply traumatic experience.

20 – Blindspot

Out of all the episodes that were pointless / derivative / cliché or however you want to label it, “Blindspot” was my favourite. It’s a silly heist story with one-note characters … but if you turn your brain off it’s a bit of decent fun.

Four cyborgs are trying to steal from a train, and most of them get blown to smithereens. I liked the twist ending that they were all clones. As a plot, however, this is about as shallow as it gets.

Good

19 – Helping Hand

Throughout my “Love, Death & Robots” binge I made an effort not to read the episode descriptions. I wanted to go into each story blind and work out the plots from scratch. In the case of “Helping Hand”, that meant I was horrified – I never expected the plot to get so visceral.

It’s bad enough when the astronaut has to remove and throw her glove in order to adjust her trajectory, but her arm too? The crunch of her breaking a frozen limb off will haunt me for weeks.

18 – Automated Customer Service

I would call this episode a “comedy” if it wasn’t so painfully predictive of where our society is going.

In a senile community where citizens use robots for menial tasks, one woman’s robot starts to malfunction … in a deadly way. She calls the “Automated Customer Service” but they’re no help at all. It’s an intense story and the critiques all land.

17 – Spider Rose

There was a good chunk of “Spider Rose” where I thought it was going to finish in my top ten. The character work, worldbuilding and general emotion were astounding. I was desperate for this traumatized woman to find happiness with her new, adorable pet … and she even got some badass revenge against the man who wronged her!

But then the final two minutes ruined the story. Her loveable pet eats her, the end. I’m sorry … what?!? Who greenlit this? Why couldn’t the episode just end on a positive note instead of this cheap shock factor? It was a betrayal of the character and the story up until that point, and it left a sour taste in my mouth.

All that being said, I’ll still rank it comfortably in the top half. Despite the disappointing climax, the setup was excellent.

16 – In Vaulted Halls Entombed

“In Vaulted Halls Entombed” has a classic setup – a group of soldiers get picked off one by one, and the horrors only get worse as the episode goes on.

Those spider things are freaky as hell, but it’s the episode’s ending which stuck with me more. It turns out this is a Cthulhu episode in disguise – the visual of the soldier wandering the desert with her eyes and ears cut off, mumbling something in a cryptic language, is horrifying.

15 – Life Hutch

My god, that just IS Michael B. Jordan. They sent him on a rocket ship to a space station and trained a robot to attack him – that’s the only explanation. There’s no way the animation is so fluid and realistic.

“Life Hutch” is a little like “Automated Customer Service” but a lot more intense. A man goes to a planetary safe hub but gets attacked by a robot whose vision is based on movement. The recent “Jurassic Park” sequels could learn a thing or two from this …

14 – Suits

A dystopian world where farmers live in massive biospheres with their families and fend off aliens that come through breaches by mowing them down in enormous, home-built mech suits? Sure, why the hell not.

“Suits” is one of the better action-focused episodes this series has to offer, mostly because there’s a good bit of heart and family drama sprinkled within too.

13 – Mason’s Rats

When “Mason’s Rats” started I thought it was going to suck. A Scottish farmer battling against an infestation of rats sounded like the opposite of what I wanted from this show.

The great thing about “Love, Death & Robots”, however, is that it’s never one thing. Craig Ferguson stars as the gruff farmer who soon grows to love his rodent invaders – the various stages of the war that up the ante each time, and the happy ending that follows, is lots of fun.

12 – Three Robots

I consider the titular “Three Robots” to be the unofficial mascots for “Love, Death & Robots”. This was the first episode of the anthology I watched, for starters, but the leads’ sassy and blasé attitude towards the devastation around them sets the tone for this series.

The three robots explore a post-apocalyptic world, remarking on how humanity caused their own downfall and had lots of weird habits. A perfect little short story … if it wasn’t for those goddamn cats playing a goddamn major role in half the goddamn episodes.

11 – Shape-Shifters

“Shape-Shifters” is very ridiculous and cliché and has no right to be so high on this list, but screw it. Soldier werewolf brothers on a desert mission? That’s badass as hell.

One of the brothers dying means this becomes a revenge story – a plot archetype I really enjoy. While the characters themselves (especially the other, human soldiers) were underbaked, the werewolf fight at the end was visceral and memorable.

At least it wasn’t a werecat fight …

10 – Snow in the Desert

What’s better than a pair of werewolves in the desert? A guy with a desirable nutsack in the desert, apparently.

I really loved the premise and worldbuilding of “Snow in the Desert”. An immortal in water-deprived land is a fun blend of Fantasy and Sci-Fi, and the fight to the death at the end is one of the most grueling this show has to offer.

This episode was almost great … but the android twist, and the lack of chemistry between the two main characters, hurt it somewhat.

Great

9 – Beyond The Aquila Rift

Some short stories are built almost exclusively around their twist ending … but when the ending is so shocking and terrifying, like in “Beyond The Aquila Rift”, then the slow setup can be justified.

The story is about a spaceship captain who wakes up after a lightspeed warp gone wrong, and he reconnects with an old fling. Everything seems too good to be true … because it is.

It turns out to be a sort of simulation / hallucination, and in reality the ship captain and his crew crashed into (or were intercepted by) a monstrous, galactic entity. Why is this monster keeping the captain alive? Some questions are best left unanswered …

8 – Good Hunting

“Good Hunting” is the kind of animated story Disney could tell if they actually grew a pair.

You think it’s going to be a story about a boy avenging his father, or perhaps learning the ropes of monster hunting, but it turns into something far more interesting. This is actually a story about the monster’s daughter trying to survive in a hostile world.

I loved the parallels between the world modernizing and the characters themselves modernizing – it was badass to see the monster’s daughter become a cyborg-hybrid and hunt evil men. I only wish the episode was longer and we got to see more of the “Good Hunting” in question.

7 – Lucky 13

How the hell did I care so much about a fictional spaceship after only a few minutes of screentime? What kind of sorcery did the writers pull?

“Lucky 13” does an excellent job of conveying the ship’s history as well as its relationship to the captain, and there was also a sprinkle of action in there too to keep things engaging.

6 – Jibaro

“Jibaro” was the most upsetting, nauseating, migraine-inducing, craziest, most unwatchable episode of “Love, Death & Robots”, and there were points while watching where I genuinely considered turning it off or at least pausing for a few minutes. Which is to say I loved it.

It’s the best – and most terrifying – depiction of a Siren I’ve ever seen. The way all the men danced to their deaths is an image I’ll never forget, and Alberto Mielgo’s auteur direction made every scene intensely uncomfortable.

5 – Sonnie’s Edge

I’ve seen critics downplay “Sonnie’s Edge” as a story that focuses too much on its twist ending – the shock value of it in particular. Well … I was shocked. So much so that it recontextualized the episode and made it even better.

A woman and her crew take part in underground beast fights, with the catch being that they can transfer their minds into the beasts and fight with their own hands. It turns out, however, that in the protagonist’s case it’s the other way around. The ending where Sonnie reveals her “Edge” is a highlight of Volume One.

Amazing

4 – Zima Blue

The slower, more introspective and philosophical episodes tended not to do well in this ranking. One exception to that, however, is the brilliant and poignant “Zima Blue”.

The story follows an artist whose artwork has increasingly large blue squares inserted in them, and for his final piece he tells a reporter everything – he used to be a pool cleaning robot, and those blue squares remind him of pool tiles and simpler times.

It’s a sweet, punchy allegory for how the simple pleasures are often the ones to strive for.

3 – The Secret War

Many years ago, when “Love, Death & Robots” first premiered on Netflix, I was shown “The Secret War” by my brother. I remember thinking it was cool but it didn’t hook me enough to watch the entire show. After rewatching it, however, it quickly became one of my favourite ever short films.

Very few words are spoken across the episode, but you can instantly tell the respect and brotherhood that these Russian soldiers have. Their final stand against the demonic swarm was badass as hell – and I was shocked when the timid soldier was revealed to be the commander’s son. Amazing stuff.

2 – Pop Squad

I haven’t really talked about acting performances thus far. It’s hard to stand out when the episodes fly by in minutes, and it’s even harder for characters to be fully developed in such a short amount of time … but Nolan North’s performance as the tortured policeman took my breath away.

The premise is already excellent – in an overpopulated world, the police have to eradicate any new children – but where “Pop Squad” shines is showing the emotional toll of such a job.

It was fascinating to see this policeman’s worldview and guilt evolve, and the ending was incredibly poignant and layered – with two people’s deaths, the mother and daughter are no longer “overpopulating” this world.

1 – Bad Travelling

When “Bad Travelling” started, I was worried it would be a generic “base under siege” story of a group of sailors withstanding a formidable beast. It subverted my expectations in all the best ways.

This became one of my favourite short stories of all time. Troy Baker’s leading character is perhaps the most well-rounded and gripping protagonist in the series, and the way the plot escalates – and the crew slowly thin after turning on each other – is a masterclass in tension.

Tying the plot together is the monstrous, crab-like entity. I loved the constant feeding it required, as that added an element of uncertainty to each scene. I also adored how grotesque its “speaking” method was – the way the dead body it puppeteered decomposed over time was skin-crawling.

To cap it all off, we then get an ending which recontextualized the whole thing. This may just be the perfect short story – and it’s a new benchmark for short form storytelling.

Aaaand that’s my list! If you liked this post and want to support me, please consider giving me a one-time donation. Even a few pence (or whatever currency you use) is fantastic! I’ve never monetized this blog before, but it would be great if I could do this comfortably and not have to worry about the yearly website domain costs. Thank you so much!