Julia Roberts has officially returned to the center of Hollywood’s awards conversation with her commanding turn in Luca Guadagnino’s psychological thriller After the Hunt. The film premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in August 2025, where it earned a six-minute standing ovation and instantly positioned Roberts back in the spotlight. Critics across the globe are calling her performance as Alma Olsson, a Yale philosophy professor, the most powerful work of her career since Erin Brockovich.
In the film, Roberts plays Alma, a woman whose carefully constructed academic world begins to collapse when her colleague Hank Gibson (played by Andrew Garfield) is accused of sexual assault by graduate student Maggie, portrayed by Ayo Edebiri. What follows is an intense, slow-burning drama that explores questions of power, privilege, loyalty, and accountability in the post-#MeToo era. Guadagnino uses this storyline not just as a scandal narrative, but as a psychological dissection of how people react when the ground beneath them begins to crack.
Critics have been divided about the film overall. On Rotten Tomatoes, After the Hunt currently holds a rating hovering around 47–49 percent, making it Guadagnino’s lowest-rated project so far. Yet almost every review highlights Julia Roberts as the singular force elevating the material. Variety described her turn as “the best film role she’s had in at least 20 years,” while the BBC noted that she “commands the screen for nearly the entirety of its 139-minute runtime.” The Daily Beast went even further, pointing out how Guadagnino gradually chips away at Alma’s exterior until her physical and emotional collapse becomes the very heart of the film.
For Roberts, the role represents a major career pivot. After winning her Oscar for Erin Brockovich in 2001, she became increasingly selective in her projects, often choosing lighthearted comedies and ensemble films. In recent years, she appeared in Netflix’s Leave the World Behind and the romantic comedy Ticket to Paradise, both of which drew strong audiences but did not challenge her dramatically. Her last truly awards-worthy performance came with Ben Is Back in 2018. After the Hunt, however, signals a deliberate move toward more demanding, layered material, reminding audiences and industry insiders why Roberts remains one of Hollywood’s greatest leading actresses.
The film’s festival run has already been significant. After its Venice debut, After the Hunt opened the New York Film Festival on September 26, 2025, a moment Roberts herself called one of the “top three achievements of my New York life.” With Amazon MGM Studios rolling out a limited release on October 10, followed by a wide release on October 17, the movie is being positioned strategically for awards season. While Guadagnino’s bold directorial style has not convinced every critic, Roberts’ performance has been nearly universally praised, with several outlets suggesting it could earn her another Oscar nomination.
At 57, Roberts’ decision to embrace such a morally complex role is being celebrated as both a personal and professional risk. Hollywood has not always been kind to women of her age, often relegating them to supporting or maternal roles. Yet After the Hunt places Roberts firmly at the center of the narrative, demanding the audience follow her descent from authority to fragility. It is precisely this depth and unpredictability that has critics calling it the defining performance of her late career.
Whether After the Hunt wins over mainstream audiences or not, Julia Roberts’ turn as Alma Olsson is already being written about as a milestone. More than two decades after Erin Brockovich, Roberts has proven she can still surprise, still dominate the screen, and still leave critics and audiences debating the moral questions her characters embody. For many, this is the performance that reminds us why Roberts became a Hollywood icon in the first place—and why she remains one today.
