After The Hunt star Julia Roberts hopes that the new Luca Guadagnino film can heal a problem humanity is facing

The premiere of Luca Guadagnino’s After The Hunt at Venice sparked immediate debate on #MeToo, campus issues, and communication. Julia Roberts decribed the film as the kind of story that’s meant to encourage discussion and debate, not hand out answers.

Roberts has emphasized what she sees as a decline in meaningful conversation. She says the film is supposed to prod people into talking and listening again, even if that talk is uncomfortable. That framing helps explain why audiences and critics are split rather than soothed.

During the film’s press conference, the actress said:

“It’s not so much that we’re making a statement. We’re just sharing these lives for this moment, and then we want everyone to go away and talk to each other. That, to me, is the most exciting bit because we’re kind of losing the art of conversation in humanity right now. If making this movie does anything, getting everybody to talk to each other is the most exciting thing that I feel we could accomplish.”

On screen, Roberts plays a Yale professor whose life is rocked when a student accuses a colleague, and the cast includes Ayo Edebiri and Andrew Garfield. Guadagnino calls the film an exploration of conflicting perspectives rather than a prescriptive statement, leaving interpretation to viewers.

More details about After The Hunt

Luca Guadagnino has always had a taste for desire and destruction, and in 2025 he sharpens that gaze with After The Hunt. Written by Nora Garrett, the film casts Julia Roberts in one of her most complex roles yet, as Alma Imhoff, a celebrated Yale professor. Her polished life shatters when a sexual assault accusation against Andrew Garfield’s Henrik “Hank” Gibson rocks her department.

Ayo Edebiri plays Maggie, Alma’s star pupil, torn between devotion and doubt. Michael Stuhlbarg anchors the domestic drama as Alma’s psychiatrist husband, while Chloë Sevigny blurs friendship and bureaucracy as a university liaison. Lío Mehiel, Thaddea Graham, and others complicate the web further, each character pulling Alma tighter into a storm she cannot escape. The scandal forces Alma to balance loyalty, reputation, and morality, all while her own shadowy past begins to surface.

Behind the camera, the production is just as carefully constructed. The film was shot in London and Cambridge on rich 35mm film by cinematographer Malik Hassan Sayeed, who returns to features after a 25-year absence. After The Hunt is being handled by some of the best people in the business. It will open the New York Film Festival in October before its U.S. release by Amazon MGM Studios, with Sony handling the international rollout.

With a notable cast, evocative score, and Guadagnino’s direction, After The Hunt is generating considerable attention for 2025.