Lupita Nyong'o's Terrifying Sci-Fi Horror Movie Is A Must-Watch On Netflix

The premise for John Krasinski's 2018 sci-fi horror film "A Quiet Place" is fun, and it's easy to see why it was such a big hit. "A Quiet Place" is a post-apocalypse survival thriller about the aftermath of a deadly, global alien invasion. The aliens, in this case, are giant, spindly, murderous creatures with no eyes. What they do have is very sensitive ears, and they tend to attack anyone or anything that makes any kind of sound. So, the only way to stay safe is to remain absolutely quiet at all times. Either that or to live near a noisy river where the aliens won't go.

Krasinski also directed 2021's "A Quiet Place Part II," although that film was kind of forgettable. 2024's "A Quiet Place: Day One," on the other hand, is pretty amazing and outstrips the other movies in the franchise in terms of emotion, character, and quality. Michael Sarnoski, who had previously made the excellent Nicolas Cage drama "Pig," wrote and directed "Day One," and he was able to make it a great, tense horror thriller as well as a heartfelt end-of-life drama. It certainly helped that Lupita Nyong'o was cast in the lead role, as her excellent performance informs much of the film. Those who have yet the movie would do well to change that asap, especially since "Day One" is currently streaming on Netflix.

Moreover, as its title dictates, "Day One" is a prequel and has no explicit references to the previous movies, nor does one need to have watched Krasinski's "A Quiet Day" films to understand it. You can go into this knowing nothing and still enjoy it.

And, to reassure you: the cat will be okay.

In "A Quiet Place: Day One," Lupita Nyog'o plays Sam, a woman with terminal cancer who lives in a run-down hospice house in a remote part of New York City. Sam knows she's dying, and she's trying to retain her dignity, which is difficult when the hospital's field trip takes them to a puppet show in the city. Nonetheless, Sam packs up her pet cat, Frodo, and attends. While in the city, however, meteors begin falling from the sky and attacking aliens follow in due course. Sam is knocked out and comes to after there's already a military presence in the city.

What follows is a grim tale of survival as Sam witnesses New York crumbling around her. (New York, a notoriously noisy place, has a lot of trouble keeping quiet.) In time, Sam befriends a passing British law student named Eric (Joseph Quinn), and he begins following her to New York's evacuation spot. But first, Sam decides to go on a quest of her own. Seeing as she isn't long for this world, Sam would rather travel to Harlem to have one last slice of pizza at her favorite pizzeria — the real-life Patsy's Pizzaria, famously beloved by Frank Sinatra. Sadly, Patsy's closed its Harlem location in 2025. So it goes.

On their journey to Harlem, Sam and Eric begin to bond, revealing personal things about themselves and finding that they kind of trust each other. They become friends. There are, of course, still tense moments aplenty. Sam and Eric have to traverse a flooded subway in one scene, while Eric is forced to venture to a local pharmacy to get some medicine for Sam in another. The film is perfectly paced and weirdly human.

Djimon Honsou reprises his role from "A Quiet Place Part II" in "Day One," but again, you don't need to know what happens to him to enjoy the latter. In addition, Alex Wolff plays a hospice nurse at the start of the movie and Frodo is a very good and very well-behaved cat who never meows at an inopportune moment. Frodo wasn't a CGI creation, either. Surprisingly, he was played by two trained kitties named Nico and Schnitzel. What's more, it turns out that Lupita Nyog'o was afraid of cats before she worked on "A Quiet Place: Day One," so she underwent exposure therapy with various kitties before shooting her role.

With "Day One" becoming a hit unto itself, John Krasinski is now set to write and direct a fourth entry in the franchise titled simply "A Quiet Place Part III." What's more, critics have appreciated all of the "A Quiet Place" movies to date, with "Day One holding an 86% critical approval score on Rotten Tomatoes. Even Adam Nayman, who was harder on the film than other critics, acknowledged that Nyong'o was very good as Sam in his review for Sight and Sound. Writing for the Boston Globe, Natalia Winkelman likewise noted that Sam and Frodo really make the movie sing. And sure, some critics argued that "Day One" should've done more to expand the larger "Quiet Place" mythology, but most folks were too taken with it dramatic power to care. /Film's Chris Evangelista even (correctly) dubbed "Day One" the best "Quiet Place" movie so far in his review.

Again, you can stream "A Quiet Place: Day One" on Netflix right now.