Russell Crowe has swung a sword in Rome, stole from the rich in Sherwood, and wrestled with faith on a giant boat. Two of those turned into cultural landmarks. One of them did not. That last one, Darren Aronofsky's biblical epic Noah, just found new life on streaming and is suddenly climbing the charts like it never left 2014.
Noah is back, and people are watching
Noah just landed on Netflix and, for the moment, viewers are all in. The film is currently the 7th most popular movie on the service worldwide. Over the past week alone, it pulled in more than 3.6 million views. Sitting at No. 1 right now is Tyler Perry's Joe's College Road Trip with a hefty 12.5 million views. Not the matchup I expected to be typing in 2026, but here we are.
The movie itself: big ark, bigger swings
Yes, it is that Noah. Crowe plays the man building the ark after God decides humanity has gone too far. The story tracks the logistics-nightmare-meets-spiritual-crisis of constructing a floating zoo for two of every animal, and then rides out the consequences once the flood hits. Aronofsky treats it like a mythic survival saga with apocalyptic scale and a gnarly intensity you do not always get in Bible movies.
- Cast includes Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman, Douglas Booth, Anthony Hopkins, and Ray Winstone
How it did back then: big money, big arguments
Noah was a box office success, pulling in over $362 million worldwide. Critics were generally on board at the time, with a 75% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Audiences were a lot more split. The movie sits at a 41% user score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 5.8 on IMDb, which tracks with the extremely loud debates it sparked during release.
A major part of that pushback was about the casting. The film was criticized for sidelining non-white actors and presenting a largely white ensemble in a story set around the region of modern-day Turkey. Think along the lines of classic Hollywood biblical epics like the 1956 The Ten Commandments, where Egyptians were played entirely by white actors. That comparison came up a lot.
So... is it worth a watch now?
If you want a glossy, no-wrinkles version of the tale, this is not that. Noah is weird, muscular, and committed to its choices. Crowe is locked in, Jennifer Connelly and Anthony Hopkins bring exactly the gravitas you want, and the mix of practical work and VFX still looks strong. It is not Gladiator in sandals and scripture, and it never tries to be. But as a stormy, full-throated myth movie, it has a pulse—and clearly, streaming audiences just rediscovered it.
The Crowe factor
Gladiator with Ridley Scott set the template for modern historical epics, and their 2010 Robin Hood tried to catch that spark again. Noah is the oddball out—ambitious, divisive, and now unexpectedly popular. If you skipped it in theaters because the discourse got loud, the Netflix bump suggests it might be time to finally climb aboard.