This weekend, the acclaimed action movie Snowpiercer left the Netflix catalog, but you can now stream it for free on Peacock instead. The 2013 movie was directed by Oscar-winning South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho, who went on to make Parasite and Okja. If you were hoping to revisit Bong’s early hit starring Chris Evans, here’s how.
Peacock is one of the few streaming services to offer a free membership tier, relying on ads instead of subscriptions to cover the cost. You can sign up for the streamer here and get right down to watching Snowpiercer — provided you don’t mind an occasional commercial break. If you decide to go ad-free, you can always upgrade your subscription to Premium for $4.99 per month or Premium Plus for $9.99 per month.
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Snowpiercer is an adaptation of a French graphic novel called Le Transperceneige, and it was co-produced by South Korean and Czech film studios. Unlike some of Bong’s other films, the dialogue in this movie is almost entirely in English, which likely helped contribute to its success in the U.S. It was a critical success and a relative commercial success as well, though now that Bong and Evans have both risen even higher into Hollywood stardom, the movie may see even greater acclaim.
Snowpiercer is set in the near future in the year 2032, and it is primarily concerned with climate change. In this timeline, scientists used a stratospheric aerosol injection to try to stop global warming, only to have it backfire and trigger a new ice age. The movie takes place 18 years after that calamity, at a time when the only survivors of humanity are living on a self-sustaining train called the Snowpiercer that constantly circumnavigates the globe.
Evans plays Curtis Everett, a revolutionary fighting on behalf of the impoverished people living in the back of the train. They fight against armed security guards and against disinformation, trying to determine the real cause for the resource shortages and other misfortunes the passengers are facing. Along the way, they make some discoveries about the ice age itself.
Like so many other South Korean films in recent years, Snowpiercer is considered to be a commentary on systemic issues like enforced poverty, ultimately leading viewers to the conclusion that the cause of climate change is simple greed. However, it is lauded by people all along the political spectrum, with a staggering 94 percent positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
The movie is full of other familiar faces to American audiences, including Ed Harris, John Hurt, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer, Ewen Bremner, Alison Pill, Vlad Ivanov and Luke Pasqualino. Other stars include Song Kang-ho and Go Ah-sung, among others.
Snowpiercer left Netflix on Saturday, Jan. 1, 2022. The movie is streaming now on Peacock at all membership levels.
