Jake Gyllenhaal's $552 Million Disaster Thriller Officially Finds a New Streaming Home

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Jake Gyllenhaal stands in a crowd in disbelief in The Day After Tomorrow

Published Oct 23, 2026, 10:24 PM EDT

Shrishty is a decade-old journalist covering a variety of beats between politics to pop culture, but movies are her first love, which led her to study Film and TV Development at UCLAx. She lives and breathes cinema and sometimes wakes up with the close-up shot of Ryan Gosling's hands playing piano in La La Land, in her head.

She has worked with numerous media outlets, including Burda Media (MSN News), DKODING Media, The Voice of Fashion, Hindustan Times, and more. Throughout her career, she has interviewed an array of people, from CEOs and politicians to filmmakers and farmers.

Jake Gyllenhaal is among the most versatile actors in the industry, with thriller roles like Prisoners, Donnie Darko, Zodiac, and Nightcrawler; sleek action flicks like the Road House remake and In The Grey, and blockbusters like Spider-Man: Far From Home and Brokeback Mountain, the actor never shies away from flexing his acting muscle to entertain audiences.

Gyllenhaal has a long list of credible sci-fi titles as well, like Daniel Espinosa’s Life, where he stars opposite Ryan Reynolds and Rebecca Ferguson, Duncan Jones’ sci-fi thriller Source Code, and more. Among his notable titles is The Day After Tomorrow, directed and co-written by Roland Emmerich, which showcases the catastrophic effects of climate change. We follow Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid), a paleoclimatologist, who raises an alarm about an imminent Ice Age but is ignored. Within days, extreme weather patterns rapidly escalate worldwide: massive tornadoes level Los Angeles, giant hail strikes Tokyo, and a colossal tidal wave floods New York City. Things take a turn when the Northern Hemisphere enters a deadly, flash-freezing deep freeze; millions of citizens are forced to evacuate. Meanwhile, Jack’s teenage son, Sam (Gyllenhaal), becomes stranded in the New York Public Library with his classmates. Jack finally embarks on a highly dangerous, cross-country trek to rescue his son.

The feature brilliantly touches upon the themes of the catastrophic consequences of ignoring ecological warnings and leans heavily into global irony, turning U.S. citizens into refugees fleeing across the southern border to seek asylum. However, the core emotional driver is the strained but ultimate bond between a distant father and his son. Nonetheless, the feature earned a 46% Rotten Tomatoes score from the critics owing to its clunky dialogue, reliance on disaster genre stereotypes, and thin character development. Despite mixed reviews, the film was a commercial hit, earning $552.6 million worldwide on a $125 million budget.

'The Day After Tomorrow' Has a New Home

Fans who’d love to revisit the film are in luck as the feature has found a new streaming home. The Day After Tomorrow is coming to Netflix on November 1. Check out the feature for some compelling performances by Gyllenhaal, Quaid, Emmy Rossum, and Ian Holm. Emmerich crafts amazing moments with sweeping visuals and thrilling set pieces, especially the flooding of New York.

Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.