January 2026 Film Releases: In Theaters and on Streaming Platforms, Week by Week
January 2026 opens the year with a political film by Paolo Sorrentino, an Olivier Assayas exploration of power, a historical drama directed by Chloé Zhao, and several highly anticipated releases on streaming platforms. Here is a week-by-week overview of cinema and streaming releases.
January is a key month for cinema. It does more than restart releases after the holidays; it sets the tone for the year ahead. To avoid confusing lists, this article offers a strictly chronological approach, week by week, with for each film a rewritten synopsis, the director, and the cast when confirmed.
Week of January 7, 2026
Father Mother Sister Brother
Director: Jim Jarmusch
Cast:
Adam Driver, Mayim Bialik, Tom Waits, Charlotte Rampling, Cate Blanchett, Vicky Krieps, Indya Moore, Luka Sabbat
Synopsis:
Jim Jarmusch constructs a fragmented film centered on family ties that are never fully resolved. Rather than a linear narrative, he assembles moments: hesitant reunions, heavy silences, diffuse tensions. The characters move forward with what they have never been able to say, and the film observes how family continues to exert its influence, even when each person has taken their distance. A minimalist cinema, attentive to gestures, absences, and the traces left by relationships.
Echoes of the Past
Director: Mascha Schilinski
Cast: Hanna Heckt, Lena Urzendowsky, Laeni Geiseler, Susanne Wuest
Synopsis:
In the same farmhouse, across different eras, four young girls experience adolescence. The film weaves correspondences between their experiences without offering explicit explanations. The place becomes a receptacle of memory, where gestures, fears, and desires are passed on almost without the characters’ awareness. A sensitive drama about how the past is inscribed in bodies.
Everything Is Fine
Genre: documentary
Synopsis:
Five unaccompanied minor teenagers attempt to build a stable daily life despite administrative limbo, precarity, and constant uncertainty. The film follows them in their concrete reality: school, paperwork, exhaustion, but also friendship and the strategies they develop to keep going. The deliberately ambiguous title reflects both the necessary denial and the determination to move forward.
Week of January 14, 2026
Furcy, Born Free
Director: Abd Al Malik
Cast: Makita Samba, Romain Duris, Ana Girardot
Synopsis:
Early 19th century. Furcy was born enslaved, but a legal element calls his status into question. He embarks on a long and risky battle to have his freedom recognized. The film follows this struggle as a confrontation with the institution, where each step forward can be undone. A political narrative driven by the mechanics of the law and one man’s determination in the face of a system designed to crush him.
Duse
Director: Pietro Marcello
Cast: to be confirmed
Synopsis:
Pietro Marcello moves away from the classic biopic to approach Eleonora Duse through sensation. The film considers the actress as a figure of rupture, focusing on her working body and the solitude behind public recognition. More than a chronological portrait, Duse becomes a reflection on the cost of living freely in a world that prefers compliant icons.
Until Dawn
Director: Shô Miyake
Synopsis:
Over the course of one night, paths cross. The film observes those suspended moments when people confide more easily and masks fall away. Without emphasis, Shô Miyake films the fragility of emerging bonds and how a simple encounter can alter a character’s inner balance.
Week of January 21, 2026
Hamnet
Director: Chloé Zhao
Cast: Paul Mescal, Jessie Buckley, Emily Watson
Synopsis:
England, late 16th century. Agnes and Will build a modest life before an intimate tragedy shatters everything. The film focuses on mourning, on a home gradually emptying, on repeated gestures used to survive loss. Chloé Zhao approaches Shakespeare through the household and absence, far from the monument, close to human experience.
Christy and His Brother
Director: Brendan Canty
Synopsis:
Two brothers attempt to reconnect after a childhood marked by deprivation and violence. The film explores the complexity of family bonds, between affection, responsibility, and buried resentments. A tense drama where healing is never guaranteed.
The Wizard of the Kremlin
Director: Olivier Assayas
Cast: Paul Dano, Jude Law, Alicia Vikander
Synopsis:
In 1990s Russia, a brilliant strategist understands that modern power relies on narrative and image. As he becomes the architect of a future leader’s rise, he uncovers the mechanisms of a political machine that eventually slips beyond his control. Assayas delivers an intellectual thriller about the manufacture of power and the manipulation of reality.
The Projectionist’s Return
Director: Orkhan Aghazadeh
Synopsis:
In an isolated village, a former projectionist attempts to revive a movie theater. The film follows this modest persistence, where the goal is not nostalgia but the desire to recreate a collective space. An ode to cinema as a place of gathering.
Week of January 28, 2026
La Grazia
Director: Paolo Sorrentino
Cast: Toni Servillo, Anna Ferzetti, Orlando Cinque
Synopsis:
A president at the end of his term is confronted with decisions that challenge his conscience: two pardon requests and a text on end-of-life issues. Behind the solemnity of power, the film reveals the moral solitude of a man facing his choices. Sorrentino delivers an introspective political drama, carried by a restrained Toni Servillo.
Nuremberg
Director: James Vanderbilt
Cast: Rami Malek, Russell Crowe, Michael Shannon, Richard E. Grant
Synopsis:
Before the Nuremberg trials, an American psychiatrist must determine whether Nazi leaders are fit to stand trial. His interviews with Hermann Göring become a psychological duel, where manipulation and charm confront moral responsibility. A historical thriller centered on a battle of minds.
Dreams
Director: Michel Franco
Synopsis:
Michel Franco explores dynamics of domination within an intimate relationship, where desire collides with social and economic realities. Without spectacle, the film builds a gradual tension, revealing what truly lies beneath promises.
Guru
Director: Yann Gozlan
Cast:
Pierre Niney, Marion Barbeau, Anthony Bajon, Holt McCallany
Synopsis:
A charismatic man unites a community around promises of success, inner clarity, and personal fulfillment. Gradually, commitment turns into control. As the discourse radicalizes, the boundaries between inspiration, domination, and manipulation blur. The film examines the mechanisms of collective belief, the construction of power, and the difficulty, for those caught within it, of escaping a system built on fascination.
Under the Open Sky
Director: Erige Sehiri
Cast: Aïssa Maïga, Deborat Christelle Naney, Laetitia Ky
Synopsis:
In Tunis, a woman has turned her home into a refuge for several people living in precarious conditions. The arrival of a child rescued from a shipwreck disrupts the fragile balance of this improvised household. The film focuses on everyday gestures, solidarity, and the tensions running through these suspended lives.
Streaming Highlights – January 2026: Films and Series Not to Miss
On the platforms, January 2026 looks dense, balancing highly anticipated romances, high-tension thrillers, and the return of established series. Netflix, CANAL+, Apple TV+, and Prime Video are betting on recognizable formats, often led by already popular faces, but with clearly differentiated tones.
Netflix – January 2026
January 1 – The Edge of Seventeen (film)
Director: Kelly Fremon Craig
Cast: Hailee Steinfeld, Woody Harrelson, Kyra Sedgwick
A bittersweet comedy that has become a cult favorite, The Edge of Seventeen explores adolescence without filters, combining self-deprecation, loneliness, and blunt lucidity. Its arrival on Netflix at the start of the year continues the platform’s tendency to highlight generational films that resonate with both teenage and adult audiences.
January 9 – People We Meet on Vacation (film)
Director: Brett Haley
Cast: Tom Blyth, Emily Bader, Sarah Catherine Hook
An adaptation of Emily Henry’s bestselling novel and a TikTok phenomenon, the film follows two opposite personalities bound by an unchanging tradition: one week of vacation together every summer for ten years. Netflix plays the card of emotional romance here, built on time, unspoken feelings, and missed opportunities, with a more melancholic tone than classic romantic comedy.
January 15 – The Seven Dials Mystery (miniseries)
Created: adaptation of the novel by Agatha Christie
Cast: Mia McKenna-Bruce
A new variation on the Agatha Christie universe, this three-episode miniseries transposes the spirit of the mystery novel to the fashionable England of the 1920s. Combining social games, understated humor, and layered investigation, Netflix continues its exploration of classic crime narratives in a short format designed for binge-watching.
January 29 – Bridgerton, Season 4 (Part 1)
Showrunner: Jess Brownell
Production: Shondaland
Cast: Luke Thompson, Jonathan Bailey, Nicola Coughlan
After exploring the romances of Daphne, Anthony, and then Colin, the series now focuses on Benedict Bridgerton. An artist at odds with convention, he faces a decisive encounter at a masked ball. This new season continues the balance between fairy tale, overt sensuality, and reflection on individual freedom within a highly codified world.
CANAL+ / myCANAL – January 2026
January 8 – Playing Nice (miniseries)
Created by: Grace Ofori-Attah
Cast: James Norton, Niamh Algar, James McArdle, Jessica Brown Findlay
Two couples discover that their children were switched at birth. From this vertiginous revelation, Playing Nice unfolds as a tense psychological thriller, where good intentions gradually slide into manipulation. CANAL+ continues its editorial line here: compact, adult series centered on moral dilemmas and the understated violence of social relationships.
Apple TV+ – January 2026
January 14 – Hijack, Season 2
Created by: George Kay
Cast: Idris Elba
After a first season built in real time around a plane hijacking, Hijack returns with a new narrative device, still focused on negotiation, psychological pressure, and crisis management. Apple TV+ capitalizes on a high-concept series carried by Idris Elba’s presence, which has become a signature.
Prime Video – January 2026
January 11 – The Night Manager, Season 2
Created by: David Farr (based on John le Carré)
Cast: Tom Hiddleston
Eight years after its first season, The Night Manager returns with a new contemporary espionage storyline. Still inspired by the world of John le Carré, the series extends its core themes: moral gray zones, international power games, and double identities. A highly anticipated return, designed for audiences drawn to elegant political thrillers.
