Harvard was built at McGill: The Montreal filming locations of Unabomber
Unabomber
Everyone knows the name. Not everyone knows the story. Netflix's Unabomber tells the story of the man who orchestrated a decades-long mail bombing campaign that killed three people and injured 23 more. It filmed in Montreal, Quebec, under the working title Debate Club, from June 4 to July 24, 2025.
Unabomber is directed by Janus Metz, who describes the film's structure: "We crosscut between two timelines, roughly speaking: the making of the Unabomber and the capture of the Unabomber." Jacob Tremblay plays the young Ted Kaczynski. Russell Crowe plays Professor Henry Murray – the Harvard psychologist who subjects Kaczynski to controversial psychological experiments.
Shailene Woodley plays FBI agent Joanne Miller, who leads the manhunt decades later. Annabelle Wallis, Alexander Ludwig, Steven Ogg and Marc Menchaca complete the cast. The screenplay is by Sam Chalsen and Nelson Greaves. Music is by Marco Beltrami. Editing by Oscar-winner Zach Staenberg (The Matrix).
The most specific confirmed filming location is McGill University's Old Chancellor Day Hall – the historic building on the McGill campus that houses the Faculty of Law. Russell Crowe filmed scenes inside and around the building in June 2025, with cast and crew spending approximately two weeks filming at the historic law building.
The choice of McGill's Faculty of Law to stand in for Harvard is both practical and precise. Old Chancellor Day Hall – built in 1905, its neoclassical stone facade and institutional interior establishing the weight and permanence of a great university's law building.
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Montreal filming ran from June 4 to July 24, 2025. The city served as the production's sole filming location – building both timelines of one of America's most chilling true crime stories within the same metropolitan area. Montreal's established period production infrastructure, its architectural range and its generous Quebec tax credit structure made it the financially and practically logical choice for a production requiring 1950s Harvard and 1990s FBI environments within a tight seven-week schedule.
Montreal's older institutional buildings, its brownstone streetscapes and its mid-century commercial strips give the production the period textures of both eras. The city has decades of experience standing in for American settings – its French street signage easily replaced, its Victorian and Art Deco architecture adaptable to multiple periods.
Beyond McGill, specific Montreal streets, districts or studio facilities used during the Unabomber shoot have not been publicly confirmed.
Unabomber premieres globally on Netflix on September 25, 2026
SOURCE
Netflix Tudum // Wikipedia // Reddit
CREDITS
© Netflix // Photo Philippe Bosse
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