General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Snow Day

Snow Day is a 2000 American family comedy film directed by Chris Koch and written by Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi, in which an unexpected snowfall shuts down a town in upstate New York and gives the local children a day off from school. The film follows teenage Hal Brandston, who uses the day to pursue the most popular girl in his school, and his ten-year-old sister Natalie, who leads a campaign to keep the schools closed for a second day by taking on a menacing snowplow driver known as Snowplowman.¹ It was produced by Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies and released in wide distribution on February 11, 2000.²

Key fact	Detail
Release	Wide theatrical release February 11, 2000, by Paramount Pictures; video release October 3, 2000, by Paramount Home Video²
Director and writers	Directed by Chris Koch; written by Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi³
Production companies	Paramount Pictures, Nickelodeon Movies, Snow Day Productions, New Faction Pictures, Paramount Pictures International³
Box office	Domestic $60,008,303; international $2,444,624; worldwide $62,452,927 against a $13,000,000 production budget²
Opening weekend	$14,331,819 in 2,664 theaters, 23.9% of the total domestic gross²
Ratings	MPAA PG for brief mild peril and language; British Board of Film Classification passed it PG for mild language and mild threat²^•⁴
Critical reception	28% Tomatometer from 67 reviews and 27% Popcornmeter from more than 25,000 ratings on Rotten Tomatoes³
Running time	89 minutes per The Numbers; Paramount lists 90 minutes²^•⁵

Spoilers

Plot and premise

The story takes place on a single snow day in a small town in upstate New York. Fifteen-year-old Hal Brandston sees the closure as a chance to win the heart of Claire Bonner, the most popular girl in his school, while ten-year-old Natalie believes the day can be turned into something better: a second snow day. To keep the schools closed, Natalie and the other elementary school children try to stop a mechanical snowplow driver by hijacking his plow truck.¹ Netflix's synopsis adds that the children's father, a weatherman, is drawn into a showdown with a rival meteorologist on the same day.⁶

Paramount's synopsis frames the film as a set of intersecting small stories: a lovesick teenager declares his affection for the girl of his dreams, a downtrodden employee defies his tyrannical employer, and a ten-year-old tackles the scariest villain of her life.⁵ The Numbers catalogs its plot points as bullies, first love, love triangle, professional rivalry, romance, and extreme weather, set in a small town.²

Cast and crew

Principal cast. Mark Webber plays Hal Brandston and Zena Grey plays Natalie Brandston, with Chris Elliott as the villainous Snowplowman. The supporting cast includes Schuyler Fisk as Lane Leonard, Emmanuelle Chriqui as Claire Bonner, Jean Smart as Laura Brandston, Chevy Chase as Tom Brandston, Pam Grier as Tina, John Schneider as Chad Symmonz, and Iggy Pop as Mr. Zellweger.⁵ The British Board of Film Classification's cast list also names Kyle Alisharan, J. Adam Brown, David Paetkau, and Josh Peck.⁴

Behind the camera, Albie Hecht and Julia Pistor produced, with Robbie Greenberg as cinematographer, David Finfer as editor, and Leslie McDonald as production designer.⁷ Steve Bartek handled music scoring.⁵

Box office

The film opened on February 11, 2000, in 2,664 theaters and grossed $14,331,819 on its opening weekend, ranking third for the frame.² It expanded to a maximum of 2,717 theaters and ran an average of 7.8 weeks per theater.² Against a production budget of $13,000,000, it earned $60,008,303 domestically and $2,444,624 internationally, for a worldwide total of $62,452,927, about 4.8 times its budget; domestic sales accounted for 96.1% of the total.² Box Office Mojo reports slightly higher figures of $60,020,107 domestic and $62,464,731 worldwide.⁸ Adjusted for inflation, The Numbers places the domestic gross at $133,153,861.²

Reception

Critical response was negative. On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 28% Tomatometer from 67 reviews and a 27% Popcornmeter score from more than 25,000 audience ratings; the site's critics consensus describes a weak assembly of characters and story lines that made the movie forgettable and silly.³ Roger Ebert, the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times, wrote that the film was an uninspired assembly of characters and story lines that interrupt one another, and argued that Snowplow Man, played by Elliott as a clone of a Texas Chainsaw gang member, should have been the first character to go.⁹ Some reviewers were warmer: Variety's Lael Loewenstein praised young Zena Grey as a firecracker of talent and Schuyler Fisk's unaffected performance.³

Censorship and home media

The British Board of Film Classification classified the cinema version, timed at 89 minutes 13 seconds, as PG for mild language and mild threat on March 6, 2000, with U.I.P. as the UK distributor.⁴ Home entertainment versions released in 2001 run about 85 minutes and carry the same PG classification, with one version additionally noted as containing mild language and violence.⁴ In the United States, the film reached home video on October 3, 2000.²

Availability

As of the most recent listings, the film streams on Amazon Prime Video in the United States, with rentals and purchases available through Amazon Video, the Apple TV Store, and Fandango At Home, and free streaming through Hoopla.¹ A digital purchase is also listed at $14.99 on Apple TV, Google TV, and YouTube.¹⁰

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of 2000 to 2002 › Comedies of 2000

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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