The best thriller movies to watch on Netflix this January 2026

When the cold really sets in and the couch feels like a survival strategy, it's thriller season bb

We love a taut cat-and-mouse game that makes you break a sweat. We love an audacious thriller that brings the heat even as the temperature drops. We love a ticking clock — especially when everyone’s talking about “a new year” and “setting goals.”

So here are a few thrillers new to Netflix built for winter watching: sharp, propulsive, and even a little funny. Feel alive in the dead of January. Feel something.

3 Caught Stealing

“Wrong man accused” action-thrillers have been piling up at least since the classic noir era, but they rarely get as gloriously, deliriously goofy as Caught Stealing, Darren Aronofsky’s uncharacteristically crowd-pleasing crime thriller. Scripted by Charlie Huston, adapting his own novel, Caught Stealing stars Austin Butler as Hank, a hapless NYC bartender whose punk neighbor (former Doctor Who lead Matt Smith) gets in trouble with the local crime lords, and passes that trouble on to Hank. Suddenly, Hank is armpit-deep in cruel, colorful characters who all think he’s the ticket to a huge payday.

Butler, who’s mostly specialized in too-cool-for school swaggerers (The Bikeriders, Elvis) and the occasional cold monster (Dune: Part Two, Eddington) gets to hit different notes here as the baffled, overwhelmed straight man amid a roster of much wilder personalities played by familiar names (Regina King, Zoë Kravitz, Vincent D'Onofrio, Liev Schreiber, Carol Kane, Reservoir Dogs’ D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai). They come across like a New York-specific take on an early Guy Ritchie ensemble, all nervy dialogue, sudden intense violence, and determination to use Hank for their own ends. As he bounces from one wild, dangerous situation to the next, Caught Stealing pours on the comic charm, without ever losing its sense of high-stakes danger. It’s an absolute bop. —Tasha Robinson

2 Eden

If the Grime Cinema sickos truly want to check all the boxes from 2025, they must proceed directly from Marty Supreme to Eden in all its lurid and unfairly maligned glory. Who knew the sentimental Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind, Parenthood) could summon Safdie energy? Now that Eden is on Netflix, you will know.

I don’t blame the masses for rejecting Eden, which, despite its all-star lineup of Ana de Armas, Vanessa Kirby, Sydney Sweeney, Jude Law, and Daniel Brühl, completely bombed out at the box office last summer. The pitch is pretty unsellable: What if a bunch of mostly revolting people fled the cultural pestilence of 1930s Germany to start a utopian life on a Galápagos island? As the lives of a philosopher, his multiple-sclerosis-afflicted wife, a family with an impending newborn, and an hedonistic heiress with dreams of tropical luxury all collide in the barren backwoods of the island, Eden spirals into a romp of the human condition. Swiss Family Robinson by way of Requiem for a Dream with the accent work from House of Gucci is not everyone’s cup of tea, but it might be yours.

Howard, like everything he directs, is fully committed to genre exercise — in this case, a raw psychological thriller. There is very little drinkable water or plantable earth on the isle of Floreana, so it doesn’t take long before the people who dreamed of escaping the Nazi uprising start stabbing each other in the backs to get what they need to survive. The land is its own oppressor; when it’s finally time for Sweeney’s young mother character to give birth, Howard drops in a trio of hungry wolves who want to eat her alive. Ana de Armas’ baroness could give a hoot as long as she gets to bang her hot manservants and boss everyone at the top of her lungs. Eden is that kind of movie. That is, “grating” to those looking for comfort and cackle-worthy for anyone interested in a twisted time. —Matt Patches

1 Green Room

These days Jeremy Saulnier is best known for directing the hell out of Netflix’s Rebel Ridge, a Polygon favorite, and for the simmering precision of his debut Blue Ruin. That makes Green Room easy to overlook — which is a mistake!! It feels more potent than ever.

Nasty and confrontational, Green Room is an home-invasion thriller set at a punk club that often feels screamed through the microphone at max volume. When struggling band The Ain’t Rights stumble into an isolated Oregon club run by neo-Nazis, Saulnier locks them into a pressure cooker of escalating violence. If you’re into watching neo-Nazis get their due, the film is undeniably cathartic.

Anton Yelchin, gone far too soon, delivers one of his best performances here, matched by Imogen Poots and Alia Shawkat. And then there’s Patrick Stewart, the gracious Captain Picard, the wise Charles Xavier, with a total reversal: a restrained villain turn that is genuinely chilling. Saulnier’s unflinching camera lingers on the consequences of the showdown — broken bones, gushing wounds, bad decisions made permanent. While it doesn’t hold the same place in history as Saulnier’s other films, Green Room is expert thriller craftsmanship. —MP