Netflix's new true-crime drama Unabomber, released Friday, September 25, has drawn a mixed critical reception, with reviewers split between praising Jacob Tremblay's unsettling performance as a young Ted Kaczynski and dismissing the film's overall execution as shallow or overly familiar.

What the Film Is About

Directed by Janus Metz Pedersen and written by Sam Chalsen and Nelson Greaves, Unabomber departs from a full birth-to-death survey of Kaczynski's life to focus instead on his time as a teenage prodigy at Harvard University in the late 1950s, where he participated in a real, brutal psychological experiment conducted by professor Henry Murray (played by Russell Crowe). The film's central thesis — that this experiment helped radicalize Kaczynski's later worldview — runs alongside a second, 1990s-set timeline following an FBI agent (Shailene Woodley) hunting him down in Montana.

The Positive Case: Tremblay's Performance

Several reviewers singled out Tremblay's portrayal as the film's strongest element. SlashFilm's review praised his intensity, noting the young actor never resorts to lazy acting shortcuts in depicting a man "seemingly incapable of relating to other human beings." IndieWire's critic similarly found Tremblay "an extraordinarily good fit" for the material, crediting his delivery of the character's abstract, prodigy-level convictions.

The Case Against: A "Facile" and Dual-Timeline Problem

The Hollywood Reporter was more critical, arguing the film offers only "the most basic, obvious version" of a more probing story that could have explored what genuinely radicalized Kaczynski, likening the finished product to a student paper that got its dates right but missed the deeper meaning. Variety's review flagged a structural issue several critics echoed: the film's two timelines "never spur or inform each other in any meaningful way," giving the impression that two separate, underdeveloped projects had been stitched together.

A Recurring Complaint: The FBI Storyline Falls Flat

Multiple reviews agreed that the Harvard-set narrative is considerably more compelling than the parallel FBI manhunt thread. The Hollywood Reporter's review noted Woodley does what she can with her rogue-agent character but has "precious little to work with," while SlashFilm's critic called the manhunt storyline familiar "potboiler thriller stuff" compared to the fresher college-set material.

Crowe's Role: Compelling but Morally Muddled

Critics were similarly split on how the film handles Crowe's character. IndieWire's review found the professor's betrayal of his student genuinely compelling, even while noting the film leans on it as an explanation for "every horror that followed." The review added that the movie never quite settles whether Kaczynski was mentally ill, even as it plainly shows Murray's mistreatment of him.

The Film's Uncomfortable Contemporary Echo

The A.V. Club's review pointed to an unintentionally resonant closing moment: the film ends with a recorded interview in which the real Kaczynski states his preference to be depicted truthfully, adding that his goal was dismantling the industrial system by any means necessary. The reviewer noted that raising modern concerns — AI, data-center resource strain, e-waste — inevitably provokes an uneasy question about whether the Unabomber's underlying critique had some validity, even as the film itself doesn't meaningfully engage with that tension.

Basic Details

Unabomber is rated R and runs 1 hour and 37 minutes, starring Russell Crowe, Jacob Tremblay, Shailene Woodley, Annabelle Wallis, and Gus Halper. Cinematography is by Yves Bélanger, with a score composed by Marco Beltrami.

The Bottom Line

Roger Ebert's review site described the flashback structure as doing little to meaningfully bridge the film's past and present timelines, a sentiment echoed across several other outlets that found the dual-narrative approach the film's central weakness — even as nearly every reviewer agreed Tremblay's performance stands out as the strongest reason to watch. For the full reviews, see The Hollywood Reporter's original review.

Unabomber is now streaming on Netflix.