AMERICAN ANIMALS
A stylish true-crime heist with a strong moral compass—for adults.
Should You Watch It?
American Animals is a gripping heist movie with unusual depth. It combines interviews with the real people involved and energetic narrative filmmaking, making the story feel both authentic and cinematic. The result is entertaining without treating theft or violence as glamorous.
The film’s strongest quality is its moral compass. It follows young people who want their lives to become extraordinary, then shows how that desire can become selfish and destructive. Spencer’s questions about the morality of the crime give the movie a conscience that many heist films lack.
The cost is substantial. The R-rated content includes abundant foul language, brief sexual references, college-party scenes, marijuana use, and troubling violence. Adults who can engage those concerns thoughtfully may find the movie worthwhile; families with children or young teens should choose something else.
The Story
NO SPOILERS — WE KEEP THE SURPRISESIn 2003, college students Spencer Reinhard and Warren Lipka grow dissatisfied with their ordinary lives. After Spencer visits his university library’s rare collections room, the two begin imagining a daring theft of valuable books and paintings.
They recruit two other partners and start planning a crime that could make their lives extraordinary. But as the plan develops, questions of morality, responsibility, and whether they can actually go through with it become impossible to ignore.
Is It Any Good?
Four stars means this is an exceptionally engaging film. American Animals tells a fascinating true story through a fresh blend of real-life interviews, documentary filmmaking, and highly stylized narrative storytelling.
The interviews offer insight into the people involved, while the cinematic approach keeps the movie energetic and emotionally involving. The film also plays with conflicting memories, as different people remember events in slightly different ways. Its suspenseful heist sequence and deeper exploration of motivation make it more than a simple crime thriller.
The Worldview
The film strongly condemns stealing, robbery, greed, and the selfish desire to gain meaning through immoral acts. Its central characters, however, are guided by pagan desires to live only for themselves. They want an extraordinary life and are willing to pursue a crime to satisfy that longing.
That tension gives the movie its moral strength. It does not suggest that the heist is a good idea. Instead, it shows how a seemingly exciting plan can grow into a serious moral failure, especially when people try to use crime and selfish gain to give their lives meaning.
The film aligns with a biblical rejection of greed and wrongdoing, though its characters’ desires are framed through a self-centered, pagan view of life rather than devotion to God. Scripture warns, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils” (1 Timothy 6:10).
The Content Guide
The specifics — spoilers included by nature — so you can judge for your own family.
Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements
Strong moral worldview condemns stealing, robbery, and greed, but characters are guided by immoral pagan desires to live only for themselves and are willing to carry out a crime in order to satisfy their selfish desires
Foul Language
At least 141 obscenities (mostly “f” words), four profanities, character urinates in their pants, two instances of vomiting
Violence
Strong and light violence includes a particularly disturbing scene of violence involving the boys attacking an old librarian (although no gore is displayed), character gets into a fist fight at a bar, character gets hit by a car, paintings of birds killing and eating other animals, and threats of violence
Sex
A character watches burlesque women through a window, and a character during a fraternity initiation has to chug beer through a tube in a sexually suggestive manner
Nudity
Partial nudity when a character bursts in on a man taking a bath
Alcohol Use
Prominent alcohol use throughout the movie from characters drinking beer or wine with dinner, heavy drinking at a fraternity party, two “partying” montages of guys getting drunk at various bars
Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse
Smoking tobacco and most planning scenes involve two men smoking marijuana;
Miscellaneous Immorality
Questionable morality about a heist, stealing, characters discuss whether or not they can go through with a heist, and characters wonder whether or not the ends justify the means.
Talk About It
Questions for the drive home, the dinner table, or the youth group.
Why can the desire to live an extraordinary life become dangerous when it is separated from God’s wisdom?
Romans 12:2 · 1 Timothy 6:9–10The characters debate whether they can go through with the heist. How should a person respond when a wrong choice becomes increasingly difficult to escape?
1 Corinthians 10:13 · James 1:14–15Can a good goal ever justify stealing or harming someone? What does Scripture say about doing evil so that good may come?
Romans 3:8 · Micah 6:8What kinds of desires are shaping your choices right now: service, love, and faithfulness—or recognition and selfish gain?
Philippians 2:3–4 · Galatians 5:13The Final Word
American Animals is thrilling, inventive, and morally more serious than its heist premise suggests. Its strong message comes wrapped in content meant for discerning adults, not children or young teens. For the right viewer, it is WORTH THE TRIP — ADULTS ONLY. For a family movie night, consider these.
