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It’s impressive that Netflix is arriving in the middle of January with a largely fresh lineup of movies that have high Rotten Tomatoes scores.
Most of the newcomers landed below the 90 percent mark, but it’s such an eclectic group that movie fans of all stripes should be happy.
Watch With Us has narrowed the selections down to the five best Netflix movies right now, as ranked by Rotten Tomatoes.
Action and horror are both well-represented on this list, but there’s a coming-of-age flick that landed at No. 1.
5. ‘Stone Cold Fox’ (2025)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 60 percent
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina star Kiernan Shipka is back on Netflix this month with a leading role in the action thriller Stone Cold Fox. Shipka plays Fox, a runaway who finds herself romantically entangled with a drug dealer named Goldie (Krysten Ritter). Fox is fine with their arrangement until she sees that her sister, Spooky (Bluesy Burke), has apparently run away from home as well, only to be kidnapped off the street.
Fox will do anything to save her sister, even if it means stabbing Goldie in the back and going off by herself. It’s a dangerous road she’s embarked upon, and Fox may not be able to see her mission through to completion.
Stone Cold Fox is streaming on Netflix.
4. ‘Becky’ (2020)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 72 percent
Comedian Kevin James has a rare villainous turn in Becky, but the film belongs to Lulu Wilson, who plays the titular 13-year-old girl. Becky feels blindsided when her widowed father, Jeff (Joel McHale), announces that he’s marrying his girlfriend, Kayla (Amanda Brugel), and bringing her son, Ty (Isaiah Rockcliffe), into the family as well.
After Becky runs off to process the news, her family is taken hostage by Dominick (James) and his men. These people are willing to murder Becky’s family to get what they want, but they don’t know what they’ve unleashed. Becky has a killer instinct that no one expected, and she’s about to go Die Hard on the punks who threatened her family.
Becky is streaming on Netflix.
3. ‘Bone Lake’ (2025)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 83 percent
The erotic thriller genre collides with a horror story in Bone Lake, a film that was only briefly in theaters last year. Maddie Hasson and Marco Pigossi star as a couple, Sage and Diego, who rented a beautiful vacation home near scenic Bone Lake. However, their plan for some time alone is foiled when another couple, Will (Alex Roe) and Cin (Andra Nechita), is double-booked for the home as well.
Diego and Sage gamely decide to let Will and Cin stay with them, and they’re repaid for their kindness with the ultimate test of their relationship. Will and Cin seem intent on seducing Sage and Diego, respectively. But if you want to know how this becomes a horror story, you’re just going to have to watch the movie.
Bone Lake will stream on Netflix on January 15.
2. ’28 Years Later’ (2025)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89 percent
28 Years Later is the only film on this list that isn’t new to Netflix this month, but we threw it on here because the sequel, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, is currently playing in theaters. Director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland reunited for this sequel to their previous film, 28 Days Later, which redefined zombies on the big screen for the 21st century.
As the title implies, nearly three decades have passed since England fell to the rage virus that transformed most of the survivors into bloodthirsty zombies. On the outskirts of the British Isles, Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) takes his son, Spike (Alfie Williams), to the mainland as a rite of passage. The infected are still roaming, but the real threat to this father and son duo may come from the survivors who have lived among the rage zombies for decades.
28 Years Later is streaming on Netflix.
1. ‘Licorice Pizza’ (2021)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90 percent
Just this past week, director Paul Thomas Anderson received multiple Oscar nominations for his latest film, the Leonardo DiCaprio action-comedy One Battle After Another. In a case of fortuitous timing, Netflix is about to stream one of Anderson’s most recent films, Licorice Pizza.
Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the best modern American filmmakers. Since he shook the world with Boogie Nights back in 1997, the director has released banger after banger for nearly three decades. His films are always critical and award darlings that have positioned him as a major artist, and his newest film, One Battle […]
The story begins in 1973, as a high school student, Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman), becomes infatuated with Alana Kane (Alana Haim), a young woman who is 10 years his senior. Despite Gary’s very obvious desire to have a romance with her, Alana maintains a friendship and bond with him. It also seems like his attraction to her isn’t entirely one-sided, but the age gap between them may be the thing that prevents Gary and Alana from ever truly being a couple.
Licorice Pizza is now streaming on Netflix.
