10 Best New Movies and Shows to Watch This Week

It’s another big week on the small screen, with a number of shows that will make you want to shut yourself away and not come out until you’ve seen it all. In no particular order, this week features the long-awaited return of “True Detective,” the end of “Reacher” (for now) and one of the wildest true-crime documentaries you’re likely to see (“American Nightmare”). Plus Clive Owen is “Monsieur Spade,” Daniel Kaluuya directs a movie (“The Kitchen”) and “Zorro” returns (in, um, “Zorro”). Pop the popcorn, grab your drink of choice and make sure your favorite sweatpants are clean. This is a big week!

On with the television!

True Detective: Night Country

Sunday, January 14 at 9 p.m., HBO

“True Detective” is back. And it’s better than ever. In its fourth season, the freshly subtitled “True Detective: Night Country” harkens back to what made that original season so special – specifically a liberal mixture of procedural detective work and Lovecraftian supernatural horror. Now under the direction of Mexican filmmaker Issa López, both the humanity and the horror are pushed to extremes. You’ll probably wipe away tears and also cover your eyes with your hand, sometimes in the same sequence. This time around Jodie Foster, slipping easily back into Clarice Starling mode, plays the sheriff of a frostbitten small Alaska town, who teams with a former cop (Kali Reis) to solve a ghastly mystery at an arctic research station all during the part of the year where the sun doesn’t shine for weeks. (Yes, “The Thing” comparisons are apt.)

If, for some reason, you checked out of the “True Detective” space after the uneven second season, it’s time to jump back in – this mystery is gripping and the human drama surrounding it is even more compelling. With an all-star supporting cast, including John Hawkes, Christopher Eccleston and Fiona Shaw, and the kind of eerie, unsettling atmosphere of the very best campfire story, “True Detective: Night Country” is must-watch TV. Everybody will be talking about it. You don’t want to be left out.

Reacher

Friday, January 19, Prime Video

The first season of “Reacher,” based on the character created by Lee Child, was compulsively entertaining television, full of punches thrown and bad guys thwarted. But it was also deeply satisfying, witty and well-paced. And season 2, this time based on one of Child’s very best novels (“Bad Luck and Trouble”) was even better. Everything you loved about the first season has been amplified and intensified, with Reacher (a note-perfect Alan Ritchson) being drawn out of his nomadic lifestyle after members of his old army unit are being murdered one by one. This week’s finale is explosive, nail-biting stuff. It’s also oddly emotional – and not just for the characters on screen, but for us as viewers.

There’s something reassuring about Reacher’s strict moral compass and about the way that Ritchson embodies him, not as a brute stirring up trouble, but a thoughtful righter of wrongs. (His line delivery doesn’t get enough love; those quips are deployed with the skill and precision of one of his punches.) There’s something admirable about how unsophisticated “Reacher” is. At first it seemed like comfort food. Now it can rightfully be called one of the best shows on TV.

The Kitchen

Friday, January 19, Netflix

Source: Netflix

Daniel Kaluuya, the Oscar-winning actor from “Judas and the Black Messiah” and Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” and “Nope,” is headed into unknown territory – filmmaking. He teamed with Kibwe Tavares (also making his feature debut) to direct “The Kitchen,” a movie that Kaluuya also co-wrote (with Joe Murtagh and Rob Hayes). And we couldn’t be more excited. Set in a dystopian London which has done away with public housing, it follows Izi (Kane Robinson aka rapper Kano) and Benji (Jedaiah Bannerman), who are fighting to save their neighborhood aka the Kitchen. Based on the early reviews out of the BFI London Film Festival, where the movie premiered last fall, and the stunning, anime-inspired visuals on display in the trailer, it seems like Kaluuya isn’t just one of our most exciting performers but also one of our most exciting filmmakers too. Ready to visit the Kitchen?

June

Tuesday, January 16, Paramount+

This feature-length documentary from Emmy-winning documentarian Kristen Vaurio looks at the life and work of June Carter Cash, who was a member of musical group the Carter Family as a child and then grew into a powerful singer/songwriter on her own. She also, of course, was the second wife to Johnny Cash (played by Reese Witherspoon in “Walk the Line”) and one of his most trusted collaborators. (The trailer makes it very clear she was the one who wrote “Ring of Fire.”) Featuring talking head interviews from Witherspoon, Kacey Musgraves, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson and Robert Duvall, plus archival footage. If you’re looking for a solid new music documentary, this surely seems to fit the bill.

Killers of the Flower Moon

Apple TV+

Apple TV+ finally released “Killers of the Flower Moon” on streaming this week. Now it’s time to watch! One of 2023’s very best movies, Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” is very much worth the three-and-a-half hours. Based on the nonfiction book by New Yorker writer David Grann, “Killers of the Flower Moon” traces the “Reign of Terror” – a period between 1921 and 1926 when members of the Osage Nation, displaced from their home and forced onto reservations in Oklahoma, found themselves the wealthiest per-capita group in the United States (thanks to the oil on the land). A group of white men, led by William King Hale (Robert De Niro), instigate a plot wherein white men marry into the family, kill off the wife (and sometimes children) and inherit the “head rights” to the land. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Ernest Burkhart, Hale’s nephew, who returns from the war and finds himself a key player in the conspiracy.

What makes him such a tragic, compelling figure is that he really is in love with his wife, Mollie Kyle (played by an astounding Lily Gladstone). And he is also responsible for plotting her demise and the death of several family members. Scorsese, long one of our best chroniclers of the immigrant experience, channels guilt into a chronicle of America’s original sin. And the results are just as explosive – and horrific – as you’d imagine.

“Monsieur Spade”

Sunday, Jan. 14 at 9 p.m., AMC

This sounds very cool. Set in 1963, it follows Sam Spade, the detective character created by Dashielle Hammett and immortalized in “The Maltese Falcon,” as he is drawn into a new mystery in the South of France. And Clive Owen plays Sam Spade. (If you didn’t see him in “A Murder at the End of the World,” you’re missing out on another great Owen role.) Also worth mentioning – “Monsieur Spade” was co-written by Tom Fontana (creator of “Oz”) and Scott Frank (“The Queen’s Gambit”) and completely directed by Frank. It doesn’t take an ace detective to see that this is going to be great.

“Death and Other Details”

Tuesday, Jan. 16, Hulu

Speaking of “Murder at the End of the World,” “Death and Other Details” seems to occupy the same locked-door mystery space that the earlier Hulu series had, but with a much lighter tone that’s probably closer to “Knives Out.” On a luxury cruise ship somebody is murdered and it’s up to a legendary detective Rufus Coteworth (Mandy Patinkin in full Poirot mode) and his plucky sidekick (Violett Beane) to solve the mystery. Looks fun!

“American Nightmare”

Wednesday, Jan. 17, Netflix

This is one of the more insane true-crime documentaries we’ve ever seen, which is saying something. Honestly, the less you know the better, except that it’s about a bizarre home invasion and its constantly surprising aftermath. That’s all you get! Just watch it.

“Hazbin Hotel”

Friday, Jan. 19, Prime Video

“Hazbin Hotel” is the first adult animated series from A24 and this new series from creator Vivienne Medrano is a trip. It’s set in an anime-inspired version of hell, where two demons open a hotel to try and rehabilitate lost souls. Also it’s a musical. Featuring a striking visual style and really good songs, “Hazbin Hotel” could be a new cult classic. It’s devilishly enjoyable. And it’s already been renewed for a second season.

“Zorro”

Friday, Jan. 19, Prime Video

This Spanish production is described as a “bold reinterpretation” of the classic character, this time portrayed by Miguel Bernardeau. Honestly, it’s about time we had a new Zorro.

The post 10 Best New Movies and Shows to Watch This Week appeared first on TheWrap.