The new year always prompts the expiration of copious streaming licenses, so there are more movies and shows leaving Netflix for U.S. subscribers in January than usual. They include an influential ’70s classic, several Oscar winners and nominees, arguably the best action movie of the century to date and four extremely binge-able series for wiling away your time off during the holiday season. (Dates reflect the first day titles are unavailable and are subject to change.)
‘Captain Phillips’ (Jan. 1)
Tom Hanks’s six Oscar nominations to date do not include his leading turn in this 2013 docudrama — which is odd, since it’s among his very finest performances. He stars as Richard Phillips, captain of the U.S.-flagged MV Maersk Alabama, which was hijacked by Somali pirates in 2009. Paul Greengrass directs in the pseudo-documentary style he perfected in the similarly fact-based “Bloody Sunday” and “United 93,” and with similar verisimilitude and intensity. It’s less a film you watch than one that happens to you, which makes the raw emotion of Hanks’s final scene all the more affecting.
‘Death Becomes Her’ (Jan. 1)
A commercial disappointment upon its original release, this blend of science fiction and social satire subsequently found enough of a cult audience to spawn a Broadway musical. The film stars Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn as old friends turned romantic rivals, whose shared quest for perpetual youth leads them to a magic potion from the mysterious Lisle von Rhuman, played by the convincingly youthful Isabella Rossellini. Turns out, immortality has its drawbacks. This was one of Streep’s first major comic roles, and she throws herself into her pratfalls and verbal jousts with abandon. Hawn, meanwhile, reconfirms why she is one of the funniest actors of her time. But the real surprise is Bruce Willis, who as the object of their affections eschews his customary smirk and swagger to turn his nebbishy doctor into an inspired comic creation.
‘Dreamgirls’ (Jan. 1)
This screen adaptation of the hit Broadway musical — itself loosely inspired by the story of the Supremes and their rise under the Motown head Berry Gordy — was intended to be the splashy big-screen breakthrough for Beyoncé Knowles. Queen Bey acquits herself nicely as Deena Jones, the story’s Diana Ross stand-in, but the film’s thunder was stolen by Jennifer Hudson (then known only as an “American Idol” castoff) as Effie White, whose big solo number “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” is the undisputed showstopper. Jamie Foxx is appropriately both charismatic and oily as the Gordy figure, while an Oscar-nominated Eddie Murphy sings impressively and hits new notes dramatically as a troubled soul superstar.
‘Lost’: Seasons 1-6 (Jan. 1)
Some shows just feel built for binging, even if they initially aired in the more conventional episode-per-week format. That description certainly applies to this wildly popular action drama from creators J.J. Abrams, Jeffrey Lieber and Damon Lindelof, whose eye-popping cliffhangers drove fans to fits upon their original airing and now make it all but impossible to shut off the TV. “Lost” is a rich text with its large cast of characters, unexpected narrative twists and winking allusions prompting widespread theorizing and close reading. But it’s also just a very good moment-to-moment thriller, boasting fine performances, sharp writing and more variations on the “desert island castaways” motif than “Gilligan’s Island” ever imagined.
‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ (Jan. 1)
After three decades flexing his versatility with family films like the “Babe” and “Happy Feet” franchises, the Australian director George Miller returned to the franchise that made him, following up “Mad Max,” “The Road Warrior” and “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” with a new and even gnarlier story of roaring engines in a postapocalyptic wasteland. Tom Hardy steps into Mel Gibson’s muddy boots in the title role, but the showcase performer here is Charlize Theron as Imperator Furiosa, whose attempt to escape the clutches of the tyrannical Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) prompts the extended chases that make up the bulk of the picture’s running time. The production may have been difficult, but the results are undeniable, setting a new standard for 21st-century action cinema.
‘The Martian’ (Jan. 1)
The director Ridley Scott and the screenwriter Drew Goddard transformed the novel “The Martian” by Andy Weir into a brainy, occasionally poignant and frequently funny science fiction drama. Matt Damon is pitch-perfect as Mark Watney, an astronaut who is injured and presumed dead by his NASA crewmates during their departure from a mission on Mars. But he was merely injured, and when he returns to consciousness, he must determine how to survive on the red planet until NASA can figure out his complicated rescue. The parallel narratives — a space-age “Robinson Crusoe” and an “Apollo 13”-style ground control brainstorm — makes for a fast-paced and inherently compelling experience, and Damon is an ideal Everyman space cadet.
‘Taxi Driver’ (Jan. 1)
They didn’t pick it, but the director Martin Scorsese, the screenwriter Paul Schrader and the star Robert De Niro couldn’t have hoped for a better moment to make their searing psychological drama than New York in the summer of 1975 — the city was on the verge of financial collapse, malaise was high, and scorching temperatures made the trash on the streets (the collateral damage of on ongoing sanitation strike) all the more rancid. Those vibes seeped straight into their story of a deeply disturbed cabby (De Niro) who sees the souring of his city around him and decides that the only way to turn things around is with violence. It remains among the most unnerving and unforgettable of De Niro and Scorsese’s numerous collaborations.
‘Mr. Robot’: Seasons 1-4 (Jan. 3)
Rami Malek was propelled from character actor to leading man by his memorable run at the center of this whip-smart, lightning-paced cyber thriller, which ran on the USA Network from 2015 to 2019. He stars as Elliot, a brilliant but enigmatic computer programmer who works at a cybersecurity company by day; at night, he is a ruthless hacker who takes aim at E Corp, a multinational conglomerate that is also one of his day job’s key clients. Sam Esmail, the creator and showrunner, drew inspiration from then-current events like the Occupy movement and the 2008 financial crisis. But “Mr. Robot” doesn’t feel like a dated, mid-aughts time capsule. If anything, its themes (and villains) have grown only more relevant.
‘House of Lies: Seasons 1-5’ (Jan. 23)
One cannot help but wonder if this 2012-2016 series would have had more cultural impact had it not aired on the perpetual also-ran network Showtime, a network whose shows traditionally garnered some respectable reviews and decent audiences while never achieving the ubiquity of their HBO counterparts. “Lies” certainly had the cast for it, led by Don Cheadle as the management consultant Marty Kaan, with Kristen Bell and Ben Schwartz among the stacked ensemble. But its five seasons offer plenty of pleasures, particularly from Cheadle, whose charming, conspiratorial, direct-to-camera narration pulls of the neat trick of being both endearing and repellent.
‘Prison Break: Seasons 1-5’ (Jan. 29)
The central premise of this Fox crime drama from Paul Scheuring sounds like a robust one for a two-hour movie: A structural engineer (Wentworth Miller) hatches a plan to break his brother (Dominic Purcell) out of the prison where he is sentenced to die for a crime he didn’t commit. It sounds less like a premise you could hang 90 hourlong episodes on. To his credit, Scheuring pulled it off, working out ingenious innovations and unexpected twists for his initially straightforward narrative, thanks in no small part to the charisma of his leading men and a talented supporting cast (including Robert Knepper, Amaury Nolasco, Peter Stormare and Robin Tunney).
Also leaving:
“Baby Driver,” “Blue Crush,” “Clear and Present Danger,” “Coach Carter,” “Crazy Rich Asians,” “Dirty Dancing,” “Doctor Sleep,” “Don’t Worry Darling,” “Ghost,” “The Goonies,” “The Hangover,” “How to Be Single,” “I Love You, Man,” “Kung Fu Panda,” “The Mask,” “Meet Joe Black,” “Ocean’s 8,” “Runaway Bride,” “Scarface,” “Star Trek,” “The Sweetest Thing,” “Training Day,” “Zero Dark Thirty” (Jan. 1); “Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story” (Jan. 2); “Confessions of a Shopaholic” (Jan. 16); “Donnie Darko” (Jan. 18).
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