Unabomber has its Netflix release date locked in for 25 September, and the first trailer for the true-crime thriller is now here to prove the wait may well be worth it. The film charts the rise and capture of Ted Kaczynski, the mathematics student who became one of America’s most wanted domestic terrorists, and it arrives with a cast that includes Russell Crowe, Jacob Tremblay, Shailene Woodley and Annabelle Wallis of Peaky Blinders.
From Harvard lecture halls to a Montana cabin
The story begins with Kaczynski’s academic years. After attending Harvard University, he abandoned a promising career to live in isolation in Montana. The trailer opens in 1994 as one of his victims receives an ominous parcel in the post. The explosion that follows destroys the house entirely, setting off a fire alarm and making clear this is not a story that pulls its punches.
From there the film moves between timelines, cutting back to Kaczynski’s student days in 1958. Though gifted, he struggles to find a place in the world around him. The synopsis explains that he was ‘subjected to controversial psychological experiments by Professor Henry Murray’, and that his ‘troubled past resurfaces decades later when his manhunt, led by FBI agent Joanne Miller, brings to light the chilling consequences of ambition and isolation.’
Between 1978 and 1995, Kaczynski posted and hand-delivered a number of bombs across the United States, killing three people and injuring 23 others. Tremblay plays Kaczynski in the lead role, with the film tracking his transformation from child prodigy to wanted fugitive. Woodley plays FBI Agent Miller, shown in the trailer poring over case files as the investigation closes in. References to Kaczynski’s 35,000-word manifesto also appear, alongside shots of the remote cabin where he plotted his attacks.
The Unabomber Netflix film: crew and production detail
Behind the camera, the project has been assembled with considerable care. Janus Metz Pedersen directs from a screenplay by Sam Chalsen and Nelson Greaves. Metz Pedersen’s previous credits include work on Andor as well as Borg vs McEnroe. Sophie Cassidy serves as producer.
According to Wikipedia’s page on the film, the production companies behind the project are 2.0 Entertainment and MRC Film. The cinematography is the work of Yves Bélanger, whose visual approach across two contrasting eras, the clinical university corridors of the late 1950s and the tense FBI operations rooms of the 1990s, will be one of the things to watch when the film lands. The score has been composed by Marco Beltrami, whose work across thriller and horror territory makes him a fitting choice for material as dark as this.
The combination of a composer known for building tension and a cinematographer with a strong eye for period atmosphere suggests Metz Pedersen has assembled a technical team to match the weight of the subject matter. Friction within the FBI, referenced in the trailer, adds a procedural layer alongside the psychological portrait of Kaczynski himself.
Wallis, known to UK audiences from her years on Peaky Blinders, rounds out the central cast alongside Crowe, whose role has not been detailed in the synopsis beyond his billing. The film presents itself as moving fluidly between the two timelines, weaving together the Unabomber Netflix investigation and the formation of the man at its centre.
Netflix will release Unabomber on 25 September. If the trailer is anything to go by, it is shaping up to be one of the streamer’s more substantial true-crime offerings of the year.
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