Sofia Vergara’s narco queenpin miniseries and a crypto documentary highlight this month’s slate.
Every month, Netflix adds movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of January’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.)
‘Bitconned’
Now streaming
The collapse of big-time cryptocurrency exchanges like FTX grab a lot of headlines, but these are far from the only crypto businesses that have misled investors into losing fortunes. The documentary “Bitconned” tracks the rise and fall of Centra Tech, a company that promised — dubiously, in retrospect — to make crypto assets accessible via a debit card. Directed by Bryan Storkel (best-known for the quirky docs “The Pez Outlaw” and “The Bad Boy of Bowling”), the film is anchored by extensive interviews with the Centra Tech masterminds, as well as with some of the journalists who figured out early that something was fishy here. The details of the story are at once amusing and alarming, involving easily persuaded celebrity spokespeople, phony apps engineered to demonstrate a nonexistent technology and a FOMO culture where the bold promise of quick cash drowns out common sense.
‘Fool Me Once’
Now streaming
The author Harlan Coben’s novels are prime adaptation fodder for two simple reasons: He creates sympathetic protagonists with relatable anxieties; and he writes twisty plots that keep readers guessing. In the British miniseries “Fool Me Once,” Michelle Keegan plays a typical Coben hero, Maya Stern, an ex-military special operations agent who is shocked one day to look at the footage from her home security camera and see her husband, Joe (Richard Armitage), whom she thought had been murdered. Her investigation into this mystery leads to Maya crossing paths with a distrustful homicide investigator (Adeel Akhtar) and Joe’s rich and powerful mother (Joanna Lumley) — as well as some family members of her own who believe Joe’s strange case may be tied to the death of Maya’s sister.
‘Society of the Snow’
Starts streaming: Jan. 4
In 1972, a plane crash in the Andes left over two dozen passengers stuck on a remote, icy mountain, with little hope of rescue and only a small amount of food to share. Famously — or infamously — the survivors resorted to cannibalism while waiting for the spring thaw. But the director J.A. Bayona (adapting a book by the journalist Pablo Vierci) doesn’t make the eating of human flesh the primary point of emphasis in his film “Society of the Snow.” He’s more interested in hardships like extreme cold and sudden avalanches, and in how a desperate situation strengthened the bond between these people, many of whom played together on the same rugby team. This is film about young men fighting hard to stay alive for each other’s sake, in a landscape at once picturesque and cruel.
‘The Brothers Sun’ Season 1
Starts streaming: Jan. 4
The two brothers in the action-dramedy “The Brothers Sun” couldn’t be more different. One is Bruce (Sam Song Li), a cash-strapped Los Angeles college student with aspirations to be an improv comic; the other is Charles (Justin Chien), a skilled amateur chef who also happens to be a top-level assassin in a Taiwan triad. Michelle Yeoh plays the boys’ mother, Eileen, who has been sheltering Bruce from the criminal life in America. But when killers from the old country start invading her suburban sanctuary, she has to get her gangster groove back to keep her family safe. Created by Brad Falchuk (a creator of “Glee” and “American Horror Story”) and Byron Wu, this series combines dynamic martial arts sequences with scenes where the dysfunctional Suns relearn how to trust each other.
‘Griselda’
Starts streaming: Jan. 25
Sofia Vergara plays the notorious drug lord Griselda Blanco in this miniseries, created by the writer-producer Ingrid Escajeda alongside some of the team behind the Netflix favorite “Narcos.” (Vergara, a Colombian herself, is also a producer on the project.) Blanco’s story has been told before in documentaries and TV movies, most of which treat her as a larger-than-life criminal legend. “Griselda” aims to be more grounded, following the cocaine queenpin from her origins in Medellín to her dominance of the Miami market, while frequently jumping back and forth in time to compare the mild-mannered immigrant mother that Blanco once seemed to be with the ruthless woman who went on to outfox the mob’s macho men.
Also arriving:
Jan. 1
“You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment”
Jan. 5
“Gyeongseong Creature” Season 1, Part 2
Jan. 10
“The Trust: A Game of Greed” Season 1
Jan. 11
“Champion” Season 1
“Detective Forst” Season 1
“Sonic Prime” Season 3
Jan. 12
“Lift”
“Love Is Blind: Sweden” Season 1
Jan. 19
“The Bequeathed” Season 1
“Sixty Minutes”
Jan. 22
“Not Quite Narwhal” Season 2
Jan. 23
“Jacqueline Novak: Get on Your Knees”
“Love Deadline” Season 1
Jan. 24
“Queer Eye” Season 8
“Six Nations: Full Contact”
Jan. 30
“Jack Whitehall: Settle Down”
Jan. 31
“Baby Bandito”
Source: Television - nytimes.com
