The best new movies on Netflix for January as The Pale Blue Eye takes on Blue Monday

EntertainmentStreamingThe best new movies on Netflix for January as The Pale Blue Eye takes on Blue MondayFrom the prestige drama of Christian Bale to the not-quite-so prestige dramas of Jason Statham and Mike MyersWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

From the prestige drama of Christian Bale to the not-quite-so prestige dramas of Jason Statham and Mike Myers

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

(Image credit: Netflix)

Best Netflix movies: Christian Bale in The Pale Blue Eye

(Image credit: Netflix)

January comes but once a year, nobody’s got any money and everything’s dear. Good news, then, that you can stay at home, watchNetflix, and chill out, for a very reasonable monthly fee. But what to watch? As on all streaming services, new movies drop on to The ‘Flix, as absolutely nobody calls it, all the time. Some of them are completely new, in the form of Netflix Originals, and some are classic – which is to say, old – films that are ‘new’ to Netflix. The channel has gone big on documentaries to start 2023, with the likes of The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker – that sounds like fun, doesn’t it? – and a series on Bernie ‘The Monster of Wall Street’ Madoff. Today, however, I’m strictly looking at fictional entertainments.

Despite its little faults,Netflixis still the world’s favourite streaming service. It provides more original series than any other, and keeps up a fairly impressive roster of high-quality movies and TV shows from third-party studios, as well as a whole load of not-so-high-quality, but nonetheless entertaining trash. Just the sort of thing you need to cheer yourself up in January, in other words.

To start this roundup, however, I’ve picked one of the most high-tone dramas ever seen on a streaming platform, at least in terms of the cast. Like most of thebest new films to watch on Disney+in January, it is rather dour, mind you…

The Pale Blue Eye

Nobody other than Gillian Anderson seems to be having much fun, but then that’s understandable in a film that features a villainous murderer who cuts his or her victims' hearts out. With its plot twists and turns, you could think of it as Glass Onion, but set in the past, and with absolutely no sense of humour whatsoever, and the detective isn’t married to Hugh Grant.

This is a classic example of a Netflix original where a sufficiently huge amount of money has been spewed at the screen to guarantee you a good watch, even if it never quite goes anywhere and ultimately starts to collapse under the weight of its own self-seriousness. The constantly gloomy mood makes it perfect for this dark and chilly month. Linger on, Pale Blue Eye.

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Crank

Blue Monday – the date which PR people have calculated is the most depressing of the year – arrives on January 16. If you need cheering up due to that – or because you watched The Pale Blue Eye – you could do a lot worse than to stream this absolutely outrageous, R-rated, 2006 movie from Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor.

Cue: fast driving, fighting, increasingly violent electric shocks, public sex… all the standard things you’d do to keep your adrenaline flowing in this totally believable scenario. What kind of a name is Chev Chelios anyway?

Statham brings his usual blend of hangdog charm, chiselled physique and advanced fighting skills to bear, while Neveldine and Taylor deliver wholeheartedly on the story’s adrenalised premise. This film is so jam-packed with non-stop action, humour and sleaze that it is really quite exhausting to watch. I need a nap after justwritingabout it for a few paragraphs.

If you find you enjoy Crank, you’ll be pleased to know that some more bad boys are joining The Stath on the heaving shelves of the Netflix video store’s action movie section this month. For the dads, there’s the similarly preposterous Bad Boys 2 and for the connoisseurs there’s the underrated B-movie sequel Tremors 2: Aftershocks. I think Crank 2 is on Netflix as well, come to think of it. That brings more of the same, but more so.

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

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