Common Sense Media Review
By Jennifer Green
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Devastating docu on school shooting victims; grief.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 13+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Watch
Videos and Photos
All the Empty Rooms
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's the Story?
CBS News correspondent Steve Hartmann, known as the "happy news guy," created ALL THE EMPTY ROOMS from visits with the families of victims of school shootings. Working with photographer Lou Bopp, Hartmann set out to document the intact bedrooms of the lost children, speaking with families about their kids and their loss. This is the behind-the-scenes documentary of his reporting for CBS News.
Is It Any Good?
This documentary is succinct, devastating, and necessary. Gun violence hovers like a storm cloud behind All the Empty Rooms. The team set out to take still photos of the bedrooms of slain children, but in this short, 35-minute piece, they've conveyed much more. They incorporate home videos of the children missing, and interviews with their parents. "As long as that room exists, she exists," one says of why they keep their child's room just as it was the day she died. Another has a chair propped by his daughter's bedside for regular "chats." Others have kept a basket of dirty laundry or bedspreads unwashed so they can continue to "smell" their child. A teddy bear plays back the recorded giggles of its former 9-year-old owner.
The journalists are also shown back home with their own children, around the same ages as the kids they're profiling. As much as the interviews with mourning parents, these quiet sequences reinforce how fleeting life is and how tenuous our hold on our loved ones. The photographer takes a morning picture of his daughter every single day, to document her growth but also because of his heightened awareness that "anything could happen at any time." He tears up in another scene talking about this project. Their film brings a national affliction down to the intimately personal in a most necessary and immediate way.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about gun violence in America, which is the backdrop for All the Empty Rooms. Do you agree that the country has gotten "numb" to this meaningless but repeated violence? What can be done?
Where can you find more information about victims of school shootings? How could you get involved in helping to stop gun violence?
What role do journalists and the media have in documenting tragedies? How can their coverage contribute in positive or negative ways? Can you think of any examples?
This documentary was kept to 3 families and 35 minutes. Why do you think the choice was made to keep it so short? Could you have envisioned a longer version?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming : December 1, 2025
- Cast : Steve Hartman , Lou Bopp
- Director : Joshua Seftel
- Studio : Netflix
- Genre : Documentary
- Topics : Family Stories
- Run time : 35 minutes
- MPAA rating :
- MPAA explanation : brief strong language, and thematic material
- Last updated : December 5, 2025
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