7 January Movies That Prove It’s Not a Total Dumpster Fire for Film

January is known as the “dumping ground” month of the year. Holiday foot traffic has died down a tad, and the bigger movies of the previous year’s final quarter have generated a fair amount of business, but not all of their business. So, studios don’t want to put another movie they have a ton of faith in into theaters where it’s going to compete with another of their successful products. Hence, you get typical January films, like Jason Friedberg/Aaron Seltzer spoofs such as Epic Movie and Meet the Spartans, particularly cheesy and lackluster horror movies such as The Devil Inside and Darkness Falls, and big budget movies the studio has already dumped money into yet know it will fail hard if stacked up against more confidently produced summer blockbusters. For instance, Hard Rain back in 1998 and Dolittle in 2020. It’s also the house for movies that had particularly tumultuous productions, e.g. Gangster Squad in 2013 (which underwent a major reshoot in the wake of a real-life tragedy).

Just missing the cut were minor winners like Deep Rising, Orange County, Assault on Precinct 13, Smokin’ Aces, Varsity Blues, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Body Snatchers, M3GAN, and Bad Boys for Life. And, of course, movies that debuted in a few theaters in December only to expand greatly in January did not count as January releases. So, which movies are both very enjoyable and lucrative examples of January release cinema? Let’s find out.

7) Cloverfield

Cloverfield was a success because of fantastic marketing, it’s as simple as that. The trailers and posters did a phenomenal job of shrouding what the film’s threat was. If you wanted to see it, you had to buy a ticket. And a lot of people did just that.

On $25 million the film raked in $172 million worldwide. It was a huge success. A big part of that was the curiosity factor but equally important was the fact it merged kaiju action with a boots-on-the-ground narrative about rescuing a loved one. It’s a movie that felt like it had real stakes, and we felt that for the characters because we were essentially seeing the events through their eyes. 10 Cloverfield Lane is a little bit better, but the first movie will always be one of the best examples of why high-concept stuff can thrive in January, especially if the budget is kept low.

Stream Cloverfield on MGM+.

6) Taken

There actually weren’t many expectations of Taken before it hit theaters at the very end of January 2009. But then it opened to $24.7 million, which was an impressive debut, but far from its big accomplishment. Instead, it’s biggest accomplishment was being such a word-of-mouth hit. All in all, it’s a pretty standard revenge actioner, but people really got to talking about the iconic phone call scene and just how much tension that built.

As for the numbers, its second weekend experienced an absolutely miniscule drop for an action movie to the tune of another $20.5 million. The drop was even smaller the second weekend, earning another $18.9 million. It continued to experience mercifully tiny drops until it left theaters with $145 million domestically and another $81.8 million from overseas markets. And the irony is that it wasn’t even a domestic film, it was French. Let this entry also represent The Grey, an even better Neeson movie that just missed grabbing the spot because it wasn’t quite as important to its actor’s career trajectory (or jaw-droppingly lucrative).

Stream Taken on Hulu.

5) Split

M. Night Shyamalan had a few rough years there. The Happening represented a nadir in the horror movie wing of his filmography (though he never intended for it to be straightforward horror) then The Last Airbender and After Earth ended up being similarly disastrous efforts into high budget filmmaking.

It was with The Visit in 2015 that audiences started to accept him as a clever filmmaker once more. It re-earned their goodwill, and then when Split came along the next year they didn’t feel as though they were bound to get burned. That feeling of safety was compounded by the film’s very solid marketing, which sold it as a tense affair with a go-for-broke performance by James McAvoy. And, in the end, it was something of an important film, considering it was as much a launching pad for Anya Taylor-Joy as The Witch from the previous year. Not to mention, the twist ending tag scene connecting it to Unbreakable was very exciting. It’s just unfortunate Glass, released three years later, totally failed to stick the landing even with Taylor-Joy, McAvoy, Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, and Sarah Paulson all on the cast list.

Stream Split on HBO Max.

4) Final Destination 2

Some people think Final Destination is the best of the franchise while others point to Final Destination Bloodlines, but there’s just as strong an argument to be made that Final Destination 2 is the best of the bunch. At the very least it has the best of the premonition disaster scenes.

Yet it was the only installment to get a January release. The two films that bookend it were also released towards the beginning of the year, but they weren’t January releases while the fourth, fifth, and sixth movies were all summer releases. But January worked out for the excellent sequel, netting three and a half times its budget and earning slightly better reviews than its predecessor.

Stream Final Destination 2 on YouTube TV.

3) From Dusk till Dawn

Quentin Tarantino may have been coming off two beloved favorites in Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, but From Dusk till Dawn, directed by his longtime collaborator Robert Rodriguez, was nonetheless a January release. And it’s honestly not really hard to see why the movie had a hard time securing funding and ultimately ended up getting released towards the very beginning of the year.

Here’s a movie that starts as a traditional Tarantino crime film before it jarringly (in a good way) switches to a vampire film for the entirety of its second act. It’s loaded with expletives, bloody violence, and some really creepy moments courtesy of Tarantino’s Richard Gecko. It was never going to be a movie that gets a massive summer movie season push. But it did well in January, tripling its budget, getting relatively solid reviews from critics, and swiftly generating a devoted cult fanbase.

Stream From Dusk till Dawn on Paramount+.

2) Companion

One of 2025’s best movies was a January release. Go figure. That would be Companion, a brilliant take on the AI-focused narrative, which is becoming increasingly common these days but is seldom pulled off with as much heart and as many twists as this hugely impressive directorial debut by Drew Hancock.

While Jack Quaid is convincing in a villain role, not unlike in the next entry here on our list, Companion is Sophie Thatcher’s movie all the way through. This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that she can carry a studio movie with a layered and charming performance. It also shows she could very well be an action star just as much as she’s a convincing romantic lead. It will be very interesting to see what else most of this movie’s main creatives have in store for us.

Stream Companion on HBO Max.

1) Scream (2022)

When Scream 4 bombed in 2011 it really seemed as though the general audience had grown tired of Ghostface. After all, there were 11 years between the third and fourth installments and there clearly was no long-gestating interest in seeing a return for this particular classic slasher IP. After all, Scream 4‘s entire domestic run wasn’t much more than Scream 3 made throughout its opening weekend a whole decade before.

But then Radio Silence’s Scream proved there was life yet in these movies. As a whole, Scream 4 isn’t bad per se, but it feels a little hollow. The 2022 movie is the perfect mixture of the old and the new. It feels spontaneous, breezy, and fun. Scream VI may have been a letdown, but Radio Silence’s first go-round is the best Scream movie outside the first two.

Stream Scream (2022) on Paramount+.

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