The best movies and shows coming to Netflix in January

Check out Eliza Janssen’s highlights of what’s coming to Netflix New Zealand soon, followed by the full release schedule.

Top Picks: TV

The Brothers Sun (January 4)

Family, responsibility, and heritage are the big themes of this new action-comedy series—and recent Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh’s involvement helps sweeten the deal. She plays the mother of two Chinese-American sons, one of whom has been raised to protect his mama from her bloody gangland past. The other, however, is set on becoming an improv comedy legend—but he’ll get roped into violent, backstabbing, underground warfare anyhow. Expect hard-hitting family moments in between darkly comedic action scenes.

Boy Swallows Universe (January 11)

Trent Dalton’s Aussie coming-of-age novel was a smash hit, weaving a sprawling, often unsettling story of suburban crime and adventure that was somehow based on the author’s own wild upbringing. Netflix has made the wide choice of adapting it and broadcasting it to a big international audience, who can finally understand just how cooked some parts of Queensland can be. Travis Fimmel leads the cast as a rangy father figure, with Sophie Wilde, Phoebe Tonkin, Simon Baker and Anthony Lapaglia supporting our adolescent lead as he tries to survive teenhood.

Griselda (January 25)

Colombian drug boss Griselda Blanco goes by many names: the Cocaine Godmother, La Madrina, the Black Widow…and now Sofia Vergara, who transforms into the infamous crime figure for a Netflix miniseries. Vergara is mostly known for her red carpet glam and her loveable role as Modern Family‘s Gloria, so it’ll be a pleasant surprise to see her take on a more intense, prosthetic-clad role. Definitely one for the Narcos addicts out there.

Top Picks: Movies + Specials

Society of the Snow (January 4)

You’ve heard this story before, either in a documentary, in the 90s dramatisation Alive, or through the sordid whispers of urban legend: a rugby team’s plane crash-lands in the Andes, forcing them into cannibalism for survival. This heart-pounding new take is already earning awards season buzz in Best Foreign Language Film categories, and is directed by action auteur J.A. Bayona, who rarely misses. Apparently it skews more towards inspiration than sensationalism, admirably including script and development input from the incident’s survivors.

Good Grief (January 5)

Schitt’s Creek star Dan Levy directs, writes, and stars in this wryly funny film about friendship and exploration overcoming the gut-punch of loss. When Levy’s main character loses his mother and his new husband in one fell swoop, the only solution is to hit up Paris with besties Ruth Negga and Himesh Patel. While Patel and Levy have mostly been seen in comic roles up til this point, Negga is an effortlessly empathetic dramatic actor: the trio can hopefully help each other through the inevitable, cruel, and often unexpectedly empowering experience of grief.

The Kitchen (coming soon)

Sometimes, good dystopian fiction doesn’t need to take play in the distant future. Co-directed by British screen star Daniel Kaluuya, this London-set drama imagines a not-too-futuristic future, wherein every ‘burb of the English capital has been wiped of public housing except for the title borough. As locals fight back against oppression and gentrification, they’ll be forced to reckon with infighting; with questions of belonging and class that’ll ring painfully true to anyone with working class roots. C’mon Netflix: give us a release date already.