After the Hunt Rotten Tomatoes Score: Garfield–Roberts Drama Struggles to Impress Critics(Photo Credit –X)
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After the Hunt, the latest from the Call Me by Your Name director Luca Guadagnino, debuted at Venice Festival on August 29, and the review embargo has finally been lifted. Critics haven’t embraced it like most of Guadagnino’s recent ventures, though that’s not to say there isn’t adequate enthusiasm surrounding the Andrew Garfield–Julia Roberts collaboration, even if for questionable reasons.
Scheduled for October release, After the Hunt features Roberts as a college professor who confronts her own secretive past after her colleague (Garfield) faces accusations of sexual assault from her student, and the narrative scrutiny that follows challenges conventional perspectives.
After the Hunt Critical Reception Falls Short of Expectations
On Rotten Tomatoes, After the Hunt currently holds a 53% score after 30 critics having weighed in, prompting the review aggregator site to assign its dreaded “rotten” classification. This rating is not only indicative of more struggles as its release approaches, but it also trails behind the Queer director’s previous effort Suspiria (65%), thus attaining his lowest rating on the platform to date.
How Does After the Hunt Fare Against Career Trajectories of its Stars?
The divisive reception of After the Hunt also precipitates it to pale when compared to both stars’ recent filmographies. Julia Roberts’ latest venture Leave the World Behind achieved a rating of 73%, and even her poorly received romantic comedy Ticket to Paradise managed to please 56% of the site’s affiliated reviewers. While it falls below Pretty Woman (65%) and Ocean’s Eleven (83%), After the Hunt did manage to comfortably eclipse Roberts’ most notorious critical disappointment Eat Pray Love (34%).
For Andrew Garfield, who approaches role selection with considerable discretion, After the Hunt represents his fourth-lowest score after Lions for Lambs (28%), Mainstream (42%), and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (50%). It is also his first of his two consecutive collaborations with the Challengers director. Ironically, their sophomore project. titled Artificial, is a biography of OpenAI founder Sam Altman, who, like Garfield’s character in After the Hunt, was recently accused of sexual abuse by his sister.
after the hunt getting negative reviews maybe this will finally wake up people into seeing the truth they have been trying to deflect
Does Rotten Tomatoes And a Handful of Critics Capture the Complete Picture?
Like every cinematic work, After the Hunt’s reception remains subjective at its core, and being an original story perusing post-MeToo complexities, the subtleties it examines can provoke critics who tend to dismiss narratives challenging their established convictions.
Julia Roberts is sensational in AFTER THE HUNT (a real Osage County type of performance 👍) and Luca Guadagnino shoots the hell out of the talky script, but the film is so low energy and the screenplay too full of intellectual posturing to truly be as riveting as it should. pic.twitter.com/AB2Zarltt3
— Cody @ Venice Film Festival (@codymonster91) August 29, 2025
Contemporary Hollywood would likely acclaim this premise only if it presented an empowering story of trauma recovery without questioning whether such incidents occurred initially. However, altering the status quo the movie dares to scrutinize the supposed victim’s account through standard procedural examination, and it’s only this innocuous approach that has agitated industry reporters to the extent that they can’t keep their bias concealed any longer.
Conversely, some have even dismissed it for opposite claims, asserting the film retreats from its premise out of victim-blaming concerns, as well as for pretentious intellect posturing, while praising the performances.
