For All Mankind: parents' guide
Best for ages 15 and up. Rated TV-MA.
An absorbing alternate-history space drama for older teens, imagining a space race where the Soviets reached the moon first. Each season leaps about a decade, from 1969 lunar bases to a colony on Mars. Expect frequent f-words and s-words, several sex scenes without nudity, affairs, heavy drinking and an astronaut's addiction to painkillers. The grief is real: a teenage son dies after an accident, parents die in space disasters and a bombing, and an astronaut takes his own life on Mars. Common Sense Media says 15, which fits.
What's in it
Violence
ModerateSpacecraft explosions, depressurizations and people burned alive in their suits. A lunar standoff and later military clashes include bloody gunshot wounds, a bombing kills many, and an archival montage briefly shows Holocaust victims.
Language
StrongFrequent f-words and s-words that increase in later seasons; Plugged In counted nine f-words and 14 s-words in the season 5 opener. Also 'damn,' 'bastard,' 'prick' and religious exclamations.
Sex and nudity
ModerateSeveral simulated sex scenes with moaning and thrusting but no nudity, couples making out in underwear and a long-running affair. Same-sex relationships are shown, and there are crude sexual jokes.
Drinking, drugs and smoking
StrongAdults drink often, sometimes heavily, and smoke cigarettes and marijuana. A main character becomes addicted to prescription painkillers with serious consequences, and in later seasons teens drink liquor and smoke pot.
Scary or intense scenes
ModerateLife-or-death danger in nearly every episode. A teen is taken off life support, parents die leaving children behind, an astronaut kills himself on Mars, a man is found dead outside the Mars base, and a terrorist bombing kills several characters.
Sensitive topics
- Suicide
- Death of a child
- Death of a parent
- Addiction
Worth talking about
The show imagines women and Black astronauts joining the space program far sooner than they did. Talk about which real barriers it shows breaking, and which it suggests would still remain.
On our lists
Similar picks around 15+
Checked October 13th, 2026 against Common Sense Media, Plugged In, Wikipedia. The age is our judgment, not an official rating, and every family draws its lines differently: read the notes, not just the number. Spotted something we missed? Tell us. How we rate.