Every month, Netflix adds movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of January’s most promising new titles for U.S. subscribers. (Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)
‘Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever’
Starts streaming: Jan. 1
The entrepreneur and influencer Bryan Johnson has been in the news a lot over the past couple of years because of his use and promotion of experimental, controversial life-extension therapies. The documentary filmmaker Chris Smith (“100 Foot Wave,” “Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened”) lets Johnson explain himself at length in “Don’t Die,” which tells the story of how and why Johnson became interested in radical wellness, while also following him through several of his latest procedures. Smith gives Johnson’s critics a chance to comment on how he is spending his fortune and on the dangers he poses to his large online following. But this film is more focused on trying to understand what drives Johnson to pursue immortality.
‘Missing You’
Starts streaming: Jan. 1
The latest Netflix mini-series adaptation of a Harlan Coben thriller novel, “Missing You” has Rosalind Eleazar playing Kat Donovan, a British police detective who is surprised when the fiancé who disappeared years ago suddenly reappears on one of her dating apps. While trying to get to the bottom of that mystery, Kat also finds herself re-examining another old case with a personal connection after the man imprisoned for her father’s murder makes a cryptic deathbed statement. As tends to happen in Coben’s plots, the protagonist’s personal and professional lives blur together as she races to answer big questions from her past.
‘Cunk on Life’
Starts streaming: Jan. 2
A follow-up to the hilarious mockumentary series “Cunk on Earth,” this one-hour special sends the pompous and incurious TV host Philomena Cunk (Diane Morgan) back into the world to witness historical wonders and to ask confounding questions to eminent academics. The hook this time is that Cunk is trying to understand — or at least pretend to understand — why humanity exists. Written by Charlie Brooker (“Black Mirror”), “Cunk on Life” juxtaposes the Cunk character’s sly spoof of stubbornly ill-informed television personalities with some of history’s most profound philosophical and religious debates, finding humor in the clash between deep thinkers and an earnestly deadpan doofus.
‘Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl’
Starts streaming: Jan. 3
The first new Wallace & Gromit film since 2008 brings back the series’s most infamous character: Feathers McGraw, the thieving penguin who was first thwarted by the absent-minded inventor Wallace and his clever dog, Gromit, in the Oscar-winning 1993 short “The Wrong Trousers.” In the feature-length “Vengeance Most Fowl,” Feathers plots to escape the local zoo and get even by reprogramming one of Wallace’s newest inventions: a robotic garden gnome that, for some reason, has an “evil” setting buried deep within its circuitry. Co-directed and co-written by the franchise’s creator, Nick Park, this movie is of a piece with his other work, combining dry British wit, high-energy slapstick, visually dynamic filmmaking and a generally cheery tone.
‘American Primeval’
Starts streaming: Jan. 9
The veteran action director Peter Berg (“Lone Survivor,” “Patriots’ Day”) tackles American history and the pulp western genre with this six-part mini-series, set against the backdrop of the Utah War of 1857-58. Betty Gilpin plays a woman traveling with her son through dangerous territory, looking for help from a gruff guide (Taylor Kitsch) to get past not only hostile Native tribes and frontier outlaws; they also have to get past the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints militias, who are at war with the United States government. Written by Mark L. Smith, “American Primeval” depicts the pioneer experience as a grinding daily war against the landscape and the elements, carried out in a lawless, nightmarish expanse populated by thieves and murderers.
Also arriving:
Jan. 1
“Apollo 13”
“Dallas Buyers Club”
“Erin Brockovich”
“Inception”
“Interstellar”
“Melancholia”
“Notting Hill”
“Schindler’s List”
Jan. 2
“Stranded With My Mother-in-Law” Season 2
Jan. 3
“Love Is Blind: Germany” Season 1
“Selling the City” Season 1
Jan. 4
“When the Stars Gossip” Season 1
Jan. 6
“My Happy Marriage” Season 2
Jan. 7
“The Breakthrough” Season 1
“Gabriel Iglesias: Legend of Fluffy”
“Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action”
“Younger” Seasons 1-7
Jan. 8
“Fake Profile” Season 2
“Hound’s Hill” Season 1
“Subteran” Season 1
Jan. 9
“Asura” Season 1
“I Am Ilary” Season 1
“Lion”
“The Upshaws” Part 6
Jan. 10
“Ad Vitam”
“Alpha Males” Season 3
Jan. 11
“Sakamoto Days”
Jan. 16
“Castlevania: Nocturne” Season 2
“XO, Kitty” Season 2
Jan. 17
“Back in Action”
Jan. 22
“W.A.G.s to Riches”
Jan. 23
“The Night Agent” Season 2
Jan. 30
“Mo” Season 2
“The Recruit” Season 2
Jan. 31
“The Snow Girl” Season 2
The post The Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to Netflix in January appeared first on New York Times.
