BauerGriffin/INSTARimages.com/Cover Images
Published Nov 5, 2026, 9:00 AM EST
Padraig is a Senior Features Writer and has been part of Screen Rant since 2017. Padraig is a writer, editor and retired Game of Thrones extra who has been writing about movies and TV online for over a decade. He has also written for The Irish Times, Den Of Geek, Little White Lies and many more. It's pronounced Paw-rick, BTW.
Sign in to your ScreenRant account
Jake Gyllenhaal's guilty pleasure disaster movie is currently chilling on Netflix. Jake Gyllenhaal's movie career is one of the most quietly impressive of his generation, where he has jumped between pretty much every genre without ever being typecast. Sure, he's had blockbusters like Spider-Man: Far From Home, but he has far more eclectic credits too like Donnie Darko, Nightcrawler and Brokeback Mountain.
Gyllenhaal largely avoids starring in VFX-driven blockbusters, but following his breakthrough in the early 2000s, he made an exception with The Day After Tomorrow. This saw him play the estranged son of Dennis Quaid's paleoclimatologist, who sets out to rescue Gyllenhaal's Sam when the planet is suddenly plunged into a new Ice Age thanks to global warming.
This Roland Emmerich disaster movie is pure hokum from opening to end credits - but boy, is it enjoyable hokum too. The Day After Tomorrow debuted on Netflix on November 1, with FlixPatrol showing it has already topped the streamer's movie charts. In a sense, it's the perfect blockbuster to rediscover on a streaming platform, with newcomers attracted to its retro vibe and timely subject matter while viewers who saw it back in 2004 want to see how it holds up.
The Day After Tomorrow Is One Of Jake Gyllenhaal's Biggest Box Office Hits
© 20th Century Fox Film Corp Courtesy: Everett Collection.Scientists may have decried The Day After Tomorrow as, well, pure hokum, but the disaster movie's warning about the impending threat of climate change is only more potent in 2026. Still, what sold the film was its trailer and TV spots, filled with epic scenes of destruction, such as a tsunami chasing after Gyllenhaal's Sam in New York or tornadoes ravaging Los Angeles.
Despite mixed reviews (par for the course for any Roland Emmerich movie), The Day After Tomorrow still netted over $550 million worldwide (via Box Office Mojo). This makes it the second-highest grosser of Jake Gyllenhaal's career, behind Spider-Man: Far From Home, which made over a billion dollars. Again, summer blockbusters aren't really the star's comfort zone, and when he does appear in them, he is typically playing a supporting role.
That might be an alternate world where the success of The Day After Tomorrow propelled Gyllenhaal onto more blockbuster parts. Instead, he backed away from high-profile offers like playing the titular role in Batman Begins to focus on smaller, more character-driven projects like Jarhead.
Why Roland Emmerich's Film Is Still One Of The Best Disaster Movies Of The 2000s
In his heyday, nobody helmed disaster epics with more aplomb than Roland Emmerich. After directing 1996's evergreen Independence Day, the German auteur almost exclusively focused on disaster movies. His take on Godzilla in 1998 was famously a hot mess, since the filmmaker had no real affinity or affection for the title creature, and put his attention on hollow action sequences or misfiring comedy scenes instead.
Scratch & Peek
Identify the cover art while scratching off as little foil as possible.
Scratch to reveal
Low reveal = bigger bonus
Results
High Score: 0
—
The Day After Tomorrow was a total rebound in 2004, where he combined a great hook with some very cinematic destruction. Emmerich also has the budgets available to lure in some very talented actors, who can make the scenes of science babble sound vaguely plausible. The film is slick, fast-moving entertainment from a bygone era, and it's both a good and bad thing that blockbusters aren't made this way anymore.
The 2000s generally were a strange time for disaster epics. The Day After Tomorrow is definitely one of the best, but there were a lot of misses too. The 2006 remake of Poseidon felt about 20 years out of date the instant it debuted, while The Core was a janky misfire that makes most of Emmerich's work appear rigorously researched.
Even his The Day After Tomorrow follow-up, 2012, lacked the magic touch of his previous work. That's likely why his 2004 hit has surged up the Netflix charts. It has a warm glow of nostalgia to it, the effects hold up shockingly well, and it's really the final time Emmerich got the balance of characters and action just right.
Source: FlixPatrol, Box Office Mojo
-
Birthdate December 19, 1980
Birthplace Los Angeles, California, USA
Notable Projects Donnie Darko, Nightcrawler, Zodiac
English (US) ·