With a new year comes new hopes, new fears, and new resolutions. While we all want to lose a little weight or be more active, my main resolution for 2025 is simple: watch more shows. Fortunately for all of us, Netflix is more than willing to help us achieve that goal.
January 2025 has a lot of new shows to feast on, with the most prominent being the second seasons of the hit action series The Recruit with Noah Centineo and The Night Agent. But there are also three underrated shows on Netflix that deserve your time and attention.
Need more recommendations? Check out the best new shows to stream this week, as well as the best shows on Netflix, best shows on Hulu, best shows on Amazon Prime Video, and best shows on Disney+.
Harlan Coben’s Missing You (January 1)
Don’t underestimate Harlan Coben. The bestselling murder mystery novelist has become his own franchise on Netflix, with his last show, Fool Me Once, becoming a monster hit for the streamer. That one was released in early January, so Netflix is hoping lightning strikes twice with the New Year’s Day release of Missing You, a new limited series based on the 2014 novel of the same name.
Detective Kat Donovan’s fiancée Josh went missing 11 years ago. She’s over it, at least she thought she was, until one night while surfing a dating app, she sees his picture on a profile. Is Josh alive? And if so, why did he go missing all those years ago? Kat’s ensuing investigations yields answers she may not understand or even want. But she has to know the nature of Josh’s disappearance, and why she played a role in it.
Sounds intriguing, right? Coben is a master of this sort of thing, and Netflix seems to have found a groove in churning out these adaptations. Like the others, the novel’s American setting has been changed to an English one, so those desiring a good British crime mystery won’t be disappointed with Missing You. If you’re still craving more of Coben’s work, check out the excellent 2006 French-language adaptation of Tell No One.
American Primeval (January 9)
America, 1857. The young nation is still in its embryonic stage, but it’s already close to collapse. A civil war is coming, and on the frontier, blood is being spilled daily as settlers battle over land, religion, and honor. This is the setting for American Primeval, Netflix’s new Western show from Friday Night Lights creator Peter Berg.
Glow‘s Betty Gilpin stars as Sara Rowell, a widow who is trying to protect her young son from the dangers of the world around them. They team up with Isaac (Taylor Kitsch), an emotionally wounded man with a past he’d like to forget, and Two Moons (Shawnee Pourier), a Native American teenager who has fled her village and is looking for a new home. Together, they form a found family as they explore the American West and evade all the dangers that come with it.
Castlevania season 2 (January 16)
When it premiered in September 2023, Castlevania: Nocturne was welcomed with open arms by fans of the original Castlevania show. The sequel series contained all the superior animation and voice-over acting that the original had, and advanced the storyline of the Belmont family and its never-ending war on vampires. Now, Castlevania: Nocturne is back, and it’s poised to be the best season yet.
France, 1972. At the height of the French Revolution, the Vampire Messiah is at full power, and Richter Belmont needs all the help he can get. Fortunately for him, he’s teamed with Dracula’s son, the half-human, half-vampire Alucard, to stop Erzsebet Báthory’s reign of terror before her bloodlust drowns France and its warring citizens in a river of blood.