Jordan Peele’s Best Movie Is The #1 Film On Streaming
Jordan Peele's Nope is the number one movie on Amazon Prime.
Amazon Prime viewers are saying yup to Nope in record numbers! According to FlixPatrol, the Jordan Peele horror masterpiece is currently ranked number one on the streaming service. The movie is such a unique deconstruction of blockbusters that it’s not hard to see why.
Jordon Peele, Hollywood’s newest maestro of horror, continues his exploration of the Black experience in America, this time against the backdrop of a huge event movie. Nope operates on a much larger scale than Peele’s previous two movies, Get Out and Us. The movie abandons the intimate horror of Peele’s other films in favor of a giant monster movie.
The plot is fairly simple, siblings OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald (Keke Palmer) Haywood own a business renting horses to Hollywood movie productions. One night the pair experience a freak “storm” where common items like keys and shoes rain down from the sky, surrounded by a torrent of blood. The duo soon realize they’re dealing with a UFO of some kind and try to get video proof.
Meanwhile, former child star and amusement park owner Ricky “Jupe” Park, played by the Walking Dead’s Steven Yeun, has been charging parkgoers to observe the UFO while it “feeds.” Jordan Peele rounds out the cast with veteran actors Keith David and Michael Wincott, along with relative newcomer Brandon Perea. Kaluuya and Palmer are the clear standouts, but there are no duds in Nope‘s all-star cast.
Nope was both a critical and financial hit. The movie grossed $171.2 million worldwide on a budget of $68 million. Critics, for the most part, loved the Jordan Peele film. Nope, currently sits at 83 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
Nope was inexplicably snubbed at this year’s Oscars despite being nominated for a variety of awards from other organizations. The movie wasn’t nominated for a single Academy Award despite being what many viewers considered the best film of 2022. While it’s not known why the Academy ignored Jordan Peele, it’s definitely a significant oversite on their part.
Nope is the third film to be directed by Jordan Peele. The director’s previous films, Get Out and Us, were also adored by critics and fans alike. Many saw Jordan’s unique approach to movie making–horror films from a mostly Black perspective–as a much-needed breath of fresh air compared to the stagnant (and mostly caucasian) horror landscape.
Prior to Get Out, Jordan Peele was best known as half of the comedy duo Key & Peele. Jordan, along with friend and frequent collaborator Keegan Michael Key, starred in an acclaimed sketch comedy show of the same name for five seasons on Comedy Central.
Prior to Get Out, many fans would have considered horror a weird choice for Jordan Peele, given his comedy background. Once the movie came out, however, any doubts the public had in regard to Peele’s horror chops went right out the window. Now with Nope, Jordan has cemented himself as one of the new kings of horror.
Jordan Peele cites movie franchises like King Kong, Jurassic Park, and the Signs film as influences for Nope. Surprisingly absent from the list is Jaws, a movie that Nope arguably owes its biggest debt to. The Steven Speilberg classic can be felt all throughout Nope.
From how it teases its monster to the inclusion of Michael Wincott’s Quint-like Antlers, Jaws is with Nope in spirit for the entire runtime.
This isn’t to say that Jordan Peele ripped off the 1975 killer shark flick. On the contrary, Jordan Peele, much like fellow director Quentin Tarantino is a master of taking his influences and remixing them in unique and thought-provoking ways.
Nope is a pastiche of Spielbergian blockbusters while still being very much a Jordan Peele joint. It’s more Jackie Brown than Stranger Things. Peele might wear his influences on his sleeve, but he sewed the whole shirt himself.
Speaking of influences, one of the works that inspired the design of Nope‘s UFO is very different from the above-named films. Jordan Peele has admitted publicly that the biggest visual inspiration for Jean Jacket was the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. Specifically, it was the Angels of Evangelion that helped Jordan to visualize the film’s main antagonist.
Overall Nope is both the culmination of Peele’s first phase as a filmmaker and also a sign of things to come from the director. If Nope is any indication, Jordan Peele is going to end up being one of the most important horror auteurs of his generation.
