All the new movies in theaters on January 2024, from Mean Girls and Origins to anticipated new releases, hidden gems and films to watch this month!
It’s January 2024, and many new movies are coming to theaters this month! We made a list of all the new releases we could find, from highly anticipated films to hidden gems and festival hits that you can watch right now or later this month.
You’ll find all the movies below, in order of release and divided by films you’ll be able to see in U.S. theaters and in U.K. cinemas, and we’ve also included global release dates where available. Enjoy!
JANUARY 2024 MOVIES: IN U.S. THEATERS
THE BRICKLAYER
Director: Renny Harling
U.S. Release: January 5
U.K. Release: TBA
Official synopsis: When a rogue insurgent blackmails the CIA by assassinating foreign journalists and framing the government, the agency must lure their most brilliant yet rebellious operative out of retirement to unravel the international conspiracy.
HE WENT THAT WAY (LIMITED)
Director: Jeff Darling
U.S. Release: January 5
U.K. Release: TBA
Official synopsis: Set in 1964, He Went That Way is a taut thriller based on a true crime story that puts a wicked spin on the buddy road trip film. The film follows 19-year-old serial killer Bobby (Jacob Elordi) as he is picked up by a celebrity animal handler, Jim (Zachary Quinto), on a desolate stretch of Route 66 with priceless cargo in tow: Jim’s chimpanzee, Spanky, an American TV darling. As stress between Bobby and Jim rises and their fiery personalities combust, the road only becomes more treacherous the farther they go.
MAYHEM!
Director: Xavier Gens
U.S. Release: January 5
U.K. Release: TBA
Official synopsis: A martial artist and ex-con Sam (Nassim Lyes) starts a new life in Thailand to escape a local gang lord, but a kidnapped family member sucks him back into the underworld he’d left behind in this propulsive action spectacle.
LOST LADIES
Director: Kiran Rao
U.S. Release: January 5
U.K. Release: TBA
Official synopsis: Set in 2001, somewhere in rural India, LOST LADIES is about the delightful adventures of two young brides who get accidentally swapped on a train. In the ensuing chaos, they each encounter a host of colourful characters, resulting in hilarious and unexpected consequences. The young lost ladies must take it upon themselves to venture on an endearing journey: one of immense discovery about themselves and womanhood; and the heartwarming and heartbreaking nature of life itself.
NIGHT SWIM
Director: Bryce McGuire
Global Release: January 5
Secretly hoping, against the odds, to return to pro ball, Ray persuades Eve that the new home’s shimmering backyard swimming pool will be fun for the kids and provide physical therapy for him. But a dark secret in the home’s past will unleash a malevolent force that will drag the family under, into the depths of inescapable terror.
THE PAINTER
Director: Kimani Ray Smith
U.S. Release: January 5
U.K. Release: TBA
Official synopsis: An ex-CIA operative turned painter is thrown back into a dangerous world when a mysterious woman from his past resurfaces. Now exposed and targeted by a relentless killer and a rogue black ops program, he must rely on skills he thought he left behind in a high-stakes game of survival. Charlie Weber (How to Get Away with Murder), Jon Voight and Madison Bailey star in this edge-of-your-seat thriller.
ROADKILL
Director: Warren Fast
U.S. Release: January 5
U.K. Release: TBA
Official synopsis: Vengeance rides the open road when a young woman encounters a renegade drifter and ends up in a fight for her life.
A STORM FORETOLD
Director: Christoffer Guldbrandsen
U.S. Release: January 5
U.K. Release: December 18, 2023 on DocPlay
Official synopsis: A Storm Foretold chronicles Roger Stone’s pivotal role over two years – from orchestrating the ‘Stop the Steal’ campaign to laying the groundwork for the January 6th assault on the Capitol. It offers an unfiltered view, allowing audiences to witness firsthand the human catalysts of the epic divide we see today.
WEAK LAYERS
Director: Katie Burrell
U.S. Release: January 5
U.K. Release: TBA
Official synopsis: Evicted from their rental house, a stuck-in-life ski town local and her two younger, rowdier roommates enter a 72-hour ski film competition against the best pros in the world, taking the glossy male-dominated industry down a notch or two while trying to win prize money to put a roof over their heads.
APOLONIA, APOLONIA (LIMITED)
Director: Lea Glob
U.S. Release: January 12
U.K. Release: TBA
Official synopsis: When Danish filmmaker Lea Glob first met Apolonia Sokol in 2009, she appeared to be leading a storybook life. The talented Apolonia was born in an underground theatre in Paris and grew up in an artist community — the ultimate bohemian life. Over the years, Lea kept returning to film Apolonia as the latter sought her place in the art world, grappling with the agonies and joys of womanhood, the relationships with others and her own body and creation. The result is a fascinating portrait of the young woman’s trying voyage into the art world.
THE BEEKEEPER
Director: David Ayer
Global Release: January 12
Official synopsis: In The Beekeeper, one man’s brutal campaign for vengeance takes on national stakes after he is revealed to be a former operative of a powerful and clandestine organization known as “Beekeepers.”
THE BOOK OF CLARENCE
Director: Jeymes Samuel
U.S. Release: January 12
U.K. Release: TBA
The Book of Clarence is a bold new take on the timeless Hollywood era Biblical epic. Streetwise but struggling, Clarence (LaKeith Stanfield) is trying to find a better life for himself and his family, make himself worthy to the woman he loves, and prove that he’s not a nobody. Captivated by the power and glory of the rising Messiah and His apostles, he risks everything to carve his own path to a divine life, a journey through which he finds redemption and faith, power and knowledge. The Book of Clarence Official Soundtrack features new music by Jeymes Samuel, JAY-Z, Lil Wayne, Kid Cudi and more.
DRIVING MADELEINE
Director: Christian Carion
U.S. Release: January 12
U.K. Release: TBA
Official synopsis: A heartwarming exploration of the transformative power of human connection, highlighting the wisdom hidden in everyday encounters.
HOUSEHOLD SAINTS – 4K RESTORATION (LIMITED)
Director: Nancy Savoca
U.S. Release: January 12 in New York (IFC Center), January 26 in LA (American Cinematheque)
Official synopsis: Based on Francine Prose’s fifth novel, Nancy Savoca’s comic chronicle of a spirited Italian-American New York family perfectly balances humor, tragedy, and pathos. Vincent D’Onofrio’s Joseph Santangelo is a butcher with a wicked sense of humor who “wins” his wife Catherine (an uncharacteristically reserved Tracey Ullman) in a pinochle game. Together they experience the ups, downs, and wacky in-betweens of city life until teenage daughter Teresa slowly overtakes the film with her yearning to join a convent.
INSHALLAH A BOY
Director: Amjad Al Rasheed
U.S. Release: January 12
U.K. Release: TBA
Official synopsis: After the sudden death of her husband, Nawal is struggling to cope with the upheaval in her life. However, her pain is soon compounded by the possibility of losing her home to her brother-in-law. Desperate to keep her home and provide a stable life for her daughter, Nawal resorts to deception by faking a pregnancy. But as time passes, the lie becomes harder to sustain and Nawal faces a difficult choice. With only three weeks to find a solution, Nawal embarks on a journey that challenges her fears, beliefs, and morality, as she fights to secure her rightful inheritance and protect her daughter’s future.
MEAN GIRLS (2024)
Directors: Samantha Jayne & Arturo Perez Jr.
US Release: January 12
UK Release: January 17
Official synopsis: New student Cady Heron (Angourie Rice) is welcomed into the top of the social food chain by the elite group of popular girls called “The Plastics,” ruled by the conniving queen bee Regina George (Reneé Rapp) and her minions Gretchen (Bebe Wood) and Karen (Avantika). However, when Cady makes the major misstep of falling for Regina’s ex-boyfriend Aaron Samuels (Christopher Briney), she finds herself prey in Regina’s crosshairs. As Cady sets to take down the group’s apex predator with the help of her outcast friends Janis (Auli’i Cravalho) and Damian (Jaquel Spivey), she must learn how to stay true to herself while navigating the most cutthroat jungle of all: high school.
THE NIGHT THEY CAME HOME (LIMITED)
Director: Paul G. Volk
U.S. Release: January 12
U.K. Release: TBA
Official synopsis: A frontier lawman partners with an Indian detective to hunt down a ruthless band of teenage criminals known as the Rufus Buck Gang.
THE SETTLERS (LOS COLONOS)
Director: Felipe Gálvez Haberle
U.S. Release: January 12
U.K. Release: TBA
Official synopsis: At the turn of the 20th century, three horsemen embark on an expedition across the Tierra del Fuego archipelago, tasked with securing a wealthy landowner’s vast property. Accompanying a reckless British lieutenant and an American mercenary is mestizo marksman Segundo, who comes to realize, amidst rising tensions within the group, their true mission is to murderously “remove” the indigenous population.
T.I.M.
Director: Spencer Brown
U.S. Release: January 12
U.K. Release: TBA
Official synopsis: An engineer begins work on her company’s latest product, an A.I. humanoid called T.I.M. – Technologically. Integrated. Manservant. Things take a turn for the worse when T.I.M.’s servient programming leads to a dangerous obsession with her.
BRING HIM TO ME (LIMITED)
Director: Luke Sparkle
U.S. Release: January 19
U.K. Release: TBA
Official synopsis: A mild-mannered getaway driver’s (Pepper) mob boss asks him to collect a young and unsuspecting new crew member, known as Passenger (Jamie Costa), one week after a violent robbery. The driver must battle his conscience as he takes the passenger to an uncertain fate.
FOUNDERS DAY
Director: Erik Bloomquist
Global Release: January 19
Official synopsis: In this bold political slasher, a small town is shaken by a series of ominous killings in the days leading up to a heated mayoral election. As accusations fly and the threat of a masked killer darkens every street corner, the residents must race to uncover the truth before fear consumes the town.
I.S.S.
Director: Gabriela Cowperthwaite
U.S. Release: January 19
U.K. Release: TBA
Read Also: Gabriela Cowperthwaite on I.S.S.: Tribeca Interview
Official synopsis: Tensions flare in the near future aboard the International Space Station as a worldwide conflict breaks out on Earth. Reeling from this, the astronauts receive orders from the ground: take control of the station by any means necessary. Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite, working with Nick Shafir’s Blacklist script, brings together a stellar cast that includes Academy Award winner Ariana DeBose, Chris Messina, Pilou Asbaek, John Gallagher Jr., Costa Ronin, and Masha Mashkova, in a high-stakes thriller set entirely in the confines of the I.S.S. as astronauts are called to duty in fateful and terrifying ways.
INSIDE THE YELLOW COCOON SHELL
Director: Phạm Thiên Ân
U.S. Release: January 19
U.K. Release: TBA
Full Review: Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell: Film Review
Official synopsis: The sudden death of his sister-in-law brings unexpected responsibilities to Thien (Le Phong Vu), who is reluctantly tasked with bringing his five-year-old nephew Dao to their countryside hometown. On the road, Thien is drawn into a search for his long missing older brother, haunted and spurred forward by a series of sublime dreams that reignite suppressed memories, forbidden desires, and specters of his own youth. What began as a journey home becomes a pilgrimage marked by visual splendor and mystical overtones, a quest for understanding and certainty in a Vietnam that seems unable to provide any clear answers.
ORIGIN
Director: Ava DuVernay
U.S. Release: January 19
U.K. Release: TBA
Official synopsis: While grappling with tremendous personal tragedy, Isabel sets herself on a path of global investigation and discovery. Despite the colossal scope of her project, she finds beauty and bravery while crafting one of the defining American books of our time.
SUNRISE
Director: Andrew Baird
U.S. Release: January 19
U.K. Release: TBA
Official synopsis: When an ex-cop named Fallon returns to the scene of a horrific crime, the residents of a rural town soon discover that this dark visitor is really a vampire who feeds on blood and fear. After he is befriended by a kind immigrant family, the instinctive killer is faced with a choice between revenge and redemption.
WANTED MAN
Director: Dolph Lundgren
U.S. Release: January 19
U.K. Release: TBA
Official synopsis: Johansen (Lundgren) is an aging detective, whose outdated policing methods have given the department a recent public relations problem. To save his job, he is sent to Mexico to extradite a female witness (Villa) to the murders of two DEA agents. Once there, he finds not only his old opinions challenged, but that bad hombres on both sides of the border are now gunning for him and his witness.
VISHNIAC (LIMITED)
Director: Laura Bialis
U.S. Release: January 19
U.K. Release: TBA
Official synopsis: From 1935 to 1938, Roman Vishniac photographed Jewish life in Eastern Europe for the American Joint Distribution Committee. With anti-Semitism on the rise, the photographs were created with the intention of raising funds for impoverished Jewish communities. Few could have predicted that these communities would be extinguished less than a decade later, and that Vishniac’s photographs would be the last visual records of an entire world. Vishniac follows the artist from his early years in Tsarist Russia to his emergence as a modernist photographer in Weimar Berlin to his journeys across Eastern Europe before the war and his family’s dramatic escape to America in 1940, as told through the eyes of his daughter Mara.
WHICH BRINGS ME TO YOU
Director: Peter Hutchings
U.S. Release: January 19
U.K. Release: TBA
Official synopsis: Romantic burnouts Jane and Will are immediately drawn to each other at a mutual friend’s wedding. After a disastrous hookup in the coatroom, the two spend the next 24 hours together, trading candid confessions of messy histories and heartbreak, on the off chance that this fling might be the real thing. Lucy Hale and Nat Wolff star in this hilarious tale from the team behind The Hating Game.
BEAUTIFUL WEDDING
Director: Roger Kumble
U.S. Release: January 24
U.K. Release: TBA
Official synopsis: Picking up where Beautiful Disaster left off, Abby and Travis wake up after a crazy night in Vegas as accidental newlyweds and travel to Mexico for a wild, weird honeymoon – but are they in for another disaster?
AMERICAN STAR
Director: Gonzalo López-Gallego
U.S. Release: January 26
U.K. Release: February 23 (in cinemas and on digital platforms)
Official synopsis: An assassin (Ian McShane) on final assignment arrives in Fuerteventura to kill a man he has never met. But when the target is delayed, instead of following protocol he stays; drawn to the island, the people, and a ghostly shipwreck. When the target returns, the world has shifted. Before everything was simple- now nothing is.
BAD HOMBRES
Director: John Stahlberg Jr.
U.S. Release: January 26
U.K. Release: TBA
Official synopsis: Two undocumented immigrants who take a job digging a hole then learn their employers are criminals. They become embroiled in a blood bath with one revealing a secret past that might save them.
HOUSEKEEPING FOR BEGINNERS
Director: Goran Stolveski
U.S. Release: January 26
U.K. Release: TBA
Official synopsis: Explores the universal truths of family, encompassing both the bonds we inherit and those we create. The narrative revolves around Dita, who, despite never aspiring to be a mother, finds herself compelled to raise her girlfriend’s two daughters—Mia, a tiny troublemaker, and Vanesa, a rebellious teenager. As their individual wills clash, a heartwarming story unfolds about an unlikely family’s struggle to stay together.
JUNCTION
Director: Bryan Greenberg
U.S. Release: January 26
U.K. Release: TBA
Official synopsis: The opioid crisis and its enormous human toll is seen in microcosm through the eyes of three people: a pharmaceutical CEO, a doctor, and an addict.
MILLER’S GIRL
Director: Jade Halley Bartlett
U.S. Release: January 26
U.K. Release: TBA
Official synopsis: A talented young writer (Jenna Ortega) embarks on a creative odyssey when her teacher (Martin Freeman) assigns a project that entangles them both in an increasingly complex web. As lines blur and their lives intertwine, professor and protégé must confront their darkest selves while straining to preserve their individual sense of purpose and the things they hold most dear.
THE SEEDING
Director: Barnaby Clay
U.S. Release: January 26
U.K. Release: February 12 on digital download
Official synopsis: A hiker lost in the desert takes refuge with a woman living alone, and soon discovers that she might not be there willingly. Directed by Barnaby Clay, the film stars Scott Haze and Kate Lyn Sheil.
SOMETIMES I THINK ABOUT DYING
Director: Rachel Lambert
U.S. Release: January 26
U.K. Release: TBA
Official synopsis: Lost on the dreary Oregon coast, Fran (Daisy Ridley) finds solace in her cubicle, listening to the constant hum of officemates and occasionally daydreaming to pass the time. She is ghosting through life, unable to pop her bubble of isolation, when a friendly new coworker, Robert (Dave Merheje), persistently tries to connect with her. Though it goes against every fiber of her being, she may have to give this guy a chance.
TÓTEM
Director: Lila Avilés
U.S. Release: January 26 (NY), February 2 (LA)
U.K. Release: December 1, 2023
Official synopsis: TÓTEM follows 7-year-old Sol helping her aunts prepare for her father’s surprise birthday party, as the house grows increasingly boisterous and her dad’s absence increasingly mysterious.
JANUARY 2024 MOVIES: IN U.K. CINEMAS
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF SHERE HITE
Director: Nicole Newnham
U.K. Release: January 12
U.S. Release: November 2023
Official synopsis: Shere Hite’s 1976 bestselling book, The Hite Report, liberated the female orgasm by revealing the most private experiences of thousands of anonymous survey respondents. Her findings rocked the American establishment and presaged current conversations about gender, sexuality, and bodily autonomy. So how did Shere Hite disappear?
THE CIVIL DEAD (LIMITED)
Director: Clay Thomas
U.K. Release: January 19
U.S. Release: out now on digital and on demand!
Official synopsis: Clay is a loner photographer who enjoys a mundane life with his artist wife Whitney in Los Angeles. After Whitney advises Clay, who has been creatively stagnant and unemployed for months, to go out and be productive while she’s out of town and not to “just lay in the living room and drink beer”, Clay happens upon his long-lost friend, Whit. After a night of catching up, Whit discloses an unsettling secret to Clay, which puts a strain on his marriage and causes him to question his own sanity…
THE HOLDOVERS
Director: Alexander Payne
U.K. Release: January 19
U.S. Release: November 2023
Official synopsis: From acclaimed director Alexander Payne, THE HOLDOVERS follows a curmudgeonly instructor (Paul Giamatti) at a prestigious American school who is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go. Eventually he forms an unlikely bond with one of them — a damaged, brainy troublemaker (newcomer Dominic Sessa) — and with the school’s head cook, who has just lost a son in Vietnam (Da’Vine Joy Randolph).
IN BROAD DAYLIGHT
Director: Lawrence Kwan Chun Kan
U.K. Release: January 19
U.S. Release: December 8, 2023
Official synopsis: A news organisation’s investigative journalism unit receives a tip about the abuse of residents in Rainbow Bridge Care Home. To expose the home’s wrongdoings, reporter Kay goes undercover to expose the inhumanity inside, searching for the cruel truth in broad daylight.
WERNER HERZOG: RADICAL DREAMER
Director: Thomas von Steinaecker
U.K. Release: January 19
U.S. Release: December 5, 2023
Official synopsis: A comprehensive portrait of the iconic German filmmaker. With exclusive behind-the-scenes access into Herzog’s everyday life, rare archive material and in-depth interviews with the man himself and celebrated collaborators – including Christian Bale, Nicole Kidman, and his wife Lena Herzog – we are given an exciting glimpse into his work process and personal life.
THIS BLESSED PLOT
Director: Marc Isaacs
U.K. Release: January 26
U.S. Release: TBA
Official synopsis: When Lory, a young Chinese filmmaker documenting English tradition, arrives in Thaxted, she meets an eclectic group of locals who are happy to share their secrets and longings and discovers that the dead surround the living with the line between them being easily crossed.
BLUE GIANT
Director: Yuzuru Tachikawa
U.K. Release: January 31
U.S. Release: October 2023
Official synopsis: A moving ode to the power of music and the artist, featuring a powerful and energetic score composed by world-renowned virtuoso pianist Hiromi Uehara, who performed during the opening ceremony of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
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