R | 1h 40m | Drama, Thriller, Crime, Biography | 2026
The case of Ted Kaczynski, a.k.a. The Unabomber, is particularly fascinating in the world of true crime. Relatively speaking, these events took place at a time that most adults today remember. For two solid decades, Kaczynski’s exploits had a vice grip on America’s attention and fears.
Planting the Bad Seed
Born in Chicago, Kaczynski (Jacob Tremblay) was a gifted student and a math whiz who gained entry to Harvard at age 16. Not long after arriving, he lost interest in math and began gravitating towards philosophy. He became fixated on Professor Henry Murray (Russell Crowe), a (surprise) radical left-winger who was conducting tests on his most promising students.
Kaczynski fit this profile like a proverbial glove. Soon, he was in, meaning he became Murray’s prime operative. Kaczynski was still young enough to be molded into shape without raising suspicions.
This didn’t sit well with Kaczynski’s parents, who were counting on their son to become the next Einstein. But Kaczynski had reached the point of no return. He had been deeply and forever radicalized—his enemies: American industry, higher education, and technology.
Jump Ahead to 1995
FBI Agent Joanne Miller (Shailene Woodley) had been trying to capture the bomber for well over a decade and was frustrated to the point of giving up.
Miller and her coworkers, Dean Kaplan (Steven Ogg) and Leo Driver (Alexander Ludwig) catch a break. A woman calls FBI headquarters in Quantico, Virginia, and says she thinks she knows the name of the mysterious “Unabomber.” She’s Wanda (Michelle LeBlanc), the wife of Kaczynski’s younger brother, David (Matthew Kevin Anderson).
In the wrong hands, the jumping back and forth between timelines can feel gimmicky, yet Danish director Janus Metz Pedersen and his two screenwriters use it to slowly amp up the tension. When we’re introduced to the teenage Kaczynski, he’s bright-eyed and inquisitive. Yet, he’s deathly afraid of having the most basic of conversations with people, women especially.
As he drifts farther away from math into radical politics, he becomes jaded, disillusioned, and beyond paranoid. It doesn’t help matters that Murray, Kaczynski’s nearly worshipped father figure, can’t reel in the monster-in-waiting he’s created. In tandem with his assistant Christiana Morgan (Annabelle Wallis), Murray becomes the impetus for Kraczynski’s burgeoning antisocial behavior.
For Crowe (seen in last week’s “The Weight”), this is just the latest in a series of winners after appearing in a really long run of bad films.
Tremblay Delivers
In the case of Tremblay, it is hard to fathom we’re just 10 years removed from his breakthrough performance as a youngster in the claustrophobic crime thriller “Room.” Sharing the screen with Brie Larson as his mom, she went on to win the Best Actress Oscar. Tremblay never received any attention from the Academy nominating committee, even though he was the de facto lead. I, for one, felt he turned in the finest male performance of that year and believe he was overlooked solely because of his age.
Having made her name in Y.A. (young adult) movie adaptations (“The Divergent Series”), Woodley tackles her role with relish and brio. Recalling Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling in “The Silence of the Lambs,” Woodley’s Miller (a fictional character) is a woman in the male-dominated world of law enforcement.
When her co-workers raise false objections, she throws logic and reason back at them, and they can’t offer a legitimate response. Miller bases most of her reasoning on Kaczynski’s voluminous “Manifesto,” which was run in its entirety in two widely read U.S. daily papers, much to the chagrin of the FBI.
Hindsight Is 20/20
With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, this was a smart move as it eventually led to Kaczinski’s capture. Sadly, this same train of thought was applied in San Francisco by the area papers. As used by the suspected Zodiac killer, this didn’t work out so well.
A huge tip of the hat to Pedersen for bringing everything in at 100 minutes. There’s no fat, no padding, no filler, and we end up getting a much better movie because of it.
If you choose to watch the movie (and you should), be sure to stick around for the end scroll where Kaczynski’s post-arrest fate is described in brief detail. As bad a guy as Kaczynski was, and he was pure evil, he had a genius-level intellect and could have been a legitimate voice for change. Instead, he chose to go to the dark side.
It was an unfortunate end to what can happen when intelligence is overpowered by raw fear and the delusion of misplaced grandeur.
“Unabomber” is streaming on Netflix Sept. 25.
‘Unabomber’
Director: Janus Metz Pedersen
Starring: Russell Crowe, Jacob Tremblay, Shailene Woodley, Annabelle Wall
Running Time: 1 hour, 40 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Release Date: Sept. 25, 2026
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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