Russell Crowe’s 2014 Noah makes its way onto Netflix’s Top 10
The 10-year-old Darren Aronofsky film was divisive when released, so what changed to make it popular today?
Noah was released in 2014 and was met with mixed reviews, but performed well at the box office. Photo: Paramount via Netflix
Many of us are familiar with Russell Crowe’s “swords and sandals” film Gladiator, but he has also featured in a movie of epic proportions that didn’t fare so well in public opinion.
Noah, directed by Darren Aronofsky in 2014 with Crowe in the titular role – which was met with extremely mixed reviews – has enjoyed a renewed surge in popularity thanks to Netflix.
The epic, also featuring Jennifer Connelly and Emma Watson, tells the story of Noah’s ark, and despite it being a story many have likely heard time and time again, it was a box-office success upon its release, bringing in some $500 million (in today’s currency) worldwide.
Netflix releases its top 10 most-watched movies every week, and from March 4 to 10, Crowe’s deluge drama was the fifth most-watched film on the platform.
Darren Aronofsky’s Noah is among the most-watched movies on Netflix in the US.
Globally, it is No.10 on the same list for the same week.
It has only spent one week in the top 10 list and sits behind the likes of Damsel, Spaceman and The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
Even Crowe and Aronofsky acknowledged that people were watching the film again, 10 years after its release.
“This is an interesting turn of events,” Crowe wrote on X, sharing Screen Rant’s story about it trending on Netflix.
“If you’ve never seen Noah, it’s currently on US Netflix. Check it out.”
Aronofsky thanked people on X for streaming Noah, and remarked it was “fun to see it still stirring the pot”.
Why is Noah so divisive?
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a ‘Tomatometre’ score of 75 per cent and an audience score of just 41 per cent.
Some critics called Noah “brave” and “thought provoking”, while others found it “uneven” and “an epic disaster of truly biblical proportions”.
“Perhaps one of the Ten Commandments should be ‘Thou shalt not make an Old Testament epic’,” Kate Muir from the UK’s The Times wrote in her review.
Many critics gave the film favourable reviews, but audiences were less forgiving.
“Overblown epic; grandiose filmmaking watered down by self-seriousness. Game performances, amazing special effects but too cumbersome to get through,” one reviewer wrote.
It also appears a decent number of filmgoers were upset the story strayed from what it says about Noah in the Bible and The Book of Enoch, an ancient Hebrew text.
Even before the movie was released, there were concerns religious movie lovers would take offence to Aronofsky’s adaptation.
Paramount made several cuts to Noah, The Hollywood Reporter noted back in 2014, after viewers were not happy with the intensity Crowe brought to the screen.
Aronofsky, who grew up Jewish, didn’t want the film to alienate people who weren’t religious.
In the same Hollywood Reporter article, he said he made Noah for “everyone” and Collider’s Liam Gaughan noted that it seemed apparent the director wanted to make a biblical film relevant to the 21st century.
“It’s hard not to see the ‘Great Flood’ itself as a parable about climate change, as well as how the plight of refugees certainly relates to current news stories.”
– TND
