A new Netflix film about the Unabomber is storming the streaming giant's charts, with some viewers learning of the infamous killer's crimes for the first time.
Simply titled Unabomber, it has been watched nearly three times more than their new dance comedy Best of the Best, which rests in second in Netflix's global viewing charts. It's also been watched by more people in recent days than The Whisper Man and The Secret Woman.
The film and its cast
Directed by Janus Metz Pedersen, best known for his work on the Star Wars series Andor, Unabomber explores Ted Kaczynski's dark transition from Harvard genius to notorious the Unabomber while the FBI conducts an intense, nation-wide manhunt to stop him.
Leading the cast as Kaczynski is none other than Jacob Tremblay, the 19-year-old actor who broke out in the hit drama Room before going on to star in Doctor Sleep, Good Boys and the live action remake of The Little Mermaid.
Filling out the rest of the cast is Hollywood legend and Oscar winner Russell Crowe, The Fault in our Stars' Shailene Woodley, The Hunger Games' Alexander Ludwig, The Walking Dead's Steven Ogg, Homeland's Marc Menchaca and Rustin's Gus Halper.
Kaczynski's early life and attacks
Born to working-class Polish-American parents in 1942, Kaczynski was a child prodigy who graduated high school at 15 and enrolled at Harvard University at 16. By the time he was 25, Kaczynski was an assistant professor at the University of California at Berkeley after earning a Ph.D in mathematics from the University of Michigan.
Leaving Berkeley after just two years Kaczynski moved to an isolated cabin where he didn't have running water or electricity. Removed from the outside world, Kaczynski spent days reading about philosophy and sociology.
Growing fed up with the world he removed himself from, Kaczynski decided that he was going to take revenge against technological advances and their impact on the environment. In 1978, he began crafting homemade bombs in his cabin and mailed one to the University of Illinois.
The bomb eventually made its way to Northwestern University, which Kaczynski put on the return address, where it exploded and injured a campus security officer. From here, Kaczynski spent nearly two decades targeting businesspeople and scholars with his explosives.
Between 1978 and 1995, 16 attacks were linked to the ongoing case, which left the FBI scratching their heads, killed Hugh Scrutton, Thomas Mosser and Gilbert Murray and injured 23 people.
Capture, trial and death
Kaczynski was eventually caught after demanding that newspapers across the United States would be bombed if they didn't publish his manuscript. His 35,000-word anti-technology manifesto, Industrial Society and Its Future, was published by The New York Times and The Washington Post in September 1995.
In a shocking twist to the tale, Kaczynski's sister-in-law, Linda, recognised his handwriting and informed his brother. The pair made the decision to contact the FBI about their suspicions, who aided Kaczynski's Montana cabin and arrested him on April 3, 1996, a SWAT team raided Kaczynski's Montana cabin and arrested him.
Bomb components, 40,000 pages of handwritten diary entries and one live bomb was discovered by the FBI in his cabin. Kaczynski was indicted on 10 counts concerning four separate bombings.
Following failed attempts by Kaczynski to fire his lawyers and represent himself in court, his trial began in early 1998. One day before his trial, Kaczynski, who entered a last-minute guilty plea, attempted to die by suicide, which led to him being diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Hoping to avoid receiving the death penalty, Kaczynski pleaded guilty to all charges and admitted to placing or mailing an additional 11 bombs for which he had not been charged. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, with his surviving victims, as well as the families of those who died, awarded $15 million.
Failing to withdraw his guilty plea in a 2001 appeal, Kaczynski spent 20 years at ADX Florence, a supermax prison. Diagnosed with rectal cancer in 2021, Kaczynski died by suicide in his prison cell at the age of 81 on June 10, 2023.
