Happy New Year! If you're more of a stay-inside kind of person when the midwinter weather approaches, the streamers have some interesting offers for theatre fans in January. Thrillers and mysteries seem to be the theme for the start of 2023. Who knew? Or rather, whodonit?
Check out a few of our recommendations below:
Amazon Prime
Tony and Oscar winner Al Pacino returns in the second and final season of Hunters, the conspiracy drama series about a group of Nazi hunters in 1977 New York City. The titular hunters include Logan Lerman, Lena Olin, Josh Radnor, Tiffany Boone, Carol Kane, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Udo Kier—with Pacino leading as a Polish Holocaust survivor. Stream it beginning January 13.
BroadwayHD
The streamer devoted to live theatre will add a film capture of the 1999 West End revival of Kiss Me, Kate to their platform January 15. Brent Barrett and Rachel York lead the cast as the bickering stars (and former spouses) of the play-within-the-musical, based on Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. Nancy Anderson and Michael Berresse co-star in the Cole Porter tuner, featuring several of his now-classic songs including, "Another Op'nin', Another Show," "Wunderbar," "So in Love," "Always True to You in My Fashion," "Too Darn Hot," and "Brush Up Your Shakespeare.”
HBO
The buzzy new thriller The Menu hit HBO Max January 3 following a September 2022 theatrical release. Tony winner Ralph Fiennes (Hamlet, Faith Healer) leads the cast as a celebrity chef intent on killing his dinner guests at his exclusive restaurant on a remote island. Look for other theatre faces among the ensemble cast including Tony winners Janet McTeer, Reed Birney, Judith Light, and John Leguizamo, along with Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult, and Hong Chau.
Netflix
The 2004 film adaptation of the Olivier-winning and Tony-nominated play Closer is added to the Netflix catalog January 1. Scribe Patrick Marber, who is currently represented on Broadway directing Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt, pens a dark story of love and betrayal as the lives of two couples intertwine. The film stars Clive Owen (reprising his West End role), Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, and Jude Law. Owen and Portman both received Oscar nominations in the Supporting categories.
Netflix fans who are hopelessly devoted to the T-Birds and the Pink Ladies can stream to their hearts desire when the 1978 film Grease joins the catalog January 1. Based on the 1971 stage musical, the movie stars John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John as star-crossed teens Danny and Sandy. (Listen, we know we don’t need to tell you more, you’ve seen Grease a million times already. Now it’s just super easy to stream.)
Peacock
Remember that brief scene in Glass Onion in which musical theatre legends Stephen Sondheim and Angela Lansbury appeared alongside Natasha Lyonne and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on a Zoom call with Daniel Craig’s Detective Benoit Blanc? The five-some were playing the multiplayer video game Among Us together and chatting Blanc out of his pandemic funk. We sussed out the inclusion of Sondheim and Lansbury, but now we get why Lyonne was there. Director Rian Johnson is also helming her new mystery series Poker Face. The first four episodes of the case-of-the-week series drop January 26. The series also features Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Adrien Brody, Stephanie Hsu (Be More Chill), David Castañeda, Benjamin Bratt, Ellen Barkin, Chloë Sevigny, and more.
