Netflix‘s constantly rotating carousel of content makes it tough to always find the best movies, especially if something is there one day and gone the next. The good news for subscribers though is that one of their most consistent deals as a streamer is with Sony Pictures, who debut all of their new movies on Netflix in a first-run streaming arrangement that has seen recent movies like Karate Kid: Legends, One of Them Days, and Until Dawn all premiere on Netflix not long after they’ve left movie theaters. Another of those titles is set to be available on the service in the not too distant future, but more importantly is the fact that the original film in the series has now arrived on Netflix.
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As of today, Netflix has become the new streaming home for none other than 2003’s genre-defining zombie horror movie, 28 Days Later. Danny Boyle’s feature film has had a sordid history with streaming and even home media in the two decades since it was first released, only becoming readily available to watch online as the hype for 2025’s 28 Years Later began to really build. Naturally, that leads to additional good news, and the entire reason Netflix acquired the streaming rights to 28 Days Later, the 2003 movie is streaming on the platform right now, but 2025’s 28 Years Later will start streaming on Netflix tomorrow, Saturday, September 20th.
It’s worth noting however that 2007’s 28 Weeks Later, the second movie in the franchise, is NOT available on Netflix (as of this writing, 28 Weeks Later is streaming on Hulu and Shudder). That said, prospective audiences can absolutely jump from 28 Days Later to 28 Years Later and skip 28 Weeks Later entirely if they so choose. Even though the film is a fun follow-up with some cool set pieces, the very opening title card of 28 Years Later makes it clear that any lingering plot threads from that movie are not going to be taken into consideration for 28 Years Later or its planned follow-up movies.
28 Days Later Changed the Zombie Genre for the Better
When it was released, 28 Days Later arrived at a point when the horror genre as a whole was in a major state of fluctuation, one that would lead to rebirth in a major way. The 1980s had seen a glut of horror films saturate the market both in theaters and on home video, bringing us classics like The Evil Dead, Day of the Dead, Night of the Comet, and Return of the Living Dead, which lead to a decade in the 1990s where it ended up taking on a lesser status, meaning less movies overall but also ones that weren’t well received.
28 Days Later made its US premiere in 2003, arriving just after the first Resident Evil movie and right before Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead remake. All three of the movies would no doubt be major springboards for the surge in popularity of the zombie genre, which took an even bigger boom with The Walking Dead TV show, but the Cillian Murphy-starring film in particular kickstarted a major argument among genre fans: Do you prefer zombies that run or walk? Of course, those among us with a penchant for saying the word “technically” will note that 28 Days Later does not have undead zombie, merely “infected” living people. However, when it comes to having your flesh devoured by a horde, what time is there to judge semantics?
More importantly than its contributions to nerd arguments however is the fact that 28 Days Later did not make itself a movie built entirely around gore and unique deaths. Instead it had a human first perspective where the survivors and their story were the most important element, and one that gave the horrific elements even more power because of the audience’s investment.
28 Years Later Builds on the Franchise in Wild Ways
Release this year, not quite 28 years after the first movie but very close, Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later returned to the world of a post-apocalyptic England littered with infected in ways that surprised even hardcore fans. The movie quickly reveals that the UK has become a no-go zone for the rest of the world, and the population that remains have become isolated and reverted to an older style of life. In addition the movie reveals that the Rage Virus at the center of the entire series has evolved, with some infected slinking around on the ground and eating worms while others have become muscular and fast, making them more dangerous than ever.
The best news about the new movie is that it’s not a one-and-done legacy sequel to Boyle’s original. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, a direct sequel to this year’s movie has already debuted its first trailer and will premiere in theaters in January of 2026. There are also plans in place for a third movie in the “28 Years Later” cycle to be produced, but details on that follow-up are scant.
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Image Courtesy of Marvel Comics
