Up until the release of his feature directorial debut Get Out, nobody had any inclination that Jordan Peele was set to instantly establish himself as the horror genre’s next can’t-miss talent. His entire filmography to that point had been based almost entirely in comedy, from co-creating and starring in sketch show Key & Peele to the duo’s big screen caper Keanu, via appearances in live-action and animated projects like Little Fockers, Wanderlust, The Mindy Project, Rick and Morty, Bob’s Burgers and more.
That all changed when Get Out grabbed the zeitgeist by the collar, earned over $255 million at the box office on a budget of just $4.5 million and became a genuine awards season juggernaut, with Peele winning Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars as his movie also found itself shortlisted for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor.
Needless to say, his next effort behind the camera came with vastly increased expectations as a result, and Us mostly managed to deliver. Anchored by a phenomenal double turn by Lupita Nyong’o, the ambitious story followed a family vacation gone horribly wrong as a secret world of doppelgängers and childhood trauma makes itself known in relentlessly intense fashion, with the Tethered finally taking matters into their own hands and looking to stake their claim for a life on the surface.
Masterfully sidestepping the ‘difficult second movie’ syndrome, Us was another critical and commercial smash hit for Peele, and it’s currently posting a strong showing on Netflix, where it can be found racing up the viewership rankings on the global chart. The atmospheric chiller is the sixteenth most popular title in the content library around the world today, and will no doubt continue to rise higher over the rest of the week.
