Five Netflix releases to keep an eye out for this week
Now that the New Year’s vibes have well seeped into our daily habits, it’s time we get back to our weekly routines with the five Netflix releases to keep an eye out for this week.
With the festive hangover still fumbling us at every step, all we can truly turn to is a wholesome Netflix watchlist to beat the post-holiday blues and return to our senses. And thankfully, Netflix has already queued up a slew of new projects to help us out with the same.
Although the streaming giant chose to start slower this week and ensure that we keep up with Netflix’s digital footprints, don’t mistake its streaming tactics as a content shortage, because there aren’t any.
In fact, Netflix has gotten its entertainment ducks in a row to keep the “new year, new me” persona going at full throttle. All you need to do is make time, sit back on your couch, and hit the play button.
Five Netflix releases to watch out for this week:
Defying Destiny (Daniel Arenas Samudio and Rafael Martínez Moreno, 2026)
Slated to arrive on Netflix today, January 5th, Defying Destiny is a gripping new Colombian series adaptation which follows a young woman, María, whose broken dreams of becoming a teacher ultimately lead her down a journey to uplift her gender. The Netflix series follows the story of María, whose dreams of teaching are upended by a traumatic teen pregnancy.
Instead of breaking her down, the incident, however, becomes the anchor of her fight for women’s rights, ensuring them a better future in the face of challenging circumstances. Defying Destiny focuses on this very journey undertaken by María as she capitalises on her resilience to champion women’s empowerment, shaping her own destiny alongside many others, like and unlike herself, despite the inevitable obstacles.
Shiboyugi: Playing Death Games to Put Food on the Table (Souta Ueno, 2026)
It’s time to buckle up, anime lovers! Netflix is bringing Shiboyugi: Playing Death Games to Put Food on the Table, an anime adaptation based on Yushi Ukai’s Japanese light novel, illustrated by Nekometaru, on January 7th, 2026, from Studio Deen. The survival thriller follows Yuki, a 17-year-old who professionally plays death games, as she wakes up in a mysterious palatial mansion, the Ghost House.
Sporting a maid uniform, Yuki finds herself with five other girls, who are in the same predicament as hers. It’s not long before the group discovers that the entire mansion is laden with deathly traps and death games, including locked-room trials, concealed weapons, and elaborate mechanisms designed to kill anyone who enters the mansion. While the situation is undoubtedly frightening, Yuki is probably the only one who isn’t afraid, thanks to her profession. But now it’s up to her to lead the rest because here, survival isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.
Unlocked: A Jail Experiment (Netflix Original Productions, 2024-Present)
After a tremendously successful first season, Netflix quietly renewed Unlocked: A Jail Experiment for a second season earlier in December 2025. Now, it’s slated to return on Netflix on January 7th, Wednesday, with a similar format, albeit with a few tweaks here and there. The eight-episode series leaps from the debut season’s Arkansas detention facility to Pinal County in Arizona, where a newly elected sheriff begins a bold six-week experiment.
In the second season of Unlocked: A Jail Experiment, Sheriff Teeple will unlock the doors to a whole pod, offering inmates unexpected control. Following years of cyclical aggression that felt downright impossible to disrupt, the Netflix docu-series turns prison into a “testing ground for a revolutionary approach to rehabilitation”.
HIS & HERS (Dee Johnson, 2026)
For those completely tired of the feel-good recommendations of the holiday season, there’s good news for you. Netflix is dropping a high-stakes mystery thriller on January 8th, HIS & HERS, which serves as the adaptation of Alice Feeney’s 2020 novel of the same name, and you cannot miss out on this for anything this week.
The upcoming psychological thriller revolves around two estranged ex-spouses, reporter Anna Andrews and detective Jack Harper, who find themselves mysteriously entwined in a murder investigation in Anna’s town. But it’s not just an ordinary link; it’s the one that makes them prime suspects, unpacking devastating secrets and unreliable accounts as they dig deeper into the victim, Rachel’s case.
People We Meet on Vacation (Brett Haley, 2026)
Lastly, to wrap up the newly released marathon this week, Netflix has an exciting new romantic comedy, People We Meet on Vacation, lined up for release on January 9th. Based on Emily Henry’s 2021 novel of the same name, the upcoming rom-com tells the story of two unlikely best friends, free-spirited travel author Poppy and reserved teacher Alex, who have been taking annual summer trips for more than a decade.
When an unprecedented fallout leaves them estranged, Poppy invites Alex on one final trip to reconcile, forcing them to confront their decade-long friendship, the existing friction, and the unresolved romantic feelings they have for each other, which everyone but themselves can see. While it may have been a vacation to reconnect, it’s a trip that ultimately opens their eyes in ways they couldn’t before.