Cameron Diaz in Back in Action – Picture: Netflix
For Americans, you’re heading into a long weekend to celebrate Martin Luther King Dy on January 20th. If you plan on spending some time on Netflix, you may be looking for all the new releases or some recommendations on what to watch. We’re here to help! Here’s everything new and trending on Netflix for the week ending January 17th, 2025.
Lots still to look forward to as January as we cross the midway point in the month. We just updated our January 2025 release date guide with more new movies and announced series, including Ballot, Here, and Saturday Night.
If you’re looking for something to watch before it leaves Netflix in the next weeks, we’d recommend two docs that are departing Monday: The Pez Outlaw and Studio 54. Next week, we’re seeing two of Ava Du Vernay’s ARRAY movies, Definition Please and Donkeyhead, depart in addition to the excellent Vince Vaughn prison movie Brawl in Cell Block 99.
What to Watch on Netflix This Weekend
Back in Action (2025)
Rating: PG-13
Language: English
Genre: Action, Comedy
Director: Seth Gordon
Cast: Jamie Foxx, Cameron Diaz, McKenna Roberts
Writer: Seth Gordon, Brendan O’Brien
Runtime: 114 min / 1h 54m
Delayed from its original release in mid-2024, Back in Action is finally available on Netflix today and marks the first big movie release for the streamer of 2025 and by most accounts, including our own, it’s a solid film. Much as the film’s title suggests, Cameron Diaz is back in action after 10 years off of our screens and joins Jamie Foxx in an action comedy about two former spies dragged into their old CIA life.
We rated the movie 3 stars today, concluding, “While it may not be the standout Foxx & Diaz performances we wanted for the big comeback, Back in Action has enough entertainment value to make for a pleasant January night at home.”
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022)
Rating: R
Language: English
Genre: Action, Comedy, Crime
Director: Tom Gormican
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Pedro Pascal, Tiffany Haddish
Writer: Tom Gormican, Kevin Etten
Runtime: 107 min / 1h 47m
On paper, this movie doesn’t sound like it should work. It’s a mix of Being John Malkovich and a low-budget action thriller, but the end result really works and is thoroughly enjoyable, albeit it certainly helps if you switch off your brain for some elements.
Nicolas Cage plays himself and is invited along to a big Birthday bash for a boatload of money. All is well? No. The superfan who’s paying him all that money is an internationally known criminal, and Cage soon finds himself caught up in a kidnapping.
The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live (Season 1)
Number of episodes: 6
Rating: TV-MA
Language: English
Genre: Drama, Horror, Thriller
Cast: Andrew Lincoln, Danai Gurira, Pollyanna McIntosh
Writer: Scott M. Gimple, Danai Gurira, Andrew Lincoln
The Walking Dead has gone off in many directions during and since the mothership show airing on AMC with the franchise in some people’s eyes better than ever while others believe it’s being milked to death. Wherever you stand, if you’ve seen all eleven seasons of the main show, you probably owe it to yourself to watch this mini-series that serves as a follow-up to Rick Grimes and Michonne Hawthorne, excellently played by Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira.
With the addition of The One Who Lives (Dead City was also due out this week but looks like it’s been delayed), you can have an almighty binge of The Walking Dead, so we’d refer you to our watch guide on how to do just that.
Full List of New Releases on Netflix This Week
As a reminder, you can find an expanded version of this list through our What’s New on Netflix hub page. There, each movie and series has an expanded box with previews, trailers and information about plot, cast and much more.
6 New Movies Added This Week
- Ari Shaffir: America’s Sweetheart (2025) Netflix Original – TV-MA – English
- Back in Action (2025) Netflix Original – PG-13 – English
- Hereditary (2018) – R – English
- Kingdom: Return of The Great General (2024) – TV-MA – Japanese
- Rifle Club (2024) – TV-MA – Malayalam
- The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022) – R – English
16 New TV Series Added This Week
- Babanba Banban Vampire (Season 1 – New Episodes Weekly) – TV-MA – Japanese
- Captain Tsubasa (Season 2) – TV-PG – Japanese
- Chef & My Fridge (Season 1 – 2024) – TV-PG – Korean
- Galileo (Season 1 ) – TV-14 – Japanese
- Hajime no Ippo: The Fighting! (Season 3 – Rising!) – TV-MA – Japanese
- Hell for You (Season 1 – New Episodes Weekly) – TV-14 – Japanese
- Krapopolis (Season 1) – TV-14 – English
- Lovers Anonymous (Season 1) Netflix Original – TV-MA – Turkish
- Public Disorder (Season 1) Netflix Original – TV-MA – Italian
- SAKAMOTO DAYS (Season 1 – New Episodes Weekly) Netflix Original – TV-MA – Japanese
- Single’s Inferno (Season 4) Netflix Original – TV-PG – Korean
- The Roshans (Season 1) Netflix Original – TV-14 – Hindi
- The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live (Season 1) – TV-MA – English
- Tokyo Love Story (Season 1 ) – TV-PG – Japanese
- XO, Kitty (Season 2) Netflix Original – TV-14 – English
- Young, Famous & African (Season 3) Netflix Original – TV-MA – English
1 New Game Added This Week
- Netflix Stories: Sex Education (iOS and Android on the Netflix Stories app)
Most Popular Movies on Netflix US This Week (Jan 10 – 17)
Picture: Illumination
Despicable Me supremacy! Ever since their re-additions on January 1st, both Illumination titles have been topping the US charts ever since which is unsurprising given how well their titles perform across Netflix globally. If your kid has been putting off a rewatch, now is the time to do it, as both will be leaving on February 1st.
- Despicable Me 2 (74 points)
- Ad Vitam (68 points)
- Despicable Me (66 points)
- Rush Hour (56 points)
- Hotel Transylvania 2 (39 points)
- Rush Hour 2 (30 points)
- Due Date (29 points)
- The Age of Adaline (19 points)
- Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 (15 points)
- Rush Hour 3 (10 points)
- The Secret Life of Pets (10 points)
- Hereditary (8 points)
- The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (7 points)
- In the Heart of the Sea (4 points)
- The Watchers (3 points)
- Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2 points)
Most Popular Series on Netflix US This Week (Jan 10 – 17)
- American Primeval (78 points)
- Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action (63 points)
- Squid Game (61 points)
- Gabriel Iglesias: Legend of Fluffy (42 points)
- Missing You (35 points)
- Younger (32 points)
- The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live (32 points)
- The Breakthrough (28 points)
- I Am a Killer (20 points)
- The Upshaws (13 points)
- XO, Kitty (10 points)
- Castlevania: Nocturne (4 points)
- Virgin River (3 points)
- The Night Agent (1 points)
Most popular figures are provided by FlixPatrol who assigns point values to each movie and series that features in the daily US Netflix top 10s.
What are you watching on Netflix this weekend? Let us know in the comments down below.
