Every month, Netflix adds movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of February’s most promising new titles. (Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)
‘Glitter & Gold: Ice Dancing’
Started streaming: Feb. 1
Figure skating has long been one of the marquee events at the Winter Olympics, and over the past few Olympic cycles, the more niche discipline of ice dancing has provided some of the sport’s best drama. This three-part documentary covers the scramble among a handful of accomplished duos, all trying to replace the previous generation of champions. Produced and directed by some of the same people behind Netflix’s “Simone Biles Rising,” the series follows three teams, two of which — the Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates and the Canadians Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier — have been waiting for years for a chance to top the Olympic podium. The third team, the French skaters Guillaume Cizeron and Laurence Fournier Beaudry, are competing together for the first time, after long stretches with other partners. “Glitter & Gold” offers an intimate look at the planning, practices and unexpected twists of this Olympic season, which culminates in Milan later this month.
‘Search Party’ Seasons 1-5
Starts streaming: Feb. 5
This darkly comic mystery series never found a huge audience during its original five-season run on TBS and HBO Max. But it’s the kind of show that keeps drawing new fans long after it’s done, partly because the story is so gripping and partly because the cast is so impressive. Alia Shawkat plays Dory, a bored young Brooklynite who becomes obsessed with figuring out what happened to a former college classmate who disappeared. While playing amateur detective alongside her friends (played by John Early, John Reynolds and Meredith Hagner), Dory stumbles into misadventures that ultimately lead to her becoming a quasi-celebrity. A pre-“Oh, Mary!” Cole Escola has a memorable two-season run as someone who becomes obsessed with Dory, a woman whose main search in this series is for some purpose and meaning in her increasingly messy life.
‘Queen of Chess’
Starts streaming: Feb. 6
Widely considered one of the best chess players in history, Judit Polgar became a sensation at international competitions in the early 1990s, at a time when the conventional wisdom surrounding the game was that women could never challenge men’s dominance. The Oscar-nominated director Rory Kennedy (“Last Days in Vietnam”) tells Polgar’s story in “Queen of Chess,” a documentary that digs deeply into chess’s strategy and culture. Raised by a freethinking psychologist in Iron Curtain-era Hungary, Polgar was trained on chess problems and taught not to assume she was inferior to anyone. The film focuses a lot on Polgar’s matches against the era’s top champion, Garry Kasparov. But Kennedy also examines Polgar’s personal life, showing that there are more ways to be happy and successful than by winning a game.
‘How to Get to Heaven From Belfast’ Season 1
Starts streaming: Feb. 12
Lisa McGee, the creator of “Derry Girls,” returns with another series about a clique of women who grew up together in Northern Ireland. These pals are in their late 30s, and in the mystery-comedy “How to Get to Heaven From Belfast,” they reunite to attend a wake for someone they fell out of touch with decades ago. Roisin Gallagher plays Saoirse, a successful but dissatisfied writer of TV crime shows. Sinéad Keenan plays Robyn, a frazzled mother with a keen fashion sense. Caoilfhionn Dunne is Dara, a perpetually nervous type who looks after her aged mother. When these three begin to get the sense that they’re not being told the whole truth about their old friend, they start their own clumsy investigation, which leads them through Portugal and Dublin, and into parts of their past they’ve tried to forget.
‘Strip Law’ Season 1
Starts streaming: Feb. 20
Adam Scott voices the sad sack Las Vegas lawyer Lincoln Gumb in this adult animated comedy, created by Cullen Crawford, formerly a writer on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.” Lincoln’s mother helped found a successful law firm, but when she died, her partner (Keith David) fired her son for being too boring. Lincoln mounts a comeback with the help of Sheila Flambé (Janelle James), a street magician who teaches him how to bring a little jury-pleasing flash to his cases. “Strip Law” is a raunchy parody of legal dramas and a salute to the topsy-turvy morality of Vegas, a place where hedonism is generally celebrated, not litigated.
Also arriving:
Feb. 1 “The American President” “Ex Machina” “Hell or High Water” “You’ve Got Mail” “Zero Dark Thirty”
Feb. 3 “Mo Gilligan: In the Moment”
Feb. 4 “Is It Cake? Valentines”
Feb. 5 “Cash Queens” Season 1 “The Lincoln Lawyer” Season 4 “Samuel” Season 1 “Unfamiliar” Season 1
Feb. 6 “Salvador” Season 1 “Yoh! Bestie”
Feb. 9 “Matter of Time”
Feb. 10 “Motorvalley” Season 1 “This Is I”
Feb. 11 “Kohrra” Season 2 “Lead Children” Season 1 “State of Fear”
Feb. 12 “The Black Phone” “Million-Follower Detective”
Feb. 13 “The Art of Sarah” “A Father’s Miracle” “Museum of Innocence” Season 1 “Suburgatory” Seasons 1-3 “Tyler Perry’s Joe’s College Road Trip”
Feb. 15 “Stargate: SG-1” Seasons 1-10
Feb. 17 “Sommore: Chandelier Fly”
Feb. 18 “Being Gordon Ramsay”
Feb. 19 “The Iron Claw” “The Night Agent” Season 3 “The Swedish Connection”
Feb. 20 “Firebreak” “The Orphans”
Feb. 24 “Taylor Tomlinson: Prodigal Daughter”
Feb. 26 “Bridgerton” Season 4, Part 2 “Crap Happens”
The post The Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to Netflix in February appeared first on New York Times.
