January Movie Releases That Didn't Suck

There's no month quite like January on the movie release calendar. It's the worst. January is a month to catch up on the awards contenders released in the weeks prior and for studios to drop all their wide releases they have no idea what to do with. The reasoning is simple. There are no major vacations for one. And two, if a movie is really good, the studio would've either released it earlier over the holidays, or will hold it until the summer.

Basically, if a movie comes out in January, most of the time you know it's going to stink. Over the past few years, however, the early calendar-dump months have been getting slightly more competitive. In the near future, we're going to start getting legitimate blockbusters in March. But that's a new practice. For the past several decades, January has been a horrible month to release movies.

With that knowledge, we decided to go back through history. Were there any really good movies released in January? The answer is "Yes," but it's not as many as you'd think. In fact, in the past 35 years, I found only about 30 films most people would consider "good." We'll mention them all below, then dive a bit deeper on the better ones. Below, read about the 15 best January movie releases of the past 35 years.

Before we get to the list, a bit about the self-imposed rules. I eliminated any film that opened in December and then got a wide release in January. If it premiered at Sundance, which is in January, that didn't count either. And anything that was re-released in January didn't count. (Sorry, 1997's Star Wars: Special Edition.)

As for why I picked 35 years, that just seemed like the right amount of time. It's a few years after the birth of the modern summer blockbuster, and just enough time for Hollywood to pay more attention to the calendar. The number is mostly arbitrary, but there is some thought behind it.

To begin, here are 15 films I considered while making the list, but simply didn't make the cut either because they weren't good enough or haven't become classic enough.

In that list you start to see a trend as time gets closer to the present. More teen fare, more urban films, and more horror. That's probably because many films in those genres did well in this month over history. Now onto the list.

Though it spawned a copious number of sequels after its release, the original Leprechaun – which starred Warwick Davis and Jennifer Aniston – was not a hit. It made about $8.5 million domestically upon initial release. However, that early Nineties release date and the fact it probably hit home video around the summertime started the ball rolling in what would eventually become a big cult series.

No, Leprechaun isn't that good. But it's one of those horror movies that's enjoyable simply because it's so goofy. And there are some scares and gore here and there too. It's both not a surprise it wasn't a hit at the box office, nor that it actually had a life after.

Action movies that are kind of weird are perfect for January. Joe Carnahan's kinetic crime thriller was a good fit back in 2007. It opened at #2 and ended up grossing over $57 million against a $17 million budget. Not a great return, but the film generated enough good will to birth a few sequels.

Smokin' Aces is definitely not Carnahan's best movie, but it's filled with incredible energy and fun performances. It's the director really swinging for the fences before learning to dial things back and bit and save the big action and spectacle for when it was needed.

One of many (and still counting) retellings of the Charles Dickens' story, the star-studded version of Great Expectations was a moderate success. Starring Ethan Hawke, Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert De Niro, the film grossed only $26 million domestically, but more than that internationally for a grand total of $55 million. Worth nothing though, while it's technically a January release, the late release date was probably more aimed at Valentine's Day.

Oh, and did you forget this version of Great Expectations was directed by none other than Oscar-winning director Alfonso Cuaron? It's not a movie that particularly screams "Cuaron" but it has its moments, and decent performances, resulting in a pretty solid take on the material.

Here's an interesting fact about this highly-underrated parody by the Wayans Brothers. Its box office numbers, an $8 million opening and $20 million total gross, are almost identical to one of the films it was parodying, Juice, which opened in the same month four years earlier. Like that movie, this one is not considered a big hit.

In fact, not only is this movie not a hit, I feel like it's probably hated by most people. But I put it this high on the list because when I saw it, it was one of the funniest films I'd ever seen. I still laugh when I think about the outrageous crap that's in this movie. So you know what? It's the #8 January release of the past 35 years.

It's kind of amazing that Alive got made at all, let alone grossed almost $37 million. Directed by Frank Marshall, the true story drama about a group of men forced to eat each other after their plane crashes in the mountains is pretty memorable. But the January release date definitely suggests it was a movie the its studio was scared of.

As a kid, I was scared of it, too. I remember watching it and being grossed out but also riveted. Alive is a wonderful movie that, like Scanners, kind of gets pigeonholed for one single thing. In this case, cannibalism.

Man, I love Tremors. It's got Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, Michael Gross, and a totally awesome horror premise about massive killer worms who respond to movement. It's such a beloved movie, and has spawned so many sequels, you'd think it was a hit when released. Not the case. When Tremors opened in January of 1990, it was the #5 movie and ended up with a gross of only $16 million.

What you have here, like a lot of these movies, is a case of home video saving the day. No one saw Tremors when it was in theaters, but once it hit home video people ate it up. It's not the first horror-comedy, nor would it be the last, but in 1990 that blend of horror and comedy wasn't as prevalent as it is today, and it just plain worked.

Okay, a bit of a cheat here. In the mid-Eighties, Woody Allen released two movies in late January, both of which would go on to some critical acclaim. Both were moderate hits, grossing $10 and $14 million respectively.

Besides there release dates, these Allen films actually do share a lot in common. They're both set in the world of show business, they were both nominated for two Oscars, both star Mia Farrow, and both kind of get lost in the discussion of the best Woody Allen movies ever. Neither is, but both are good too, and that's more than enough for a high rank on this list.