“This world, it’s a clenched, feculent sphincter. It cries out for a savior. It cries out for … me.”
Those are the words of a cat, a very evil-looking cat, that viewers will encounter as part of the brand-new season of the unhinged, wildly inventive, and beautifully animated brain-melter known as Love, Death + Robots. Netflix’s most gloriously NSFW animated anthology series is dropping Volume 4 (aka Season 4) on May 15, and once again, it’s got everything: From killer robots to sci-fi horror, fantasy mayhem, gladiator dinosaurs, existential dread, and even a scheming house cat that waxes poetic about planetary plundering.
Created for the streaming giant by Tim Miller and executive produced by David Fincher, LDR isn’t just a “show” — it’s a genre-hopping, jaw-dropping parade of visual chaos. Each short film comes from a different team of artists and animators around the world, which means no two episodes ever look or feel the same. What ties them together is a shared mix of sci-fi, horror, and fantasy that Miller says he’s constantly curating like a madman with access to unlimited rendering power.
Volume 4 will include 10 brand-new original shorts that feature T. rex gladiator battles and overworked household appliances trying to secure better working conditions before their circuits fry. One second you’re watching a conscious washing machine spiral into madness, and the next you’re witnessing a galactic bloodbath in hyper-stylized, high-frame-rate glory. It’s unpredictable, gorgeous, and exactly what you’d expect from a show that once gave us sentient yogurt.
Fincher and Miller have always treated LDR as a sandbox for the world’s best animators to break the rules and go nuts. “One of my biggest joys in making LDR — and I think David shares this feeling — is when artists or directors make choices you would never make,” Miller says in a Netflix promotional interview. “Their ideas, shot choices, angles, sense of timing — whatever — is something foreign to your visual language but also awesome.”
That’s the magic of this show: Every episode is a surprise. They can be funny, horrifying, deeply moving, or just mind-melting in the best way. And the episodes never overstay their welcome — most clock in under 20 minutes, giving you high-concept world-building with the efficiency of a perfectly sharpened blade to the brainstem. It’s the kind of show, along with other hidden gems we’ve likewise praised, that quietly justifies your entire Netflix subscription. Bold, brilliant, and criminally underrated.
