Netflix’s New Russell Crowe True Crime Thriller Bombs With Critics Despite Starry True-Crime Pedigree

True crime has become one of Netflix’s most dependable genres, and the streamer rarely goes more than a few weeks without dropping a new dramatization pulled from the darkest corners of American history. This fall’s entry tackles one of the most notorious domestic terrorists the country has ever produced.

‘Unabomber‘ arrived on the platform with a genuinely stacked cast and a premise built for prestige: Jacob Tremblay as a young Ted Kaczynski, Russell Crowe as his controversial Harvard professor, and Shailene Woodley as the FBI agent tasked with hunting him down decades later. On paper, it reads like exactly the kind of awards-adjacent programming Netflix loves to bury under its “Top 10” banner.

The reception tells a very different story. ‘Unabomber’ has landed with just a 22% score on Rotten Tomatoes from critics, a rough result that instantly puts it among the platform’s more infamous recent misfires.

Directed by Janus Metz, the film splits its runtime between two timelines. One follows a 16-year-old Kaczynski as a Harvard prodigy subjected to psychologically brutal experiments by Professor Henry Murray, while the other tracks the 1990s manhunt that eventually led to his capture in the Montana wilderness.

The film frames Murray’s experiments as a possible catalyst for what Kaczynski would later become, a killer who mailed a series of bombs across the country between 1978 and 1995, killing three people and injuring twenty-three others. Tremblay approached the role with a specific intention in mind, wanting to avoid painting his character as a cartoonish villain before that transformation ever takes place.

“I really wanted to make sure I went into this role playing him as a real person with real emotions,” he says, speaking about his approach to the character during a discussion hosted by Netflix’s own Tudum.

Despite the poor overall score, ‘Unabomber’ hasn’t been a unanimous failure among reviewers. Some critics have pointed to the strength of the central performances even while criticizing the film’s structure and pacing, arguing that the split narrative between Harvard and the FBI manhunt keeps the movie from ever building real momentum.

That structural criticism has been one of the more consistent complaints. One review published by The Hollywood Reporter noted that watching the film left the impression of wanting a smarter, more probing version of the same central dynamic between Tremblay and Crowe.

For Crowe, playing the real-life psychoanalyst meant leaning into a man who loses his objectivity while chasing academic validation. He has described his character’s arc as someone who comes from a privileged background and an ambitious academic life, only to end up forcing results rather than following the science honestly.

Woodley’s FBI agent, meanwhile, functions as the audience’s entry point into the manhunt storyline, wrestling with doubt from her own superiors while pursuing a theory that the bomber’s own writing might be the key to identifying him. That thread eventually pays off when Kaczynski’s family recognizes his voice in the infamous manifesto and alerts investigators.

To understand the hunt, you have to understand the mind.

Inspired by true events, UNABOMBER stars Russell Crowe, Jacob Tremblay, Annabelle Wallis, and Shailene Woodley. September 25. pic.twitter.com/iJTumS10Tx

— Netflix (@netflix) August 27, 2026

Even with the shaky critical reception, ‘Unabomber’ is unlikely to struggle for viewership. Netflix has built an entire ecosystem around true crime programming, and audiences have repeatedly shown up for dramatizations of infamous killers regardless of what critics think of the execution.

Whether that viewership translates into any awards conversation is a much harder bet, especially with a Rotten Tomatoes score this weak trailing the film into its opening weekend. For now, ‘Unabomber’ looks like another case of starry casting overshadowing a script that couldn’t quite pull its two timelines together.

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