Unabomber: Netflix's #1 New Movie Proves Its 28% Rotten Tomatoes Score Misses The Point

Published Sep 30, 2026, 5:52 PM EDT Greg is a Lead TV Writer & Critic at Screen Rant with expertise in new streaming releases. He's published over 3000 articles at SR, including weekly recommendation guides and dozens of reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. He previously worked in Development at ABC Television & Lawrence Bender Productions. Greg majored in Film Production at Chapman University's Dodge College. Greg also has years of broadcast TV production experience at major networks such as NBC, TNT, and ESPN. He currently lives in Greater Boston. Netflix's new movie holds its #1 worldwide spot despite a 28% Rotten Tomatoes score, but Russell Crowe and Jacob Tremblay make the crime drama worth watching. Released on September 25, 2026, the movie centers on one of the most notorious killers in U.S. history, Ted Kaczynski, who went from attending Harvard University to committing multiple acts of domestic terrorism between 1978 and 1995. Unabomber is the #1 movie on Netflix right now despite its brutal 28% Rotten Tomatoes score. While critics are tearing the movie apart for various reasons, Unabomber proves that it has enough appeal to draw massive viewership regardless of critic consensus, marking a distinct evolution in the streaming era of what makes a modern movie successful. The movie received more positive yet generally mixed feedback from at-home viewers, resulting in an audience score of just 50%. Still, it has been Netflix's most-watched movie since Saturday. Unabomber​​​​​​ Is Netflix's #1 Movie Despite Its Brutal 28% Rotten Tomatoes Score A modern movie about Ted Kaczynski is sure to draw a large audience, especially when it's available to stream from the comfort of your home. That said, critics and audiences are far from impressed with Netflix's Unabomber film, which was directed by Janus Metz (Andor, True Detective) and features a strong cast led by Crowe, Tremblay, and recent Emmy winner Shailene Woodley. The main issue, it seems, has nothing to do with the gripping subject matter and everything to do with how the story was told, with common criticisms pointing to the disjointed narrative, historical inaccuracies, and an overall sense of tension and insight into the brilliant yet demented mind of Kaczynski​​​​​​. Variety nailed Unabomber's greatest flaw in its review, writing, "Janus Metz‘s film has some built-in intrigue from its subject matter alone, but rote dialogue and autopilot true-crime styling do little to fire the imagination." In the same vein, ScreenRant gave it 5/10 stars, noting, "Unabomber is an odd movie that is both fragmented and, frankly, feels a bit problematic," while The Wrap simply called it "a dud." That said, Unabomber is the most-watched Netflix movie in dozens of countries and continues to hold this rank heading into the weekend. Similarly, Netflix's #1 series right now is Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, which is also critically panned and reinvents source material. This points to a growing issue with some Netflix original releases that are beginning to feel more like clickbait than movies. In these cases, where the topic or franchise is strong enough to pull in viewership on its own, the actual quality of the finished product is not as significant as a theatrical release, where critic consensus still plays a role in box office performance. While Netflix clearly did not aim for Unabomber to be nearly universally disliked and criticized, it likely wouldn't have taken the risk of distributing this film more traditionally in theaters. Russell Crowe & Jacob Tremblay Are Better Than Unabomber's Reviews Suggest If there were any saving grace for Unabomber, it's undoubtedly its cast, particularly Crowe as Professor Harry Murray, who conducted CIA-supported experiments on Kaczynski and other Harvard students connected to Project MKUltra, and Tremblay as Kaczynski himself. With so much mystery still surrounding the MKUltra experiments, which were initially performed during the 1950s, viewers were hoping to discover more about the infamous tests that involved not only Kaczynski but other cultural figures such as Ken Kesey, Robert Hunter, and Allen Ginsberg. What they got was a flat characterization of already documented events that blurred the line between fact and fiction. Nevertheless, Unabomber earned 16.4 million views during its first three days on Netflix, which was a strong but not overwhelming success compared to other 2026 hits like War Machine (39.3 million) and The Whisper Man (23.2 million). While Unabomber's overall viewership is expected to decrease due to its poor critical reception, Netflix's viewership numbers don't directly translate into revenue like theatrical releases do, indicating that their standard for excellence is far below that of most theatrical releases nowadays. In retrospect, Unabomber, as it currently stands on Netflix, is a misfire of craft and execution and has reason to have never been made, but claiming Netflix's #1 worldwide spot is becoming more and more of a pinnacle that can be achieved regardless of quality. Unabomber Release Date September 25, 2026 Runtime 97 Minutes Cast Jacob Tremblay Ted Kaczynski