New Movies and Series Streaming in January 2023 You Won’t Want to Miss
The new year comes with some fresh feature titles as well as series, and of all the streamers, Netflix takes the cake when it comes to January. In our humble opinion, the streaming giant’s selection of new movies dropping this month are full of ones you won’t want to miss. As for new series, however, our favorites fall under a variety of platforms. Keep reading for our top picks of the fresh features and shows premiering this month, along with the performances to anticipate in each.
Our January films
The Pale Blue Eye
In case you didn’t know, Edgar Allan Poe — the famous poet who some call “the godfather of the detective story” — once attended the military academy West Point. It seems fitting that the source material for the latest Christian Bale-starrer, Louis Bayard’s novel of the same name, should be a mystery that blends fact and fiction. The upcoming Netflix original sees Bale playing a detective named Augustus Landor, who’s investigating a series of cold-blooded murders at the military academy in upstate New York. It’s 1830, and Landor enlists the help of a young cadet attending West Point at the time, Poe (Harry Melling), to assist him on the case. You’ll have to wait until the thriller drops on Netflix come January 6 to delve deeper into the dark, “tell-tale” heart of the case. And when you do, be sure to keep an eye out for a stacked roster of names that includes the likes of Robert Duvall, Gillian Anderson, Lucy Boynton, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Toby Jones.
Dog Gone
This pick is for all the dog-lovers out there. An upcoming adaption of Pauls Toutonghi’s 2016 book of the same name tells the true story of John Marshall (Rob Lowe) and his son Fielding (Johnny Berchtold) as they go on an epic search for the family’s beloved pooch, Gonker, who went missing somewhere along the Appalachian Trail. The stakes are high, with only two weeks to find Gonker, who can’t survive past that window of time without medication. And according to its star, the film might just be a tear-jerker. “It’s just a total emotional journey that will definitely give you all the feels,” Lowe told Tudum. Besides performances from the A-lister and Berchtold, you can also watch for Kimberly Williams-Paisley as Lowe’s onscreen spouse when Dog Gone releases on Netflix come January 13.
You People
If you’ve been looking for a star-studded, LA-based comedy that also happens to be Kenya Barris’ feature directorial debut, consider your search over. The filmmaker co-wrote with Jonah Hill the upcoming rom-com about a couple from two very different families. Hill stars in You People as Ezra Cohen, the son of two progressive Jewish parents (Julia Louis-Dreyfus and David Duchovny), who falls in love with a woman named Amira Mohammed (Lauren London). Her parents (Eddie Murphy and Nia Long) are Muslim, and as evidenced by the film’s teaser, they’re not necessarily thrilled with the prospect of Ezra as a potential son-in-law. “So do you hang out in the hood all the time, or do you just come up here for our food and women?” Amira’s father asks Ezra in the preview. And besides the aforementioned all-star cast, you can also take in performances from Rhea Perlman, Elliott Gould and Mike Epps when You People bows on Netflix come January 27.
Shotgun Wedding
We’ve finally made it to the one non-Netflix title on our film list, and it’s coming in with a bang. (No pun intended.) Jennifer Lopez and Josh Duhamel respectively star in Shotgun Wedding as Darcy and Tom, an engaged couple who face some challenges leading up to the altar during their destination wedding. Between the couple’s own cold feet and their guests being taken hostage by pirates, the adventure comedy promises some laughs along the way. Plus, its trailer shows us Jennifer Coolidge — as Tom’s mom — iterating all the things us mere mortals think about Lopez. “You look so much better than the rest of us,” Coolidge’s character asserts at one point. “I just want to ask, is that genetics, or is it like Pilates?” You’ll have to wait until January 27 when Shotgun Wedding drops on Prime Video for any potential answers, as well as to find out what happens with the film’s central nuptials. At that time, be sure to also be on the lookout for appearances from names like Cheech Marin and Lenny Kravitz.
New year, new series
Kaleidoscope
You can kick off 2023 with what’s likely a new experience, thanks to the new Netflix series that dropped on the streamer January 1. Kaleidoscope spans 25 years and follows a group of master thieves who attempt the biggest payday in history by taking on a seemingly unbreakable vault, as well as a world-class security team and the FBI. Don’t jump to any conclusions about the series based on its description, though, because Kaleidoscope is not your average piece of heist content. The non-linear anthology series offers its viewers different immersive experiences based on when they enter the show’s central crime. Each episode is color-coordinated, meaning some viewers might start on the green episode, while others may begin watching Kaleidoscope with perhaps its yellow episode. Creator Eric Garcia told Tudum that the series is set up to give people a unique screening experience. “Being able to move around and watch different orders gives you a different viewpoint on the characters. There are questions that are going to be asked in one episode that are answered in another episode,” Garcia noted. “Similarly, there’ll be answers in an episode that you’re watching that you don’t even know are answers to something until you see the question when you watch another episode.” If you catch the new series, be sure to take in performances from a stacked cast list that includes names like Giancarlo Esposito, Rufus Sewell, Paz Vega, Tati Gabrielle, Peter Mark Kendall, Rosaline Elbay and Jai Courtney.
The Last of Us
Video game fans, rejoice! The latest game to get the TV treatment is none other than Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us. The screen adaptation will see Pedro Pascal as Joel Miller, a hardened survivor existing in a post-apocalyptic United States ravaged by a lethal disease known as the Cordyceps fungus. The character is hired to smuggle a 14-year-old named Ellie (Bella Ramsey) out of an oppressive quarantine zone, and they learn to rely on one another in order to survive a dangerous cross-country journey. Besides Pascal and Ramsey, keep an eye out for Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson, who respectively voiced the characters of Joel and Ellie in The Last of Us game. It was announced earlier this year that they will appear in the HBO series as different characters, along with an impressive supporting cast that includes names like Storm Reid, Nick Offerman, Melanie Lynskey and Murray Bartlett. You can catch all these performances and more when the series releases on HBO and HBO Max come January 15.
That ‘90s Show
Nineties babies, are you ready to see all the culture of your youth brought back in a period piece? Ready or not, the That ‘70s Show spin-off series is dropping on Netflix this month, and it’s coming for your decade. That ‘90s Show picks back up with Red (Kurtwood Smith) and Kitty Forman (Debra Jo Rupp) in 1995, who are now finally empty-nesters. That is, until their granddaughter Leia (Callie Haverda) arrives in Point Place, Wisconsin and winds up staying for the summer, accumulating her own crew of friends that adopt the Forman basement as their go-to hangout spot. You can catch Ashley Aufderheide, Mace Coronel, Maxwell Acee Donovan, Reyn Doi and Sam Morelos as the new generation of layabout teens in That ‘90s Show, as well as glimpses of their predecessors. Eric (Topher Grace), Donna (Laura Prepon), Kelso (Ashton Kutcher), Jackie (Mila Kunis) and Fez (Wilmer Valderrama) are all slated to make appearances in the new series. You’ll have to wait until January 19 when That ‘90s Show releases to find out if any more original characters turn up in the spin-off show.
Poker Face
Rian Johnson has done it again. First, he revived the whodunnit film genre with Knives Out, and now he’s taken to TV to bring back the idea of a “mystery-of-the-week” show. Johnson’s upcoming series Poker Face stars Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale, a woman with an impeccable ability to discern when someone’s lying. The Peacock Original’s official logline details how “she hits the road with her Plymouth Barracuda and with every stop, encounters a new cast of characters and strange crimes she can’t help but solve.” The series’ teaser previews just what that “cast of characters” encompasses with an impressive amount of familiar faces packed into its 72 seconds, including Adrien Brody, Chloë Sevigny, Dascha Polanco, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Lil Rel Howery, Nick Nolte and Ron Perlman. Tune in on January 26 when Poker Face begins streaming on Peacock to catch all these performances and more.
From The Pale Blue Eye to Shotgun Wedding, to Kaleidoscope to Poker Face, we’ve got the start of your 2023 watchlist covered. Whether you decide to go with a historical fiction piece, a feel-good feature, a video game adaptation, the spin-off of a beloved sitcom, or all eight, our picks have plenty of notable performances to take in along the way.
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