The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

The Day After Tomorrow is a 2004 American science fiction disaster film co-written, directed, and produced by Roland Emmerich and starring Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Ian Holm, Emmy Rossum, and Sela Ward. It is based on the book The Coming Global Superstorm by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber. The film depicts catastrophic climatic effects following the disruption of the North Atlantic Ocean circulation in a series of extreme weather events that usher in global cooling and lead to a new ice age.^[2]

Originally slated for release in the summer of 2003, The Day After Tomorrow premiered in Mexico City on May 17, 2004, and was released in the United States on May 28, 2004. A major commercial success, the film became the sixth highest-grossing film of 2004. Filmed in Toronto and Montreal, it is the highest-grossing Hollywood film made in Canada (adjusted for inflation). It received mixed reviews upon release, with critics highly praising the film's special effects but criticizing its writing and numerous scientific inaccuracies.

Jack Hall, an American paleoclimatologist, and his colleagues Frank Harris and Jason Evans, drill for ice-core samples in the Larsen Ice Shelf for the NOAA, when the shelf breaks apart. Jack warns of impending global warming at a UN conference in New Delhi, but US Vice President Raymond Becker dismisses his concerns. Professor Terry Rapson, an oceanographer of the Hedland Centre in Scotland befriends Jack over his views of an inevitable climate shift. When several buoys in the Atlantic Ocean show a severe ocean temperature drop, Rapson concludes Jack's theories are correct. Jack's and Rapson's teams, along with NASA meteorologist Janet Tokada, build a forecast model based on Jack's research.

A massive storm system develops in the northern hemisphere, splitting into three gigantic hurricane-like superstorms above Canada, Scotland, and Siberia. The storms pull frozen air from the upper troposphere into their center, flash-freezing anything caught in their eyes with temperatures below −150 °F (−100 °C). Meanwhile, the weather worsens across the world; Tokyo is struck by a giant hail storm, sea levels in Nova Scotia rise 25 feet (7.6 m) in seconds, and Los Angeles is devastated by a tornado outbreak. Following this, President Blake issues an executive order for the FAA to ground all air traffic across the country.

In New York City, Jack's son Sam, and his friends Brian Parks and Laura Chapman participate in an academic decathlon, where they meet new friend JD. New York is soon caught in the North American storm and the weather becomes progressively more violent, resulting in a massive storm surge flooding Manhattan. This forces Sam's group to seek shelter at the New York Public Library, but not before Laura accidentally cuts her leg. While cellphone communications are down, Sam is able to contact Jack and his mother Lucy, a physician, through a working payphone; Jack advises him to stay inside and promises to rescue him. Rapson and his team perish in the European storm. Lucy remains in a hospital caring for bed-ridden children, where she and her patients are eventually rescued by the authorities.

Upon Jack's suggestion, Blake orders the southern states to be evacuated into Mexico; the northern half are doomed to be hit by the superstorm, but are warned by the government to seek shelters and stay warm. With the storm having now reached Washington, Blake perishes after his motorcade is caught in it, making Becker the new President. Jack, Jason, and Frank make their way to New York against all odds. In Pennsylvania, Frank falls through the skylight of a mall, cutting his rope to prevent his friends from falling in after him. In the library, most survivors, upon seeing many survivors from other structures deciding to head south after the floodwater outside freezes over, decide to follow suit in spite of Sam's warnings; only a few survivors end up taking heed of Sam's advice to stay put, burning books to stay warm as the temperatures plunge.

Laura develops blood poisoning from her injury, whereupon Sam, Brian, and JD scour a Russian cargo vessel that had drifted into the city for penicillin, fending off a pack of wolves which escaped from Central Park Zoo. The eye of the North American storm arrives, freezing Manhattan solid, but Sam's group make it inside just in time with the medicine and food. Likewise, Jack and Jason take shelter in an abandoned Wendy's restaurant. Jack and Jason continue to proceed towards New York after the eye has passed. While traveling, they come across the group who left the library frozen to death. Days later, the superstorms dissipate. Jack and Jason successfully reach the library, finding Sam's group alive.

Becker, in his first address as President, apologizes on television for his ignorance, vowing to send helicopters to rescue survivors in the northern states. Jack and Sam's group are picked up in Manhattan, where many people have survived. On the International Space Station, astronauts look down in awe at the transformed surface of the planet, now free of pollution, and with new ice caps generated by the superstorms, extending across the northern hemisphere.