Movie · 2025 · Thriller, Mystery · 1h 33m · English
Curator score: 1.1/10 (15.3K ratings)
Some things should never be seen.
Overview
A content moderator is tasked with purging offensive media from the internet. When she witnesses a crime in a video, she is lured away from the safety of her keyboard as she obsessively seeks to hold someone accountable.
Lili Reinhart, Daniela Melchior, Jeremy Ang Jones, Josh Whitehouse, Tim Plester, Christiane Paul, Joel Fry, Sean O. McGuiness, Faith Delaney, Mark Ryder, Chris Ginesi, Max Croes, Levi Mattey, Joplin Sibtain, Alex Lee, Keanu Visscher, Paul Cless, Sonja Joanne Geller
Where to watch
Hulu
Curator Review
Verdict
A timely internet-thriller with a strong central performance and a grimly relatable premise, but the execution sounds uneven and somewhat underpowered compared with sharper recent films in the same lane. It seems more effective as an anxiety piece about moderation, surveillance, and moral burnout than as a fully satisfying mystery.
Best for
viewers interested in online toxicity, moderation, and digital-age paranoia
fans of performance-driven thrillers with a bleak, contemporary edge
audiences who like character studies about obsession and trauma
people looking for a conversation starter more than a twist-heavy genre ride
Skip if
you want a tightly plotted thriller with big surprises
you’ve already seen more incisive films about internet violence and voyeurism
you prefer lighter suspense or a more polished procedural
you’re looking for a deeply cathartic or especially original ending
Overview
American Sweatshop has a premise that feels ripped from the worst corners of modern life: a job built around absorbing other people’s cruelty, then one video that breaks the routine and turns private dread into obsession. The setup is strong, and the film clearly understands how online labor can corrode the self. Lili Reinhart appears to be the anchor, giving the story enough human pain to keep it from becoming purely conceptual.
Worth noting
What holds it back is that the material sounds more familiar than fearless. The reviews suggest the movie hits recognizable notes about social media, surveillance, and the numbness of constant exposure, but doesn’t always push those ideas into something sharper or more unsettling. For some viewers, that will still be enough, especially if the mood and the lead performance land.
Bottom line
As a thriller, it looks modest rather than explosive. As a portrait of digital-era exhaustion, it seems more successful, especially for anyone who has ever felt the psychic damage of endless feeds, moderation queues, and the sense that the internet is quietly deforming everyone who works inside it.
Top Letterboxd reviews
aaron (3.5★) · 866 likes
running home from work to hug your dog and cry … i feel seen
hugeasmammoth (3★) · 809 likes
She should have taken out the dark Betty bob.
reagandance (3.5★) · 777 likes
what actually scares me the most is a 9 year old having a reddit account
theo (2★) · 534 likes
mcdonald’s weren’t hiring ??
Kit Lazer (2.5★) · 452 likes
I think it’s important that film is exploring this topic more and more often. The impact of social media on our culture, surveillance, the way online spaces are morphing our collective psyche, all of these things need to be discussed constantly.
Lili Reinhart is great, truly, it’s just that once you’ve seen Red Rooms this movie feels so trite.
2018 · Drama, Mystery, Thriller · 1h 42m · PG-13 · Curator 6.6/10 (496.1K ratings) · Where to watch: Netflix, Paramount Plus Premium, Paramount Plus Essential, Netflix Standard with Ads
A tech-mediated mystery that makes screens, feeds, and digital traces feel like the whole world.
2023 · Drama, Mystery, Thriller · 1h 51m · PG-13 · Curator 5.7/10 (72.2K ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, fuboTV, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
A slick, contemporary thriller built around online investigation and the anxiety of trying to find truth through platforms.
1998 · Action, Drama, Thriller · 2h 12m · R · Curator 4.8/10 (392.3K ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, fuboTV, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
A propulsive surveillance thriller that turns modern systems into a source of constant pressure and fear.