What's Coming Out This Week In Theaters and On Streaming, VOD & TV: December 29 thru January 4, 2026
All the 🎥 films and 📺 shows hitting theaters and streaming this week!
As this week barrels down toward the end of the year and teases what might be coming next, it feels less like a countdown and more like a pause for reflection. With not much in the way of new releases on either the big screen or the small, this is one of those rare weeks that invites a little catching up. Scroll through to see what might be worth your time, revisit a few titles you missed, and however you spend it, have a safe and wonderful New Year’s.
🎥 In Theaters This Week
🎥 Stranger Things 5 Finale: Chapter Eight: The Rightside Up
(Wed, Dec 31st — limited release)
Hawkins faces its final reckoning as the boundary between the real world and the Upside Down collapses, forcing its longtime heroes into a last stand with Vecna where survival, sacrifice, and growing up are no longer optional. Crafted as a feature-length farewell, the series finale episode serves as a blockbuster goodbye, premiering on Netflix and simultaneously hitting theaters for a special cinematic event that turns the end of an era into a shared big-screen moment. Even as online criticism swirls, one of Netflix’s biggest shows prepares to take its final bow with enough explosions to rival New Year’s fireworks.
🎥 Cronos: 4K Restoration
(Wed, Dec 31st — limited release; re-release via Janus Films)
This dark, seductive genre landmark gets a second life, as Oscar-winning filmmaker Guillermo del Toro’s audacious 1993 feature debut returns in a stunning 4K restoration that makes its obsessions with immortality, decay, and desire feel newly alive. When a gentle antiques dealer (Federico Luppi) uncovers an ancient scarab-like device that promises eternal life at a grotesque cost, its power pulls him into addiction, body horror, and the crosshairs of a delightfully deranged American played by Ron Perlman. It’s the film that announced the arrival of a visionary new voice in horror—one who would redefine monsters as tragic, soulful reflections of humanity itself.
🎥 We Bury the Dead
(Fri, Jan 2nd — wide release)
During a pandemic-ravaged collapse, a woman joins a grim body-retrieval unit in Australia while searching for her missing husband, only to learn the dead aren’t staying dead. As Ava (Daisy Ridley) pushes deeper into the wasteland, a botched military experiment turns her quest for closure into a relentless fight for survival against a full-blown zombie outbreak.
🎥 The Plague
(Fri, Jan 2nd — expands wide)
At a summer water polo camp, a shy new kid (Everett Blunck) is pulled into a cruel ritual targeting outcasts, when a prank meant to bond twists into something predatory. As fear replaces fun, adolescent power games turn dangerously sadistic, with Joel Edgerton producing and co-starring as one of the coaches standing just close enough to watch it escalate beyond control.
🎥 The Dutchman
(Fri, Jan 2nd — wide release)
André Holland stars as a businessman whose routine subway commute spirals into a dangerous psychological and sexual power game with a mysterious stranger (Kate Mara). What begins as flirtation in the claustrophobic tunnels turns into obsession and violence, pushing both toward a shocking, destabilizing breaking point.
🎦 Streaming This Week
🎦 Critical Incident: Death at the Border
(Mon, Dec 29th — premiering on HBO MAX)
An investigative documentary revisiting the 2010 killing of Anastasio Hernández-Rojas and the secretive Border Patrol unit accused of helping bury the truth. Through firsthand testimony, reporting, and long-suppressed evidence, it exposes a culture of institutional protection and the activists who refused to let accountability fade away.
🎦 Evil Influencer: The Jodi Hildebrandt Story
(Tues, Dec 30th — premiering on Netflix)
A chilling true-crime documentary examining the disturbing child abuse case involving therapist Jodi Hildebrandt and influencer Ruby Franke. It exposes how manipulation, coercive belief systems, and unchecked authority created the conditions for prolonged abuse hidden in plain sight.
🎦 Together
(Wed, Dec 31st — streaming on Hulu)
When love gets too close for comfort... run! Real-life couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie play soulmates whose cozy relationship twists into a waking nightmare after they begin to merge—physically, emotionally, and horrifically—trapped in a picture-perfect life where affection becomes obsession and intimacy turns to body horror. A Sundance hit from debut director Michael Shanks, this twisted romantic thriller explores the terrifying extremes of codependency, where “till death do us part” might actually be a blessing.
🎦 100 Meters
(Wed, Dec 31st — streaming on Netflix)
From Kenji Iwaisawa, the acclaimed director of On-Gaku: Our Sound and studio Rock’n Roll Mountain, this exhilarating anime adaptation of the popular manga captures the friendship and fierce rivalry between two sprinters determined to outrun fate. A natural-born runner and his determined rival clash on the track in a story of speed, pride, and purpose.
🎦 Barron’s Cove
(Thurs, Jan 1st — streaming on Paramount+)
Garrett Hedlund stars as a small-town handyman whose life collapses when his young son is found dead near the train tracks, driving him to kidnap the one boy who might know the truth... only to learn the child is the son of a powerful politician (Hamish Linklater). As a statewide manhunt closes in, this gritty revenge drama asks whether vengeance can bring closure or simply finish the destruction, with Brittany Snow and Stephen Lang co-starring.
🎦 Americana
(Thurs, Jan 1st — streaming on STARZ)
When a million-dollar Native American “ghost shirt” lands in the wrong hands, a small-town dreamer (Sydney Sweeney), her devoted suitor (Paul Walter Hauser), a desperate single mom (Halsey), an antique collector (Zahn McClarnon), and a rogue’s gallery of crooks (Simon Rex, Eric Dane) collide in a whirlwind of cons, double-crosses, and gunfire.
🎦 The Home
(Thurs, Jan 1st — streaming on STARZ)
In this psychological horror thriller from The Purge creator James DeMonaco, Pete Davidson plays a troubled young man sentenced to community service at a creepy Staten Island nursing home, where the mysterious fourth floor is strictly off-limits. When curiosity wins out, he stumbles onto a terrifying conspiracy and soon realizes some doors are closed for a reason.
🎦 The Unbreakable Boy
(Thurs, Jan 1st — streaming on STARZ)
Sometimes the strongest hearts belong to the most fragile bodies, as Zachary Levi and Meghann Fahy play parents raising their son Austin (Jacob Laval), who lives with autism and a rare bone disease. Based on a true story, this heartfelt family drama celebrates resilience, unconditional love, and the quiet strength found in everyday perseverance.
✅ On VOD This Week
✅ Wicked: For Good
(Tues, Dec 30th — on VOD/Digital)
In this spellbinding fantasy finale from filmmaker Jon M. Chu, Glinda and Elphaba see their hard-won bond pushed to the breaking point as the Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum) twists truth into fear. With Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande leading the emotional charge, this musical showdown blends political paranoia, fractured loyalties, flying broomsticks, and one final duet destined to leave the Emerald City in pieces.
✅ Radu Jude’s Dracula
(Fri, Jan 2nd — on VOD/Digital)
A creatively blocked filmmaker turns to a fake A.I. chatbot for inspiration, unleashing a barrage of outrageous, genre-hopping vignettes that remix the Dracula myth—from modern Transylvanian chases and rural hauntings to strike-breaking vampires, sci-fi resurrections, vulgar folklore, and A.I.-generated kitsch. Written and directed by satirical absurdist Radu Jude, this boundary-pushing Romanian romp weaponizes sex, blood, and cultural chaos to ask what happens when creativity collides with limitless artificial invention.
📺 On TV This Week
📺 Stranger Things 5 Finale: Chapter Eight: The Rightside Up
(Wed, Dec 31st — on Netflix)
Hawkins faces its final reckoning as the boundary between the real world and the Upside Down collapses, forcing its longtime heroes into a last stand with Vecna where survival, sacrifice, and growing up are no longer optional. Crafted as a feature-length farewell, the series finale episode serves as a blockbuster goodbye, premiering on Netflix and simultaneously hitting theaters for a special cinematic event that turns the end of an era into a shared big-screen moment. Even as online criticism swirls, one of Netflix’s biggest shows prepares to take its final bow with enough explosions to rival New Year’s fireworks.
📺 Run Away
(Thurs, Jan 1st — on Netflix)
James Nesbitt stars as a desperate father searching for his missing daughter (Ellie de Lange), only to uncover buried secrets and violent truths tied to his own past in this thriller series created by Harlan Coben. As one encounter reignites a long-suppressed nightmare, each revelation pulls him deeper into crime and deception, where redemption and ruin blur with every step forward. Ruth Jones and Minnie Driver co-star.
