Sightlines · reception
How After the Hunt was received
2025 · Luca Guadagnino · After the Hunt on Sightlines
The arc
Premiered at Venice 2025 to a six-minute ovation in the room and a critical brawl outside it — reviews were sharply mixed and the early Julia Roberts awards buzz fizzled. Since then it's settled into 'divisive Guadagnino entry' status, with a vocal minority insisting everyone watched it wrong.
What’s debated
Is it a muddled, both-sides #MeToo drama with nothing to say — or a sly comedy of manners *about* people who have nothing to say and perform their politics anyway?
Its footprint
The opening credits — Windsor font, alphabetical cast, old jazz standard, i.e. the full Woody Allen package on a #MeToo movie — instantly became the film's most argued-about gesture, a deliberate art-vs-artist provocation before a single scene plays.
Where it stands
Currently filed by many cinephiles as lesser Guadagnino and a 'discourse film' punching bag, but its defenders treat it as a misread satire waiting for reappraisal.
Did you know? Guadagnino deliberately styled the opening credits after Woody Allen's — same Windsor typeface Allen has used since 1975 — and openly called it a nod to 'our responsibility in looking at the work of an artist that we love, like Woody Allen.' The score, meanwhile, is Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, complete with a divisive ticking-clock motif.
Named by the director
- Woody Allen — Guadagnino said the story's infrastructure was linked to 'the great oeuvre of Woody Allen between 1985 and 1991,' and styled the credits as an explicit homage.
- Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) — One of the Allen films Guadagnino said he couldn't stop thinking about while developing the movie.
- Another Woman (1988) — Named by Guadagnino among the Allen dramas that shaped the film's DNA.
- Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) — Also cited by Guadagnino as a touchstone from Allen's late-'80s run.