“Not everything is supposed to make you comfortable.” Yeah, no kidding.
There's a specific kind of silence that only shows up in academia. The kind you hear just after someone says the wrong thing in the right room. It's not loud—but it's loud. After the Hunt is made of that silence. And in the first trailer? Julia Roberts is living in it.
Amazon MGM dropped the trailer this week, and—listen—I'm not one to toss around the O-word like candy, but this? This one's already backstage at the Oscars, fixing its speech.
Luca Guadagnino's latest film is a prestige powder keg—an accusation thriller (yes, that's a genre now) set in the oh-so-modern halls of higher education, where reputations are currency and secrets rot under all the soft lighting. Think Tár meets Anatomy of a Fall with a side of You should really get a lawyer.
It premieres at Venice, Telluride, Toronto and NYFF this fall. So yeah, the studios know what they've got.
Here's the plot—on paper.
A professor (Roberts, in career-best don't-mess-with-me mode) is thrown into personal and professional turmoil when a student accuses one of her colleagues of something Serious. No spoilers—but let's just say the department's weekly happy hour is about to get tense.
And of course, it wouldn't be a Guadagnino film without a very inconvenient secret from her past crawling out of its dusty corner at the worst possible moment. The trailer plays coy with the details—but the vibe? The vibe is chilly, coiled, and full of slow-motion unraveling.
Ayo Edebiri plays a student—thank God they're giving her serious roles—and Andrew Garfield shows up as… well, Andrew Garfield. Which isn't a dig. It's just a Thing. He smolders, he smiles like he knows too much, he probably ruins everything. (We love it.)
Also in the cast: Michael Stuhlbarg and Chloë Sevigny. The indie film holy ghost crew. If they show up in your movie? It's already got soul.
Let's talk Guadagnino.
The man's got range, I'll give him that. From Call Me By Your Name to Suspiria, Bones and All to Challengers, he floats between tenderness and violence like it's one long breath.
Here? He's sharp. Cold. Surgical. At least judging by this trailer. Every frame looks like it could be a tenure committee photo. Muted tones. Tense glances. That “I know what you did, but I'll write about it in an op-ed” energy.
But what is it really about?
Power. Guilt. The lies we justify to get where we are—and the truths that show up uninvited.
There's a line in the trailer—“I worked too hard, done too much to get here to let it all be just taken away.” It's delivered like a threat, but it lands like a confession. And it tells you everything. These characters aren't trying to be good people. They're just trying to survive each other.
October 17, 2025. Mark it. Or don't. But you'll hear about it.
Amazon MGM is rolling it out in theaters mid-October, right on cue for awards season bloodsport. The kind of slot that screams confident. It's got the pedigree. It's got the cast. And if the trailer's any clue, it's got the kind of ending that'll leave critics clawing for their substack login.
Look—I've been burned before. Trailers lie. Prestige dramas collapse under their own metaphors all the time. But this one? I don't know. It feels like a fight worth watching. Like it might just get messy in the best way.
And honestly? It's been a while since Julia Roberts looked like she might throw a chair.
