Jake Gyllenhaal in The Day After Tomorrow
Credit: 20th Century Fox
News Film Netflix The Day After Tomorrow

People think Netflix is ‘prepping’ us for doomsday after dropping The Day After Tomorrow

Tinfoil hats at the ready

Daisy Phillipson
3rd November 2026, 16:38
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Tinfoil hats at the ready, because Netflix dropped the 2004 disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow in the US this week, and already it’s raced to first place. Now, some users are speculating that the timing is particularly interesting. 

Even though Roland Emmerich’s sci-fi action film dropped more than two decades ago, it still feels relevant. The disaster at its centre is a series of extreme weather events that usher in climate change and lead to a new ice age.

Dennis Quaid stars as paleoclimatologist Jack Hall, who embarks on a dangerous trek to New York City to save his son Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal) from the disaster. 

Even though it only just dropped on Netflix US on November 1, the film is now in first place on the top 10 movies chart in the US. 

But that’s not the reason people are talking about The Day After Tomorrow. Instead, they’re talking about the timing of this movie’s newfound popularity and how it arrives as fears of nuclear attacks and an all-out World War Three dominate headlines. 

With governments around the world urging citizens to prepare emergency supplies, including food, water and other essentials, some viewers are drawing unsettling parallels between the film’s apocalyptic storyline and the current global climate.

As one X user wrote, “Ironic that The Day After Tomorrow is the #1 movie right now on Netflix.” Another said, “I guess I’m gonna watch The Day After Tomorrow again. It fits the current events in every way.”

“I just noticed Netflix added 2004 The Day After Tomorrow and makes its #1 for movies in the US. What are they trying to tell us?” asked a third, while a fourth chimed in, “I’m rewatching The Day After Tomorrow and idk man our days might be numbered.”

One person even got a notification about the movie’s upcoming release on Netflix – something they claim they’ve never had before. 

“Why is Netflix sending me Day After Tomorrow now available, I never had any messages from them. I think we’re f**ked people Netflix prepping,” they wrote. 

Of course, Netflix isn’t subliminally warning us that the end of the world is nigh. The timing is almost certainly coincidental, rather than some sinister prediction of impending doom.

That said, The Day After Tomorrow has always come with a rather dramatic warning about climate change. Its depiction of a planet plunged into catastrophe practically overnight might be wildly exaggerated, but the environmental concerns behind it are very real.

This was the conversation being had the last time the movie dropped on Netflix. As said by film TikToker Saints Watch,  ”The Day After Tomorrow came out in 2004, and it tried to warn us about climate change, and nobody took it seriously.”

He noted how people said it was “over the top”, and yet now “hurricanes are getting stronger” and there are “wildfires that won’t stop”. “Twenty years later and we’re living in the movie we all made fun of,” he finished. 

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Featured image credit: Netflix