Common Sense Media Review
By Jennifer Green
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Crime drama about American terrorist; violence, language.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 15+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Watch
Videos and Photos
Unabomber
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's the Story?
In 1958, Ted Kaczynski (Jacob Tremblay) was a 16-year-old math student at Harvard; decades later, he would become known to the world as the UNABOMBER. The film tells two stories—how a young Kaczynski was unwittingly subjected to damaging psychological experiments led by a renowned professor (Russell Crowe) at Harvard, and how FBI agents in the 1990s, led by the tenacious Joanne Miller (Shailene Woodley), finally tracked him down in a small cabin in the Montana backcountry.
Is It Any Good?
Considering all the ways the story of the homegrown terrorist Ted Kaczynski could be told, this is one of the less sensationalist but perhaps also less gripping approaches. In that sense, Unabomber is respectful with the history, which left dozens of people seriously injured and two dead. It also looks for a possibly overly simplistic explanation for the Unabomber's psychological devolution in focusing on the harmful Harvard relationships and experiments and—shocker—teen awkwardness and rebellion against parental limits.
Tremblay, Crowe, Woodley, and Annabelle Wallis all offer strong performances, and their characters are the film's real focus. The opening scene of one of the victims of the Unabomber and subsequent media coverage feels out of place with the rest of the film. The script doesn't dig much into Kaczynski's theories, preferring instead for the parallel structure of the FBI procedural and the period biopic.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about how Unabomber attempts to explain Ted Kaczynski's transformation from child prodigy to terrorist. What factors contributed to his metamorphosis, according to this film?
Why did the Unabomber send out bombs and against whom? Where could you find out more information about his actions and rationales?
What did you think of the mind control experiments conducted at Harvard, apparently conducted for the CIA? Where could you find out more information about this history?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming : September 25, 2026
- Cast : Russell Crowe , Jacob Tremblay , Shailene Woodley
- Director : Janus Metz
- Studio : Netflix
- Genre : Drama
- Topics : Family Stories ( Dads , Moms , Siblings ) , History ( Biopic ) , School ( College & Graduate School )
- Run time : 100 minutes
- MPAA rating :
- MPAA explanation : language
- Last updated : September 29, 2026
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