©Courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios

Engaging in meandering debates about clashing ethics and contentious power dynamics can reveals people’s drastically different views on social justice. The upcoming crime drama, After the Hunt, explores the dispute of morality, particularly related to sexual assault, with fearless abandon.

First-time screenwriter Nora Garrett penned the new psychological thriller. She worked with director Luca Guadagnino, known for helming Call Me by Your Name and Challengers, on the upcoming film. With his latest project, he has crafted another boundary-pushing movie fueled by emotional complexity, lavish visuals and an eerie, haunting score. 

After the Hunt follows the life of the aloof and seemingly self-assured Yale philosophy professor Alma Olsson (Julia Roberts). She’s known for inviting her fellow staff members and students to her nightly gatherings. The attendees debate such issues as collective morality and performative discontent during the events.

Alma’s longtime colleague and friend, Hank (Andrew Garfield), often attends the gatherings. Her PhD candidate protégée, Maggie (Ayo Edebiri), is also a fixture at the events, as the student admires her professor.

At one gathering, the elders discuss the now-besmirched personal lives of several historical philosophers and political figures. Meanwhile, Maggie looks for a bathroom, and instead finds a mysterious envelope. Its contents appear to contain a photograph and a newspaper cutting, the latter of which she takes with her. Later on, as the guests are departing, Alma sees Maggie and Hank leaving together.

Alma doesn’t initially view the duo’s new connection as worrisome. Her opinion changes when Maggie, who’s gay and lives with her non-binary lover Alex (Lio Mehiel), makes a disturbing claim against Hank. She insists he brought her back home to her apartment, became aggressive and sexually assaulted her.

Alma later confronts Hank with the allegation, but he denies the claim and becomes defensive. He instead declares that he’s actually the victim of Maggie’s prim, over-sensitive boundary issues.

Alma is unsure who to believe at first, as Hank shares her views on life in the social media age. But Maggie is an inquiring mind who’s clearly smitten with her mentor.

©Courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios

Alma’s comfortable professional career and domestic life with her tempermental husband Frederik (Michael Stuhlbarg) are then threatened. The air of lofty academic privilege on campus also begins to dissolve. Alma must navigate minefields of gender, sexuality, race and institutional power while trying to reconcile her own difficult choices.

Garrett crafted a biting, tightly plotted script that fearlessly explores the excesses of political correctness in the modern age. The drama highlights how extreme left-wing youth assert that the perverse right stifle anything they don’t agree with through Maggie’s insistence that Hank assaulted her.

The story also explores how the genuine provocation between Maggie and Hank doesn’t have any easy answers. The main characters, led by Alma, must decide who their true selves are when the public thoroughly examines every decision they make.

Roberts gives one of the most complex and gratifying starring roles of her career in After the Hunt. The actress masterfully commanded her portrayal of the equally provocative and vulnerable professor, who’s also hiding deeper insecurities behind her intimidating facade.

Edebiri played well off of Roberts in her realistic portrayal of Maggie. The Emmy-winning The Bear actress highlights how the majority of the Yale community seems to use argument as their default mode of conversation, both in and out of the classroom. As a result, the current campus climate leads to the chance that every heated statement is a potential career-ending interaction.

After the Hunt‘s layered characters and story are emphasized by its indulgent camera work from legendary cinematographer Malik Hassan Sayeed. The camera angles captured the actors at a distance during the more distressing scenes to emphasize how they’re losing control of their environment. Sayeed effortlessly switches to close-ups during the moments where the story emphasizes the characters’ sense of neediness and resentfulness.

The film’s enthralling cinematography was smartly interwoven with its score, which was crafted by Oscar-winning composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. The duo, who previously worked with Guadagnino on Challengers and his last movie, Queer, reunited with the director to create an alluring score for After the Hunt. The  compositions interweaves stately piano-based melodies and strangled woodwinds, which amplify the story’s tension.

The exceptional performances from the cast, particularly Roberts, Edebiri and Garfield, make After the Hunt a high-brow drama. Garrett’s emotionally complex story development, Sayeed’s reflective cinematography and Reznor and Ross’ tension-building core also helped build the story’s tense atmosphere. Guadagnino’s latest intriguing movie plunges with a stunning fearlessness into the high stakes and debate of contemporary morality.

©Courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios

Overall: B+

After the Hunt had its North American Premiere in the Mainslate section as the Opening Night Film at this year’s New York Film Festival on September 26, 2025. Amazon MGM Studios will release the thriller in the United States on October 10, 2025.