It’s always disconcerting for moviegoers to go from December, which typically sees an avalanche of high-profile and high-quality films like All of Us Strangers and The Brutalist, to January, which has given us such non-classics as The 355 and The Beekeeper. And January 2025 seems like it will offer more of the same with the Gerard Butler action sequel Den of Thieves 2: Pantera and the Blumhouse horror flick Wolf Man.
Yet if you look closer, you’ll see there are a half-dozen movies in the month that promise to be actually good. Shocking, right? The following three films are the best of a small bunch, movies that span genres like horror, anime, and thriller, but all promise the same thing: a good time. What more can one ask for in the new year?
The Damned (January 3)
January is an unusually strong month for horror films; two years ago, we got the social media phenomenon of M3GAN, and last year gave us the killer pool flick Night Swim. 2025 will be no different, and The Damned hopes to mimic the success of those two Blumhouse movies.
Somewhere in the 19th century, a ship crashes on the shore near a small village. The surviving crew beg the townspeople for help, but it’s winter, food stock is low, and many of them, including a young widow (Odessa Young), must make an unthinkable decision: save the crew and risk starvation or ignore their pleas and survive the harsh season.
The Damned is a horror movie that deals with the consequences of the townspeople’s actions, and how guilt manifests itself via the supernatural. Which choice is the right one? And will they be punished for making the wrong one by forces they can’t see or touch? The Damned promises to be just as unsettling as The Witch or The Lighthouse, two Robert Eggers movies that used its austere locations to great effect.
Night Call (January 17)
Night Call has an intriguing premise. Mady (Jonathan Feltre) is a student by day and locksmith by night. One evening, he receives a call from his friend Claire (Natacha Krief) to open a lock to a place that’s not hers. After Claire takes a mysterious bag and ditches him, Mady is caught by the bag’s owner, Yannick. If that’s not bad enough, Yannick (Romain Duris) is a gangster, and not a nice one either, and so begins a tense night when Mady has to find Claire, get the bag back, and somehow avoid Yannick and his goons.
The director, Michiel Blanchart, isn’t content with simply making an run-of-the-mill action movie. He sets Night Call during a Black Lives Matter protest in Brussels, which Mady, who is Black, has to navigate while also dealing with his personal drama with Yannick. The result is a thriller with social resonance, one that recalls ’70s-era classics like The French Connection and Marathon Man. If Night Call is half as good as those movies, it could be one of 2024’s most interesting films.
The Colors Within (January 24)
Most high school students have run-of-the-mill talents like playing a musical instrument or participating in a sport. For Totsuko, she can see people as colors. Some people are red, others are light blue, but Kimi, Totsuko’s classmate, emits such a strange color that the young girl is drawn to her.
After an awkward encounter at a bookstore, Totsuko accidentally implies she can play the piano. Kimi, who is an excellent guitarist, is thrilled because she can now start a band with Totsuko and Rui, a teenage boy who plays the theremin. What follows is a comedy of errors as the three teens try to make music together while also dealing with their growing feelings toward one another.
The Colors Within seems like your typical anime comedy, but there’s nothing typical about its visuals. The movie looks gorgeous, and uses the animated medium to full effect. The director, Naoko Yamada, previously made the beautiful-looking A Silent Voice and Liz and the Blue Bird, and she promises to outdo herself with her latest feature. Even if anime isn’t your thing, give The Colors Within a try this January. I guarantee there won’t be anything like it in 2025.