Set in a small Danish village around Christmas, the film follows a man named Lucas, a divorced kindergarten teacher who becomes the target of mass hysteria after being wrongly accused of sexually abusing a child in his class.

[11] It was the Danish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 86th Academy Awards[12][13] and was selected as one of the final five nominees.

He misses his teenage son, Marcus, who mostly lives with his ex-wife, but he gets along well with the young children at the local kindergarten where he has worked since the school at which he taught closed.

Using details from a pornographic picture shown to her by a friend of her older brother, Klara makes comments that lead Grethe, the director of the kindergarten, to believe Lucas exposed himself to her.

Lucas loses his job, his friendship with Theo is destroyed, and he is shunned by the community as a pedophile and outcast.

Due to the vague language used and the secrecy around the investigation, he does not know specifically what he is supposed to have done, but he eventually hears he may have been accused of abusing multiple children.

Lucas is released from custody, but someone kills his dog and throws a large stone through his window, so he sends Marcus back to his ex-wife and buries Fanny.

Theo and his wife see Lucas limp out of the store bleeding from his head, and he later notices them whispering during the Christmas church service.

He turns and watches as the shooter, silhouetted against the sun, reloads his rifle and points it at Lucas for a moment before fleeing.

It has an approval rating of 92% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 133 reviews, with an average rating of 7.82/10; the website's critical consensus reads: "Anchored by Mads Mikkelsen's sympathetic performance, The Hunt asks difficult questions with the courage to pursue answers head on.