Jake Gyllenhaal's 124-Minute Sci-Fi Disaster Movie Is Officially Netflix's Biggest Streaming Hit
by Joe Roberts · /FilmAdd SlashFilm on Google:
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In 2004, "The Day After Tomorrow" clumsily delivered a message about climate change via a movie in which Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal try to save the world from a new ice age. The questionable part of the film was the science, which as NASA Goddard Space Flight Center meteorologist J. Marshall Shepherd told USA Today, warranted "a D minus or an F." Otherwise, "The Day After Tomorrow" was a grand old time at the movies, and now it seems modern audiences are having a similarly wonderful time with the end of the world over on Netflix.
The sci-fi disaster film was co-written, co-produced, and directed by Roland Emmerich, who prior to this had taken a break from big-budget sci-fi fare to make "The Patriot" with Mel Gibson. "The Day After Tomorrow" saw him return to familiar territory, with a film based on on Art Bell and Whitley Strieber's 1999 book "The Coming Global Superstorm."
Dennis Quaid stars as Paleoclimatologist Jack Hall, who's dismayed to find that global warming has finally brought about a new ice age that's preceded by extreme weather events which batter major cities around the world. His son Sam Hall (Gyllenhaal) happens to be in New York just as the big freeze sets in, prompting Jack to set off on a rescue mission.
The movie isn't the most critically acclaimed thing Emmerich has ever done. But it did gross $552.6 million on a $125 million budget and remains an impressive showcase of early 2000s CGI and arguably the best natural disaster movie of the era. If it's been a while, or you're yet to catch "The Day After Tomorrow," why not join in the celebration over on Netflix?
Netflixers can't get enough of the end of the world
"The Day After Tomorrow" hit Netflix on November 1, 2026 and immediately took over the streamer's charts like an unstoppable climactic event. Streaming viewership tracker FlixPatrol shows the movie debuted at number one on the Netflix Top 10 movie charts on November 2, 2026 in the United States. What's more it maintains that position at the time of writing and it will be interesting to see just how long Jake Gyllenhaal's disaster flick can hang on to the top spot.
To do so, it will need to fend off competition from "Kidnapped in Her Own Home: The Martha Carelli Story," a Lifetime thriller that made its Netflix debut on November 2, 2026 and which is currently sitting at number two on the movie chart. The only other new addition to that chart is the decidedly more cheery "Love the Coopers," a 2015 Christmas comedy with a surprisingly stacked cast that includes Alan Arkin, John Goodman, Ed Helms, Diane Keaton, Anthony Mackie, Amanda Seyfried, Marisa Tomei, Timothée Chalamet, and Olivia Wilde. "Love the Coopers" debuted at number nine on the movie chart and could make a run as subscribers decide to embrace the holiday spirit rather than witnessing the world crumble around Gyllenhaal and Dennis Quaid. That said, it did make number one on /Film's list of the worst Timothée Chalamet movies, so who knows.
Otherwise, there are plenty of other disaster movies streaming on Netflix, just in case you don't necessarily fancy the early 2000s stylings of Roland Emmerich and co.