Blockbuster that's new on Netflix deserves to be seen despite 45% on Rotten Tomatoes

In the 1990s and 2000s, Roland Emmerich directed a string of big-budget disaster movies that he's still arguably known for to this day; he attacked it with aliens in Independence Day , stomped a monster across it with Godzilla , drowned it in water in 2012 and froze it over in The Day After Tomorrow .

That latter movie isn't his best-known of the bunch but with it having just been added to Netflix in the UK (as of Sunday, September 8), subscribers to the world's biggest streaming service are getting a new opportunity to revisit the 2004 epic.

The Day After Tomorrow is about a series of freak weather events that strike the world due to climate change; when New York City is flooded and subsequently frozen over, the paleoclimatologist who predicted the changes needs to save his son who's stuck in the city.

Dennis Quaid stars as this scientist, Jack, in a cast that also includes Jake Gyllenhall, Ian Holm, Sela Ward and Emmy Rossum.

While topics of climate change are bandied about in modern blockbusters loads nowadays, back in 2004 it was a little rarer to see a movie depicting it as the fall of mankind.  Emmerich is reportedly working on a spiritual successor to the movie called Exodus which sounds like it's a few years out, but fans of the director might be apprehensive about him releasing continuations to his classics after Independence Day: Resurgence ...

In true Roland Emmerich style, The Day After Tomorrow wasn't popular with critics (it has a 45% score on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing) but was a much bigger hit with audiences, making a huge profit and becoming the sixth highest-grossing movie of its year.

As a result The Day After Tomorrow may not be joining our list of the best movies on Netflix any time soon, but its addition to the platform will give you a change to re-watch it 20 years after its release to see if it stands up.

While Emmerich's popcorn blockbusters should be the perfect kind of Netflix movie for after a long day of work, 2012 is actually the only other one on Netflix at the time of writing. However the director's movies are constantly jumping on or off the streamer, so you'll be able to see more if you just wait around for a few months.

Not in the UK? The Day After Tomorrow is on Disney Plus in the US and Australia.