After the Hunt (2025)

Guadagnino stampedes through the culture wars with this extraordinary tale of tested loyalties and difficult truths. Julia Roberts delivers the performance of her career as the hard-drinking, heavy-smoking professor caught in an impossible dilemma.

Julia Roberts is back to her best in a devilish cancel culture thriller. Guadagnino’s film is a nastily exhilarating moral thriller that leads characters and audience into an ethical quagmire, with Roberts magnetic as the philosophy professor.

The critic finds the film a colder, more cynical campus thriller than Guadagnino's recent work, with confused politics and a script that falls short of its ambitions, but praises its pacing, visual flair, strong performances especially from Roberts, and overall entertainment value as a sharply intense watch.

After the Hunt is a slippery, high-stakes drama that explores cancel culture through a lens of distancing cynicism. It is a clever, provocative work that is not always as smart as it thinks it is, with a savagery to the storytelling that is bracing and top-tier performances.

The film is absorbing and well-acted with rich Ivy League atmosphere but not the heady intellectual drama it aims to be. It singles out the uniformly excellent cast, particularly Julia Roberts' stony anxiousness.

The critic finds the film a flimsy fantasy of Yale with weak characters and conflicts, though praises Julia Roberts' performance as the frosty Alma. Complains about the lack of depth in depicting university life and intellectual elements.

The film is too deliberately opaque and frustrating despite some absorbing confrontations. It singles out Julia Roberts' strong, riveting performance as ill-served by the cryptic script.

Guadagnino misfires with this bafflingly overlong, overwrought #MeToo campus accusation drama. The film becomes an evasive and noncommittal jumble of ideas, with the laboriously nurtured ambiguity turning contrived and inert.

The critic calls the film a self-important slog that wastes its stellar cast on thin, mean-spirited caricatures and overlong plotting, criticizing its dated campus drama approach, poor sound mixing, and lack of genuine depth or engagement.

The critic says the film flunks out as a pretend-provocative noir that provokes only frustration. They single out the actors’ committed performances amid a story that fails to deliver real discomfort or insight.

The critic calls the film muddled and overly reliant on academic debates that may alienate viewers, comparing it unfavorably to stronger works like Tár. It singles out Julia Roberts' relish in the role and gradual unraveling for praise amid the privileged, hypocritical characters and uneven execution.

The critic finds the film a muddled #MeToo campus drama that emulates TÁR but lacks its savagery and feels dated. It singles out Julia Roberts' committed performance for praise while criticizing the overworked plot, inconsistent characters, and reliance on provocative but ultimately toothless themes.

The critic calls the film a pleasurably ludicrous house of cards that excites Guadagnino more for its stylistic and performative pleasures than its ethical conundrums. They single out the luxurious direction and Roberts’s intense performance in a character-assassination rant.

The critic finds Luca Guadagnino’s campus drama uncomfortable for the wrong reasons as it falls flat trying to court controversy. They single out the overly calculated, signposted style that insists on spelling out every point.

The critic finds the film a muddled drama of sexual accusation with good acting and craft but too many contrivances and unanswered questions. They single out the tense atmosphere and Roberts’s sardonic performance while noting it falls short of satisfying.

The film raises provocative questions about privilege, feminism, and the generation gap without dictating a single moral; it's a psychological thriller that asks viewers to think for themselves. Praises the complex characters and nuanced approach to #MeToo themes.

The critic views Guadagnino’s drama as a restrained exploration of cancel culture and ambition in academia, highlighting Julia Roberts’ compelling, bitter performance as the standout element. While praising technical choices and supporting work from Michael Stuhlbarg, the review finds the film hesitant to fully engage with its provocative themes, resulting in polished but unsubstantial treatment of morality and generational conflict.

Julia Roberts gives one of her best performances, but the wordy screenplay makes it feel like an exhaustive debate rather than compelling drama. Praises visual style and score, but criticizes lack of tension.

The film has interesting ideas but feels messy and shallow despite strong performances from its leads. It stumbles in trying to be morally gray and provocative like Tár, with on-the-nose dialogue and an unfulfilling ending.

The review praises Julia Roberts’ superb performance as a philosophy professor in this biting campus #MeToo drama, calling it her best work in years and a casting coup. It notes the timely examination of progressive politics on campus while finding some tenure conversations tedious.

The critic finds the film stylish and twisty as it explores hot-button campus issues like race, privilege, power dynamics and wokeness through strong performances. It highlights the provocative, self-aware narrative that leaves central questions unanswered while delivering fun in a serious way.