Best new movies and TV series on Neon: January 2023

Neon continues to bring in a convoy of quality shows and films this October. See our handpicked highlights below followed by the full release schedule.

Top picks: TV

Romantic Getaway (January 2)

Consider this the total opposite of the entry below: a show about adults desperate for a baby, causing chaos in their struggle to conceive rather than reacting to the surprising ease of it for Bump‘s young characters. British TV stars Romesh Ranganathan and Katherine Ryan star as a couple who go the lengths of robbing their dodgy boss to get the IVF funds. Turns out their ensuing getaway is not so romantic, once egg retrieval makes things real and they’re dragged into a sordid criminal underworld. Will they successfully get a bun in the oven, only to then spend the baby’s childhood behind bars?

Bump: Season 3 (January 6)

A new season of this sweet Australian family dramedy has been birthed around the start of each new year for a while now, but life for teen mum Oly has made an even more unexpected leap this time around. Season three pushes us five years into the future for her, the unexpected daughter she and on-again-off-again BF Santi love, and her shambolic, romantically unlucky parents too.

Stephen A Russell writes this about the laid-back, heartfelt approach of the series: “Sometimes dramedies go a bit too hard on the emosh stuff and forget to sprinkle ample chuckles into the mix, but Bump blends the ingredients just right. One minute you’re snort-cackling at ludicrously silly stuff like a jellyfish fight on the beach, the next, you’re weeping at life-or-death hospital drama.”

The Last of Us: Season 1 (January 16)

One of the year’s most anticipated series arrives pretty early on BINGE, after angry gamers have been begging for it for years. Created by Chernobyl scribe Craig Mazin and with a double-header cast of GoT fan faves, the post-apocalyptic video game adaptation should outdo the forgotten final seasons of that other zombie show, honing in on the strained father-daughter dynamic between grizzled survivor Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie, his young charge who may just be the key to humanity’s survival (Bella Ramsey). Prepare to cry, scream, and grab for a game controller near you to make these devastating plot turns go any other way (spoiler: it won’t work).

Top picks: Movies

Dual (January 7)

From the director of black comedy The Art of Self-Defense comes this high-concept sci-fi tale, giving us a double dose of awesome UK action star Karen Gillan. She’s sick—terminally so—and initially thinks cloning herself sounds like a great idea. But when she surprisingly gets better, the fine print of the company she signed up with orders that she and her clone must fight to the death to determine which one of them survives. Co-starring Aaron Paul, it’s a darkly funny action-thriller that also operates on a deeper layer, with questions of identity and autonomy.

The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn (January 9)

Spielberg’s off reminiscing about his magical cinematic coming-of-age right now, but with Peter Jackson he managed to look both forwards and backwards with this under-appreciated adventure yarn. Forwards, because it features Jamie Bell and Jackson’s Gollum Andy Serkis in super-slick mo-cap performances: backwards, as it’s adapting everyone’s favourite Belgian explorer comic into an old-fashioned, Indy-esque caper feature. Some of the action sequences are as thrilling as anything either director’s done in live-action, especially a downhill chase through a seafront city on car, foot and boat.

Top Gun: Maverick (January 24)

If it weren’t for Avatar 2, this would be 2022’s biggest action blockbuster: as it stands, though, it’s certainly the most fist-pumpingly patriotic and bro-y. Now streaming, you can see the epic sequel’s nameless objectified baddies and personable, nicknamed heroes, dropping bombs and doing donuts in the sky in the name of…’Murica? Tom Cruise continues to dazzle us well into middle-age, grinning and charming his way through some of the most terrific action sequences of the 21st century, and Miles Teller is a nice addition to the cast as the son of his fallen buddy Goose. Val Kilmer also puts in an admirable cameo as an older, wiser Iceman.