UNABOMBER Trailer Delves Into the Making of Ted Kaczynski
Jacob Tremblay and Russell Crowe lead UNABOMBER, a new Netflix film inspired by the true story of Ted Kaczynski and the investigation that ultimately pursued him.
The film’s trailer opens with a deadly act: in 1994, a mail bomb kills its intended recipient. From there, the story moves backward, tracing the life of the man behind the attacks and examining how Ted Kaczynski became known around the world as the Unabomber.
From Harvard Prodigy to the Unabomber
The story begins years before Kaczynski’s name became associated with a nationwide bombing investigation.
In 1958, Kaczynski is portrayed by Jacob Tremblay as a young prodigy attending Harvard University. Director Janus Metz quickly became convinced that Tremblay was the right actor for the role after watching his performance in Christian Swegal’s 2025 film Sovereign.
Tremblay had already established himself as a notable child actor through films including Room and Wonder. For Metz, that combination of talent and intensity made him an especially strong fit for a story centered on Kaczynski’s formative years.
The Harvard setting was also what initially drew screenwriter Nelson Greaves into the story. Greaves and fellow screenwriter Sam Chalsen had both attended Harvard when Greaves came across a brief story about Kaczynski.
“I was listening to NPR, and I heard this two-minute anecdote that mentioned that Ted Kaczynski had been to Harvard and that he had been involved in these unethical psychological experiments,” Greaves tells Netflix.
That detail immediately caught his attention. Greaves brought the story to Chalsen, and the two began researching Kaczynski’s time at Harvard. What they uncovered became the foundation for UNABOMBER.
“I brought it to Sam, and we just started digging in and running with it,” Greaves says. “This whole other story that we discovered was really incredible.”
Henry Murray’s Psychological Experiments
A central part of the film is Kaczynski’s disturbing relationship with celebrated psychologist Henry Murray, played by Academy Award winner Russell Crowe.
The trailer suggests that Murray takes a particular interest in the young Kaczynski. At one point, he tells him, “There’s something special about you. When the battle starts, keep up the fight.”
As Kaczynski struggles to connect with his classmates and establish his identity, he becomes involved in a series of psychological experiments conducted by Murray. The experiences have devastating consequences, becoming an important part of the film’s exploration of Kaczynski’s development.
Rather than telling the story in a straight line, UNABOMBER moves between two different periods in Kaczynski’s life.
One timeline follows him as a young man at Harvard, where he is increasingly isolated and struggling to find his place. The other shifts to the later investigation into the Unabomber, led by FBI agent Joanne Miller, played by Shailene Woodley.
Two Timelines, One Portrait
By moving between Kaczynski’s early years and the investigation that eventually focused on him, UNABOMBER gradually builds a portrait of the man behind the notorious name.
The trailer presents these two sides of the story as closely connected, linking the young Harvard student with the figure investigators would later spend years trying to identify and capture.
Crowe’s Henry Murray provides another layer to that connection. “Ideas are like fire,” he says in the trailer. “They burn from man to man.”
UNABOMBER arrives on Netflix on Sept. 25, 2026.