Netflix Unabomber film draws criticism from victim's family

Netflix has released a trailer for its upcoming film ‘Unabomber’, a thriller inspired by the real-life story of Ted Kaczynski. The production features Jacob Tremblay as a young Kaczynski and Russell Crowe as psychologist Henry Murray. The narrative follows Kaczynski’s journey from a teenage prodigy at Harvard to a terrorist responsible for a bombing campaign between 1978 and 1995 that killed three people and injured over 20.

The film has drawn criticism from Jonathan Epstein, the son of victim Dr. Charles Epstein. Epstein expressed concerns that dramatizing the story could normalize political violence and questioned the use of psychological experiments as a way to explain Kaczynski’s actions. He noted that Kaczynski had previously pleaded guilty and did not use an insanity defense, suggesting that the ‘inspired by real events’ label might allow for fictionalized elements that justify the perpetrator's mental state.