Best new movies and TV series on Stan: January 2025

Each month, lots of new films and TV shows are added to Stan‘s library. Eliza Janssen surveys the month’s selections and picks for titles most worth watching. For the full list of everything arriving on the platform, scroll down.

Top Picks: TV

Black Snow: Season 2 (January 1)

Nothing heats us up like a cold case, and after the sobering tale of “Blackbirding” and missing persons that Detective Cormack (a brooding Travis Fimmel) tackled in season one of this Stan Original, we’re ready for more rugged intrigue and shocking turns. Travis Johnson (hey another Travis!) wrote up a favourable review of season one, describing the series as “a moody, well-made crime drama that forefronts a little-explored area of Australian culture and history…what sets Black Snow apart is the way it takes us into the Australian South Seas Islander community.”

This time, we’re getting not only one new case but two, with Fimmel on the trail of a missing woman and also his own brother, who mysteriously disappeared during their childhood. The past deserves excavation, dark truths resurfacing even decades later—and we deserve well-executed, homemade stories like this.

Protection: Season 1 (January 10)

Police informants, terrorists, war criminals: there’s plenty of reasons why someone might need witness protection, and in this intense British drama from ITV, we get to see what it might look like if that fragile process were to break down. Creator Kris Mrksa based the six-part series on first-hand accounts from a 30-year veteran of London’s witness protection division, hopefully lending a palpable sense of authenticity to a story that should scale unpredictable heights.

We’ll see one witness protection officer caught in the midst of a devastating breach, with conflicts of extramarital affairs and cop corruption whorling on all sides—perfectly absorbing binge material.

In Our Blood: Season 1 (January 16)

Australia’s response to the height of the AIDS crisis was an unusual one, and this recent ABC series did a commendable job capturing the movement to raise awareness, treat patients and build trust amongst some of society’s most marginalised peoples. Characters in fields of politics and medicine must work in tandem with queer communities to stop the spread and destigmatise the virus, but the show’s depiction of this process is thankfully much less dry (and depressing) than it sounds, with plenty of alluring dancefloor scenes capturing the vibrant and joyful lives put at risk.

Top Picks: Movies + Specials

Joy Ride (January 1)

You’ve seen vacation-gone-wrong movies. You’ve seen girls-behaving-badly comedies. But you’ve probably—and unfortunately—never seen one like this, a raunchfest with a cast of fiercely funny Asian-American talent. You’ll recognise Ashley Park and Oscar-nominee Stephanie Hsu as two members of a chaotic foursome who humiliate themselves and chug substances across Asia, in what was intended as a wholesome international search for Park’s heritage. It’s a blast, littered with big comic setpieces and four-letter words.

In her gushing review of the film, Cat Woods highlighted some of the comedy’s most jaw-dropping moments. “If you judge a movie by its lashings of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll—as I do—then this has it all. There’s sex (threesomes and questionable tattoo-revealing nudity), drugs (cocaine-filled condoms secured into orifices or clouds of powder gulped down hungrily), and—well, not quite rock’n’roll—the K-Pop satire to end all K-Pop satires.” We wouldn’t have it any other way.

The Magnificent Seven (January 10)

If you recently caught the re-released Seven Samurai in cinemas (or had the poor luck to watch Zack Snyder’s take on the same material over on Netflix), this fist-pumping Hollywood remake could be an ideal follow-up. To go one step further, you could also watch the remake of the remake, as the 2016 Denzel version drops on Stan on Jan 10 too. I would not advise this. In Sturges’ 1960 classic, the seven are Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, Brad Dexter, James Coburn, and Horst Buchholz, with nasty bandit Eli Wallach forcing them to band together and stop his attempts to oppress a Mexican village. Its sharp-shooting action and dusty mesa vistas might even make you feel a tad cooler this summer, purely through contrast: chuck on the aircon and blast that soundtrack.

Fargo (January 31)

A breakout movie for the ingenious Coen Bros, this black comedy of Minnesota Nice versus the mundanity of evil is a top-to-bottom classic. Frances McDormand as a very pregnant, very loveable cop? Oh you betcha, did she deserve her shiny Best Actress Oscar for this one. Looking back, it turns out to be one of the Brothers’ most wholesome movies, even as limbs are mashed through wood chippers and Steve Buscemi’s hotheaded killer snarls through snowy streets. There’s a sense throughout that Marge Gunderson’s utter decency and determination can triumph over anything, and that she’ll get back to the cosy, dull life she so deserves in no time. The Mike Yanagita scene kills me with its sheer discomfort.