Best films released in the UK this month: January 2024
Highlights include Poor Things, All of Us Strangers and The Colour Purple.
A new year is upon us, and it is already shaping up to be another great one for cinema – with the likes of Dune: Part Two, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and Gladiator 2 among the heavy hitters making their way to UK screens over the next 12 months.
But before then, a huge number of great films are set to arrive this month, with the January release schedule including several movies that could play a major role in the upcoming awards season.
Of those films, Yorgos Lanthimos's fantasy comedy Poor Things and Alexander Payne's drama The Holdovers are among the highlights, while Andrew Haigh's tear-jerking romantic fantasy All of Us Strangers is another one to look out for.
Meanwhile, fans of Jodie Comer and Jenna Coleman can look forward to thrillers The End We Start From and Jackdaw respectively, and there are two new musical adaptations in the shape of Mean Girls and The Colour Purple – both of which are based on Broadway shows.
To help you pick out the highlights, we've put together a selection of some of the best films to watch this month – check out the video above or read on for our choices.
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One Life
Release date: Monday 1st January in cinemas
This stirring drama stars Anthony Hopkins and Johnny Flynn as older and younger versions of Nicholas Winton, a man who saved hundreds of Jewish children at the start of the Second World War by organising the 'kindertransport' from Czechoslovakia to the UK.
Decades later, during an episode of That's Life with Esther Rantzen in the 1980s, Winton came face to face with several of those he had saved – a moment which is dramatised to great emotional effect in the film.
Priscilla
Release date: Monday 1st January in cinemas
A very different take on the King of Rock 'n' Roll than Baz Luhrmann's flashy 2022 biopic, Sofia Coppola's new drama charts the relationship between Elvis and Priscilla Presley from the viewpoint of the latter – who is played by Cailee Spaeny.
Told with Coppola's typical sensitivity and style, the film follows the pair's relationship from their first meeting, when Priscilla was just a teenager, to their divorce in 1973, with Spaeny and Jacob Elordi excelling in the lead roles.
Poor Things
Release date: Friday 12th January in cinemas
Adapted from Alasdair Gray's novel of the same name, Yorgos Lanthimos's comedy fantasy is set to be one of the year's very best films – featuring a knockout central performance from Emma Stone, who is being hotly tipped for a second Best Actress Oscar.
Stone plays Bella Baxter, an adult woman with the brain of a child who was created as an experiment by Willem Dafoe's eccentric Scottish scientist Godwin Baxter, with the film following her journey of self-discovery after she is taken on a European adventure by caddish lawyer Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo).
The Kitchen
Release date: Friday 12th January in cinemas, Friday 19th January on Netflix
The feature directorial debut of actor Daniel Kaluuya and Kibwe Tavares, The Kitchen is a dystopian thriller set in a future version of London where all social housing has been eliminated.
Top Boy's Kane Robinson has his first leading big-screen role as the main character Izi, a man from a community known as The Kitchen who – along with a 12-year-old named Benji (Jedaiah Bannerman) – struggles to find a way out.
The Boys in the Boat
Release date: Friday 12th January in cinemas
George Clooney's latest directorial effort is an underdog sports drama that follows the University of Washington rowing team on their impressive journey to compete at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
The film is based on Daniel James Brown's 2013 non-fiction account of the same name and stars Callum Turner as rower Joe Rantz, with Joel Edgerton shining as the team's coach Al Ulbrickson.
Mean Girls
Release date: Wednesday 17th January in cinemas
Two decades after the original Mean Girls film became an era-defining teen comedy classic, this new musical version arrives in UK cinemas, based on the Broadway show which was itself adapted from the original film.
Angourie Rice, Reneé Rapp, Auliʻi Cravalho and Christopher Briney star in the lead roles, while Tina Fey returns as maths teacher Ms Norbury and is again on screenwriting duties – so expect to hear plenty of those iconic lines once more.
The Holdovers
Release date: Friday 19th January in cinemas
Alexander Payne's comedy-drama follows the unlikely bond that forms between a New England prep school teacher, the school's cook and a troublemaking student who stays on campus over the holidays.
Although the film is landing in UK cinemas a few weeks after the festive period, it seems destined to be a future Christmas classic, while stars Paul Giamatti, Dominic Sessa and Da'Vine Joy Randolph have all received acclaim for their performances.
The End We Start From
Release date: Friday 19th January in cinemas
Jodie Comer stars as a woman who must secure safety both for herself and her newborn baby when an environmental crisis sees London submerged in water in this survival thriller from director Mahalia Belo and screenwriter Alice Birch.
Based on a novel of the same name by Megan Hunter, the film's cast also includes Benedict Cumberbatch, Katherine Waterston, Joel Fry and Mark Strong.
The Book of Clarence
Release date: Friday 19th January in cinemas
This biblical epic from writer-director Jeymes Samuel stars LaKeith Stanfield as a man who poses as a Messiah sent from God after the rise of Jesus Christ, in order to free himself of debt and start a life of glory for himself.
The film's star-studded ensemble cast also includes the likes of Omar Sy, David Oyelowo, Micheal Ward, Alfre Woodard, Teyana Taylor, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, James McAvoy and Benedict Cumberbatch.
All of Us Strangers
Release date: Friday 26th January in cinemas
The latest film from 45 Years director Andrew Haigh looks set to be a real tear-jerker, with Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal starring as a couple whose fledgling relationship prompts Scott's character to become preoccupied with memories of the past.
He soon finds himself drawn back to the suburban town where he grew up, and the childhood home where his parent appear to be living, just as they were on the day they died 30 years before.
Jackdaw
Release date: Friday 26th January in cinemas
Jenna Coleman and Oliver Jackson-Cohen lead the cast of this action thriller about a former motocross champion (Jackson-Cohen) in Hartlepool, who has fallen on hard times and accepts a dangerous task to collect a mysterious package.
However, that decision to take the job leads to dramatic repercussions both for him and his family, when his brother is kidnapped and he is drawn further into a world of crime over the course of one violent night.
The Colour Purple
Release date: Friday 26th January in cinemas
The second film adaptation of Alice Walker's groundbreaking novel is based on the 2005 Broadway musical version, and stars Fantasia Barrino and Taraji P Henson in the lead roles of Celie Harris-Johnson and Shug Avery.
As with the novel, the previous film and the stage musical, the film tells the story of the lifelong struggles of an African-American woman living in the South during the early 1900s.
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