If you were to arise on the first day of the new year and, like the mayor of Punxsutawney searching for groundhog tunnels, check out the day’s pop culture news for a hint of what’s to come this season, the prognosis would be pretty bleak.
You’d have probably seen that YouTube’s own Logan Paul, sibling of #8 on the Thirst List Jake Paul, filmed a dead body in the Japanese suicide forest and put it online. It was a whole thing—and a deeply unfortunate first entertainment-related story of 2018. But let’s not allow the very recent past to be prologue. The year ahead need not be as dark as a viral star doing forest forensics just because that’s what kicked things off. Plenty of fun awaits just this January, including Taraji P. Henson kicking ass in Proud Mary, new hypnotic audio weirdness from tUnE-yArDs, and the return of both High Maintenance and Drunk History to TV. Have a look at everything else easing you into the new year below in Fast Company‘s creative calendar for January.
MOVIES IN THEATERS
- Insidious: The Last Key, opens January 5.
- In Between, opens January 5.
- Acts Of Violence, opens January 12.
- The Commuter, opens January 12.
- Paddington 2, opens January 12.
- Proud Mary, opens January 12.
- Den of Thieves, opens January 19.
- 12 Strong, opens January 19.
- The Leisure Seeker, opens January 19.
- Small Town Crime, opens January 19.
- The Final Year, opens January 19.
- Maze Runner: The Death Cure, opens January 26.
MOVIES TO WATCH AT HOME
- Blame, premieres January 5.
- Devil’s Gate, premieres January 5.
- Freak Show, premieres January 12.

ALBUMS TO TREAT YOUR EARS TO
- Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Wrong Creatures, out January 12.
- Dirty Sidewalks, Bring Down The House Lights, out January 12.
- Cadence Weapon, Cadence Weapon, out January 19.
- Fall Out Boy, MANIA, out January 19.
- Kimbra, Primal Heart, out January 19.
- The Go! Team, Semicircle, out January 19.
- tUnE-yArDs, I can feel you creep into my private life, out January 19.
- Calexico, The Thread That Keeps Us, out January 26.
- Django Django, Marble Skies, out January 26.
- Nightmares on Wax, Shape The Future, out January 26.
- No Age, Snares Like A Haircut, out January 26.
THINGS TO WATCH ON YOUR TV OR COMPUTER
- Ellen’s Game of Games, premieres January 2 on NBC.
- LA→Vegas, premieres January 2 on Fox.
- 9-1-1, premieres January 3 on Fox.
- grown-ish, premieres January 3 on Freeform.
- The X-Files, premieres January 3 on Fox.
- The Four: Battle for Stardom, premieres January 4 on Fox.
- 75th Annual Golden Globe Awards, premieres January 7 on NBC.
- The Chi, premieres January 7 on Showtime.
- David Bowie: The Last Five Years, premieres January 8 on HBO.
- Alone Together, premieres January 10 on Freeform.
- 23rd Annual Critics’ Choice Awards, premieres January 11 on The CW.
- Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams, premieres January 12 on Amazon.
- Crashing, premieres January 14 on HBO.
- Divorce, premieres January 14 on HBO.
- Black Lightning, premieres January 16 on CW.
- The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, premieres January 17 on FX.
- Portlandia, premieres January 18 on IFC.
- Grace and Frankie, premieres January 19 on Netflix.
- High Maintenance, premieres January 19 on HBO.
- Cocaine Godmother: The Griselda Blanco Story, premieres January 20 on Lifetime.
- Counterpart, premieres January 21 on Starz.
- The Resident, premieres January 21 on Fox.
- The Alienist, premieres January 22 on TNT.
- Mosaic, premieres January 22 on HBO.
- Baskets, premieres January 23 on FX.
- The Detour, premieres January 23 on TBS.
- Drunk History, premieres January 23 on Comedy Central.
- Let’s Get Physical, premieres January 24 on Pop.
- Schitt’s Creek, premieres January 24 on Pop.
- Waco, premieres January 24 on Paramount.
- Jane the Virgin, premieres January 26 on The CW.
- 60th Annual Grammy Awards, premieres January 28 on CBS.

BOOKS TO READ
- A State of Freedom by Neel Mukherjee, out January 2.
- Gnomon by Nick Harkaway, out January 9.
- This Could Hurt by Jillian Medoff, out January 9.
- Neon in Daylight by Hermione Hoby, out January 9.
- When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel H. Pink, out January 9.
- The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin, out January 9.
- Love, Hate and Other Filters by Samira Ahmed, out January 16.
- The Largesse of the Sea Maiden: Stories by Denis Johnson, out January 16.
- When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele, out January 16.
- Brass by Xhenet Aliu, out January 23.
- BRAVE by Rose McGowan, out January 30.
- The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory, out January30.
- This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America by Morgan Jerkins, out January 30.
[Photo Illustration: Aubree Lennon for Fast Company; The Last Five Years: Jimmy King/courtesy of HBO, High Maintenance: Craig Blankenhorn/courtesy of HBO, Schitt’s Creek: courtesy of PopTV]