Netflix’s new movie Unabomber has big stars and an interesting topic, but audiences and critics are rejecting it on Rotten Tomatoes.
Philippe Bosse/Netflix ©2026
A film starring Russell Crowe, Jacob Tremblay, and Shailene Woodley that explores the origins and actions of the infamous Unabomber sounds like a recipe for a great movie. Instead, it’s another Netflix original miss with a disastrous Rotten Tomatoes score.
Unabomber currently has a 23% on Rotten Tomatoes from critics with a barely-better 30% audience score. That’s the third suspense-based Netflix original in a row that has gone poorly, joining August’s The Whisper Man and The Last House, which clocked in at 46% and 22% respectively, despite having Oscar winning/nominated stars. Russell Crowe, of course, won his Academy Award in 2000 for Gladiator.
Here’s the synopsis of Unabomber, which focuses more on the past of Ted Kaczynski than his actual bombing:
“Inspired by true events, Unabomber follows Ted Kaczynski’s (Jacob Tremblay) transformation from 16-year-old Harvard prodigy into the infamous Unabomber. Subjected to controversial psychological experiments by Professor Henry Murray (Russell Crowe), Kaczynski’s troubled past resurfaces decades later when his manhunt, led by FBI agent Joanne Miller (Shailene Woodley), brings to light the chilling consequences of ambition and isolation.”
The film has opened as a success for Netflix, instantly rocketing to No. 1 on the service, blowing past Best of the Best, Netflix’s higher-scored original dance battle film, and Top Gun: Maverick, which boasts one of the highest audience scores of any blockbuster in history. Unabomber’s quality may not prevent it from staying on top, however. The aforementioned The Last House and The Whisper Man were No. 1 on Netflix for a very long time, despite poor reviews.
What went wrong here? Here’s what a few critics had to say:
The Hollywood Reporter – “Watching Unabomber, one longs for a smarter, more sophisticated, more probing version of this same double-act.”
The Travers Take – “A bomb it is, lacking in surprise, suspense and any reason for actually existing.”
Ready Steady Cut – “Has superhero cinema become so prevalent that now even true-crime has to be staged as something resembling an origin story?”
That last bit has me wondering if Kaczynski might have shown up one day as one of Ryan Murphy’s “Monsters” in that ongoing miniseries, currently focused on Lizzie Borden. Though that would have been even more inaccurate and over-dramatized, most likely. And from the sound of it, it seems like a good thing Unabomber is a 97-minute movie instead of an 8-hour miniseries. I’m tempted to watch it just to see what all the criticism is about, but that does not seem like a good use of that 97 minutes. Time to watch Physical: Italy instead.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
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