Usually, January is the absolute worst time to watch a movie. The year is over, and nothing good comes out. Theaters are stocked with the movies studios do not care about. Most of the time, they’re the movies that people know are bad, so they’re buried when no one will see them anyway. Every once in a while, a good movie comes out, but it’s rare.
However, in 2026, January isn’t even over, and we’re already off to a really strong start. The rest of the month has some promising movies, and so does February. Once we hit March, the dark days are usually over, so the fact that we’re doing so well already bodes really well for this year.
2026 Could End Up a Great Movie Year, and It’s Only January
Whenever there’s a good movie out in January, it’s a big deal. This is the month movies go to die. I can hardly even remember the last time I went to the theater during the month of January, and I’ve had AMC Stubs for years. There’s just hardly ever anything good worth watching.
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple could end up being one of the best movies of the year. It came out January 16. That is an almost unfathomable statement, but the reviews are all pretty much in consensus. We gave it a 4/5, but it’s sitting at 3.9 on Letterboxd, 7.8 on IMDb, and 93% Rotten Tomatoes. Those numbers don’t lie.
The prevailing sentiment is best summed up by social media star Jstoobs’ review of the film on Letterboxd, “Can’t help but feel like it’s going to be an absolutely incredible year for cinema when we’re starting off with this.” We’re already off to a really good start.
That’s not all, though. In theaters later this month is Sam Raimi’s new movie called Send Help. It stars Dylan O’Brien and Rachel McAdams, and it looks fantastic. Plus, while Primate isn’t getting good reviews, people are generally agreeing that it’s a fun time in the theater. The movie could certainly be worse, especially in this month out of all of them.
Streaming is doing pretty well, too. People We Meet on Vacation is a Netflix original that was released in January, which, in other words, means it’s supposed to be bad, but it’s also getting good reviews. It’s got a 3.4 Letterboxd average, 6.8 IMDB score, and 74% Rotten Tomatoes rating. Those are solid scores, especially given the context.
The Rip just came out this weekend on Netflix, starring Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. Again, it’s a Netflix original in January, but it has an 82% on Rotten Tomatoes and more 3.5-star reviews than anything else on Letterboxd, which is a good sign it’s going to end up being somewhat positively reviewed.
Even if nothing else good comes out this month, it’s been the best January in quite some time. That bodes well for a movie year that was already looking incredibly stacked. The Odyssey, Dune: Part Three, Avengers Doomsday, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, and plenty more are still on the way.
Conclusion
Largely on the back of the mighty Bone Temple, 2026 is off to a hot start. It’s all downhill from here, meaning that the year is only going to get better and better. Thanks to a surprisingly deep slate in 2025, last year ended up being one of the best movie years in recent memory, and 2026 could well surpass it. Time will tell, but it’s hard not to be excited about what’s to come in the next several months.
