---
title: "Kraven the Hunter"
year: 2024
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/kraven-the-hunter"
fi1m_id: "kraven-the-hunter"
imdb_id: "tt8790086"
tmdb_id: 539972
wikidata_id: "Q107390449"
fi1m_score: 41
critics_score: 43
critics_reviews: 15
published: "2026-09-09"
updated: "2026-09-18T08:37:56.571891+00:00"
region: "US"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Kraven the Hunter (2024)

Directed by J.C. Chandor · 2h 07m · MPA R · Action, Adventure, Thriller

## Identity

Kraven the Hunter

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/kraven-the-hunter
- **Type:** Film
- **Fi1m ID:** kraven-the-hunter
- **IMDb ID:** tt8790086
- **TMDB ID:** 539972
- **Wikidata ID:** Q107390449
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8790086/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/539972, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q107390449

**Fi1m score: 41** · Critics 43 from 15 reviews

*In a sentence:* He has the speed of a cheetah, the eyes of an eagle and the dialogue of a fridge magnet

> J.C. Chandor stages two or three fights with real weight, and Russell Crowe and Alessandro Nivola enjoy themselves as men who deserve a better film. Around them is a script that explains everything twice and a lion that never once looks like one.

## Synopsis

Sergei Kravinoff (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is the elder son of Nikolai (Russell Crowe), a Russian crime boss who takes his boys hunting to make men of them. On one such trip the young Sergei (Levi Miller) is mauled by a lion, and a girl (Diaana Babnicova) gives him something from a bottle that leaves him alive and changed, with the strength and senses of the animal. He grows up refusing his father’s business and hunting the men who are in it. His softer brother Dmitri (Fred Hechinger) stays close to home. Ariana DeBose is Calypso, grown up and working in London; Alessandro Nivola is Aleksei Sytsevich, a rival with a medical condition; Christopher Abbott is an assassin known as the Foreigner. J.C. Chandor directs.

## Review

Sergei Kravinoff (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is the son of Nikolai (Russell Crowe), a Russian crime boss who takes his boys hunting to make men of them. On one such trip the young Sergei (Levi Miller) is mauled by a lion, and a girl (Diaana Babnicova) pours something from a bottle down his throat that leaves him with the strength and senses of the animal that nearly killed him. He grows up refusing his father’s business and hunting the men who are in it. The tagline says villains are made, not born, and *Kraven the Hunter* spends 127 minutes making one, slowly, with captions.

J.C. Chandor directs, which is the surprising credit. He made *Margin Call* and *A Most Violent Year*, films about men in rooms deciding how much to lie, and *All Is Lost*, in which Robert Redford spends most of a film on a boat saying almost nothing. He knows how to hold a shot. When the film lets him, he does: the opening, in which Sergei has himself sent to a Russian prison in order to reach a man inside it, is a real fight in a real corridor, and Ben Davis keeps the camera near enough to the bodies that we could tell whose elbow was whose. We sat forward. The 15 certificate is earned early and often, with teeth, and Craig Wood cuts the brawls to be followed rather than to be hidden.

The pleasures after that are in the supporting cast. Crowe plays Nikolai as a bully with a heavy accent and a view on everything, a man who would rather his sons feared him than liked him, and he is plainly having a better time than anyone else on screen. Alessandro Nivola’s Aleksei Sytsevich is a rival with a medical condition and a great deal of nervous energy, and Nivola plays him as if he has read a different, funnier script. Fred Hechinger’s Dmitri, the soft brother who does impressions of other people’s voices, is the only character we felt anything for. Taylor-Johnson is committed throughout, and the film rewards him with a leather waistcoat, a scowl and little to say.

The script is the problem, and it is a problem of quantity. Art Marcum, Matt Holloway and Richard Wenk explain the premise in the prologue, then have Ariana DeBose’s Calypso, now a lawyer in London with a deck of tarot cards, explain it again, then have Sergei explain it to his brother. Christopher Abbott’s Foreigner is an assassin with a party trick we never fully understood, though it was described to us twice. The story hops from Russia to London to Turkey on captions, and every stop begins with someone stating who they are and what they want, as if the film were worried we had wandered off. By the middle we had.

Then there is the lion. It is a computer-generated animal and it looks like one, weightless and a little too clean, and since the whole film rests on the moment it takes a boy in its jaws, that moment ought to frighten us. We laughed instead, and felt bad about it, because the small boy under the animation was doing his part. The effects do not improve. What happens to Sytsevich, when the film finally arrives at what the trailer has already shown, is rubbery. Eve Stewart’s production design gives Nikolai a house of dark wood and trophies, which is right, and Sammy Sheldon dresses Kraven in about as much as the certificate allows. Three composers are credited, Sacha and Evgueni Galperine and Benjamin Wallfisch, and we left without a tune.

Most critics have landed near where we have, and a fair number have said this is better than *Morbius* and *Madame Web*, the last two films Sony made from the same drawer. That is true, and it is not a recommendation. Chandor once made a film about one man, a boat and a leak, and it was tense for its whole length. Here he has a cast of a dozen, three countries and a lion, and the tension comes and goes in ninety-second pieces.

See it if the prison fight in the trailer is what you want, because there are two or three more like it and they are done properly. Between them is a good deal of standing in doorways being told things. At home you can skip the doorways, and the film would not notice.

*Fi1m score 41, published 9 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

The reviews for Kraven the Hunter are mostly negative, and the spread is wide: a handful of critics report a surprisingly good time, while others call it a lifeless slog. The complaints cluster around the script and the plotting, which many find incoherent or laboured, and around cheap-looking effects; several also doubt whether Aaron Taylor-Johnson carries the film. Where praise appears it goes to the supporting cast, with Russell Crowe’s turn as the oligarch father and Alessandro Nivola’s villain singled out more than once, and to the bloodier action allowed by the R rating, which even sceptical critics tend to credit. A recurring and faint compliment is that it improves on Morbius and Madame Web.

The dissenters are worth noting: The AV Club calls it the most coherent and fun of the Sony Spider-Man films, Deadline praises Chandor’s tight direction and Taylor-Johnson’s performance, and The Times finds it goofy but consistently entertaining.

## Straight answers

**Is Kraven the Hunter worth watching?**

*Kraven the Hunter* is not worth watching for most people, and we scored it 41. J.C. Chandor stages two or three fights with real weight, and Russell Crowe and Alessandro Nivola enjoy themselves, but the script explains everything twice and the lion never looks like one. See it only if the prison fight in the trailer is exactly what you want.

**How long is Kraven the Hunter, and what is it rated?**

*Kraven the Hunter* runs 2h 07m and is rated R by the MPA in the US. It is an action and adventure film.

**Where can I watch Kraven the Hunter in the US?**

*Kraven the Hunter* is streaming on Netflix in the US, and it is also available to rent from Amazon Prime Video from $3.99. It leaves Netflix on 13 September. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service.

**How violent or frightening is Kraven the Hunter, and is it suitable for children?**

*Kraven the Hunter* is a 15 in the UK and an R in the US, and it is not for children. The fights are close, bloody and cut to be followed rather than hidden, with teeth, and a small boy is mauled by a lion early on. Teenagers used to hard-edged action will cope; the squeamish should look elsewhere.

**How does Kraven the Hunter compare to A Most Violent Year?**

*Kraven the Hunter* and [*A Most Violent Year*](https://film.one/film/a-most-violent-year) share a director, J.C. Chandor, and little else. The earlier film keeps its gun in the drawer for nearly all of its length and is far the better made, patient and tense throughout, if a little airless. Kraven offers a few well-staged brawls between long stretches of people explaining the plot, so anyone wanting Chandor at his best should choose the 1981 crime story.

**What should I watch after Kraven the Hunter?**

After *Kraven the Hunter*, try [*A Most Violent Year*](https://film.one/film/a-most-violent-year) (2014, Fi1m 77): Chandor doing what he does well: men, money and menace in quiet rooms. Then [*Logan*](https://film.one/film/logan) (2017, Fi1m 83): A comic-book film that earns its blood and its certificate, and has a story.

### Reviews we read (21)

- **The AV Club**, Jesse Hassenger (B-): While not without flaws, Chandor's film is the most coherent and fun entry in the Sony Spider-Man Universe series, with confident direction and efficient action that sets it apart from predecessors. It understands the silly freedom of shedding continuity better than earlier installments. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/kraven-the-hunter-review)
- **Total Film**, Neil Smith (60/100, inferred): The review highlights how the R-rating enables bloodthirsty action that helps elevate the film above typical comic-book fare. The critic notes the decent action sequences as a saving grace amid other shortcomings. [Read](https://www.gamesradar.com/entertainment/marvel-movies/kraven-the-hunter-review/)
- **Variety**, Owen Gleiberman (50/100, inferred): The action is fine but rarely exciting, and the film feels derivative and generic as the beginning of the end for Sony’s Spider-Man Universe; Taylor-Johnson lacks star power here amid vague plotting and backstory. [Read](https://variety.com/2024/film/reviews/kraven-the-hunter-review-aaron-taylor-johnson-1236245428/)
- **Los Angeles Times**, Katie Walsh (45/100, inferred): The earnest but goofy origin story approaches campiness yet lacks quality overall, with dodgy CGI and missing exposition; it offers dumb fun mainly through unintentional humor and supporting performances. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2024-12-12/kraven-the-hunter-marvel-sony-aaron-taylor-johnson)
- **Little White Lies**, Hannah Strong (1/2/1): A woeful, silly slog with clunky exposition and poor CGI that fails to lean into its absurdity; better than Morbius or Madame Web but still not worth the effort. [Read](https://lwlies.com/reviews/kraven-the-hunter)
- **Radio Times**, Jeremy Aspinall (2/5): The film is sadly underwhelming with a leaden script that lacks zing, though the action has some highlights and it is better than prior Sony Spider-Man Universe entries like Morbius and Madame Web. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movies/scifi/kraven-the-hunter-review/)
- **The New York Times**, Robert Daniels (40/100, inferred): Built on brawn but limited by incomprehensible plotting and dodgy one-liners, the film is merely another defanged Sony comic-book excursion. The anticlimactic fights and silly elements keep it from being enjoyably bad. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/13/movies/kraven-the-hunter-review.html)
- **Empire**, Ian Freer (30/100, inferred): The critic finds the film a limp and uninvolving superhero origin story that fails to capture fun or coherence despite some brutal action moments. Chandor's direction and the thin script are singled out for criticism, with praise reserved for Russell Crowe's performance. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/kraven-the-hunter/)
- **Screen Daily** (30/100, inferred): A lacklustre introduction to the character that reaches new levels of creative exhaustion; Taylor-Johnson brings intensity but neither the character nor his backstory are compelling. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/kraven-the-hunter-review/5200016.article)
- **The i Paper**, Christina Newland (30/100, inferred): The film is described as a muddle of disjointed plotlines and characters that fails to cohere into an engaging standalone story. Director J.C. Chandor's visual work and some action sequences receive praise, but overall it is called a dud that is neither enjoyably bad nor entertaining. [Read](https://inews.co.uk/culture/film/kraven-the-hunter-muddle-marvel-movie-3426181)
- **RogerEbert.com**, Simon Abrams (20/100, inferred): The film is an overstuffed, undercooked slog with lifeless characters, ham-handed performances, and aimless action that fails to capture any joy or spark. It is a charmless stinker polished just enough to make one resent it. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/kraven-the-hunter-marvel-film-review)
- **IndieWire**, David Ehrlich: Sony’s Spider-Man Universe concludes poorly in this misfire, only salvaged somewhat by an inspired performance from Alessandro Nivola as the villain. The film ends with a shirtless whimper rather than any real impact. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/kraven-the-hunter-movie-review-1235075341/)
- **The Guardian**: The critic finds little to enjoy beyond Russell Crowe's robust turn as the bullying Russian oligarch father. The origin story is deemed laborious, generic and lacking the craziness that once made superhero films watchable. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/dec/11/kraven-the-hunter-review-russell-crowe-busts-up-laborious-superhero-yarn)
- **The Hollywood Reporter**, David Rooney: The critic finds the film a punishingly dull and turgid origin story that fails to ignite excitement despite its action and blood. Chandor's direction and the cast's efforts are undermined by wooden performances and incoherent plotting. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/kraven-the-hunter-review-aaron-taylor-johnson-marvel-jc-chandor-1236083842/)
- **The Telegraph**: The review deems the film a total disaster and a new low for the extended Spider-Man Universe. It criticises the lead performance, lack of humour and perfunctory action sequences. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/kraven-the-hunter-review-aaron-taylor-johnson/)
- **The Times**, Kevin Maher (★★★☆☆): The critic calls it a goofy delight that remains ludicrous but consistently entertaining. A knotty family psychodrama is noted but the cartoonish tone is embraced over any deeper ambitions. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/film/article/kraven-the-hunter-review-marvel-movie-qk65c6wcp)
- **Vulture**: The movie is a collection of eccentric characters in search of a compelling narrative, hampered by uneven direction and a lack of genuine interest in its protagonist. It explores the inner workings of a guy audiences never cared about, alongside underwhelming action. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/article/review-kraven-the-hunter-is-weird-guys-in-search-of-a-movie.html)
- **Deadline**, Pete Hammond (75/100, inferred): The critic had a surprisingly good time with this ultraviolent R-rated origin story that plays more like a mob movie. They single out Aaron Taylor-Johnson's spectacular action- and character-driven performance and J.C. Chandor's tight, exciting filmmaking. [Read](https://deadline.com/2024/12/kraven-the-hunter-review-aaron-taylor-johnson-marvel-1236200914/)
- **/Film**, Witney Seibold (5/10): The critic finds the film incoherent and filled with worn-out superhero tropes but notes that its badness pairs with the lead character's blustering confidence to create a certain whimsical charm. Kraven himself is portrayed as an arrogant yet charming antihero whose skills make his attitude feel earned, allowing viewers to laugh along despite the surrounding mess. [Read](https://www.slashfilm.com/1735558/kraven-the-hunter-movie-review/)
- **The Wrap**, Bill Bria (45/100, inferred): The film arrives too late to the Sony-Marvel party and is held back by its comic-book trappings. The critic singles out the real hands-on brutality of the action sequences as a highlight amid the mess. [Read](https://www.thewrap.com/kraven-the-hunter-review-sony-marvel-aaron-taylor-johnson/)
- **Den of Geek**, David Crow (1/5): The critic calls it a vacuous, lifeless superhero movie that wastes its cast and director's talents, resembling the worst 2000s comic book films. Occasional action beats and performances like those of Russell Crowe and Alessandro Nivola provide fleeting entertainment amid an overall damned effort. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/kraven-the-hunter-review/)

## Details

- **Director:** J.C. Chandor
- **Director:** J.C. Chandor
- **Screenplay:** Matt Holloway, Richard Wenk, Art Marcum
- **Story:** Richard Wenk
- **Cinematography:** Ben Davis
- **Editor:** Craig Wood
- **Music:** Benjamin Wallfisch, Sacha Galperine, Evgueni Galperine
- **Production design:** Eve Stewart
- **Costume design:** Sammy Sheldon
- **Producer:** David B. Householter, Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach
- **Cast:** Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Sergei Kravinoff / Kraven the Hunter; Ariana DeBose as Calypso Ezili; Fred Hechinger as Dmitri Kravinoff; Alessandro Nivola as Aleksei Sytsevich; Christopher Abbott as The Foreigner; Russell Crowe as Nikolai Kravinoff; Yuri Kolokolnikov as Semyon Chorney; Levi Miller as Young Sergei
- **Runtime:** 2h 07m
- **Certificate (MPA):** R
- **Release (the US):** 13 December 2024
- **Genres:** Action, Adventure, Thriller
- **Budget:** $130 million
- **Box office:** $62 million
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hR1-ihzff3I

## Where to watch in the US

- Netflix: streaming, leaving 2026-09-13
- Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, uhd
- Amazon Prime Video: buy $12.99, uhd

*Checked 2026-09-10.*

Also available in: AR, AT, AU, AZ, BE, BG, BR, CA, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HR, HU, IE, IL, IN, IS, IT, JP, KR, MX, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SI, SK, TR, UA, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *A Most Violent Year* (2014), Fi1m 77: Chandor doing what he does well: men, money and menace in quiet rooms — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/a-most-violent-year.md)
- *Logan* (2017), Fi1m 83: A comic-book film that earns its blood and its certificate, and has a story — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/logan.md)
- *Dredd* (2012): Cheap, brutal and coherent; everything this film wanted to be in ninety minutes
- *The Most Dangerous Game* (1932): The original mad hunter of men, done in an hour with a real island
- *The Night Comes for Us* (2018): Indonesian gangland carnage with the hands-on fights this film only occasionally manages

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/kraven-the-hunter