Every month, Netflix Australia adds a new batch of movies and TV shows to its library. Here are the titles we think are most interesting for January, broken down by release date. Netflix occasionally changes schedules without giving notice. (Unfortunately, streaming information provided in our Watchlist listings applies only to viewers in the United States.)

‘American Horror Story: Roanoke’
Starts streaming: Jan. 19

The most recent “American Horror Story” season created some buzz for the way it depicts the waking nightmare of a country torn apart by the forces of “the alt-right” and “the resistance.” But the preceding season, “Roanoke,” is just as relevant to 2018, given the way plays with the very notion of “truth.” The cleverly nested narrative starts out as a fake documentary, then layers fiction on top of nonfiction. “Roanoke” features one of the series’s most intricate and inspired stories, riffing on the clichés of supernatural thrillers and reality TV.

‘Babylon Berlin’ Seasons 1 and 2
Starts streaming: Jan. 30

Netflix continues its internationalist push by picking up this big-budget German series, which follows a Cologne-trained detective (Volker Bruch) as he becomes accustomed to the particulars of life in Berlin at the end of the 1920s. Ostensibly a police procedural — with several episodes directed by the skilled genre stylist Tom Tykwer — “Babylon Berlin” also looks at the social and political conditions in Europe between the world wars, as libertine decadence and a creeping reactionary conservatism set the tone for the clashes to come.
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Also of interest: “Weeds” Seasons 1-8 (Jan. 1), “Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency” Season 2 (Jan. 5) and “Van Helsing” Season 2 (Jan. 19).

‘Grace and Frankie’ Season 4
Starts streaming: Jan. 19

It’s time for TV fans to start paying more attention to Netflix’s sweet and stinging sitcom “Grace and Frankie,” which by the end of January 2018 will have four seasons and more than 50 episodes available — an impressive run for any show. The series’s co-creator Marta Kauffman made her reputation with the widely beloved “Friends,” and for this season of “Grace and Frankie” she’s bringing along her old pal Lisa Kudrow, who joins the showbiz legends Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin in this continuing story about two aging women looking to reinvent themselves.

‘Dirty Money’
Starts streaming: Jan. 26

Alex Gibney is an impassioned and prolific activist documentarian, and one assumes he can’t possibly find the time to research and shoot a feature film about every social ill that ignites him. So it makes sense that he would shift some of his production company’s resources into a TV series, helping similarly passionate directors make a difference. The short documentaries presented under Gibney’s “Dirty Money” umbrella pursue blood-boiling tales of corporate malfeasance and corruption, with episodes tackling pharmaceutical price-gouging, the banking practices of drug cartels, Donald Trump’s shady business history and more.

‘One Day at a Time’ Season 2
Starts streaming: Jan. 26

This reimagined revival of the long-running sitcom from producer Norman Lear landed on multiple “Best of 2017” lists, making the prospect of new “One Day at a Time” episodes one of the year’s most-anticipated TV events. Season 1 left off with the Alvarez family’s embracing its eldest daughter, Elena, after she came out as gay, while Penelope was struggling to overcome her busy schedule as a single mother and nurse, along with the chronic injury she suffered in the military. Expect more poignant and pertinent complications in Season 2, as well as more scene-stealing moments for Rita Moreno as Penelope’s Cuban immigrant mother.
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Also of interest: “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” (Jan. 5), “Rotten” (Jan. 5), “Somebody Feed Phil” (Jan. 12), “Tiempos de Guerra” Season 1” (Jan. 18), “Drug Lords” Season 1 (Jan. 19) and “Llama Llama” Season 1 (Jan. 26).

‘Groundhog Day’
Starts streaming: Jan. 1

Why is “Groundhog Day” considered one of the best movie comedies? Most of the credit goes to Bill Murray, who gives perhaps his funniest and most soulful performance, as Phil Connors, a weatherman trapped in a time-loop in Punxsutawney, Penn. But what also makes the film special is the way writer-director Harold Ramis and his co-writer Danny Rubin waste little time jumping into their premise and then proceed to have fun with it, coming up with dozens of clever ideas for what a person might do if he kept reliving the same day. Smart and sweet, “Groundhog Day” is rich enough to watch over and over.

‘Mud’
Starts streaming: Jan. 1

The most commercially successful film by the indie writer and director Jeff Nichols, “Mud” stars Matthew McConaughey as a fugitive criminal who enlists two teenage boys to help him repair a boat so he can escape with his troublemaking childhood sweetheart (played by Reese Witherspoon). Like Nichols’s previous movies, “Shotgun Stories” and “Take Shelter,” “Mud” is really about the stress of family obligations and the particular circumstances of small town life. But it’s more plot-driven — and crowd-pleasing — than its predecessors.

‘Kong: Skull Island’
Starts streaming: Jan. 19

One of 2017’s silliest but most entertaining blockbusters combines “King Kong” and “Apocalypse Now,” pitting soldiers against a giant ape on a mysterious South Pacific island. “Skull Island” comes loaded with more top-shelf actors than any special effects-driven extravaganza really needs — including Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, John Goodman and John C. Reilly. But the cast seems to be having fun, and unlike the most recent “Godzilla” film, this movie doesn’t keep the monster under wraps for very long. If you tune in to see Kong smashing stuff, you won’t be disappointed.

‘American Hustle’
Starts streaming: Jan. 21

This con-artist comedy from writer-director David O. Russell (“the Fighter,” “Silver Linings Playbook”) is loosely based on the Abscam scandal of the late 1970s, a huge F.B.I. anti-corruption sting that resulted in the convictions of numerous elected officials. “American Hustle” is less a historical document, though, than it is the director’s shaggy riff on the Martin Scorsese-style tough-guy picture, populated by Russell’s usual cast of well-meaning bumblers. Christian Bale, Jennifer Lawrence, Amy Adams and Bradley Cooper all give hilarious, vanity-free performances, playing crooks and lawmen, each taking shortcuts to the American dream.

‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’
Starts streaming: Jan. 21

Less surprising but much zestier than the original “Guardians of the Galaxy,” this sequel expands the universe of Chris Pratt’s Peter Quill, who calls himself “Star-Lord,” to include his long-lost father: a planet-size immortal named Ego (played by a perfectly cast Kurt Russell). At the same time, Quill’s old space-pirate buddies pursue his new crew through deep space, in an episodic, visually dazzling adventure that recalls classic movie serials and the wildest of Marvel Comics’ “cosmic” sagas.

‘The Hurt Locker’
Starts streaming: Jan. 26

Kathryn Bigelow went from an underappreciated action-movie director to an Oscar-winning director with this small-scale, character-driven war film, documenting the complexities of the Iraq War through the experiences of a bomb-disposal unit. Bigelow’s crisply paced direction, Mark Boal’s vividly detailed script and nuanced lead performances from Jeremy Renner and Anthony Mackie convey the courage and camaraderie of soldiers, without shortchanging the horrors they face or glossing over the mistakes they sometimes make.

‘The Force’
Starts streaming: Jan. 29

Peter Nicks’s documentary “The Force” narrows the scope of recent debates over police conduct down to a single location, looking at how Oakland’s troubled history of police brutality and corruption has led to multiple earnest efforts at reform. While expressing empathy for multiple points of view, the film also illustrates how difficult it can be to transform the fundamental nature of an institution.
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Also of Interest

“Beauty Shop” (Jan. 1), “Big Fish” (Jan. 1), “The Da Vinci Code” (Jan. 1), “Don Jon” (Jan. 1), “Girl, Interrupted” (Jan. 1), “The Lego Batman Movie” (Jan. 1), “The Place Beyond the Pines” (Jan. 1), “Raging Bull” (Jan. 1), “Jane Got a Gun” (Jan. 15), “Bad Day for the Cut” (Jan. 18), “The Inbetweeners” (Jan. 26), “Mad Max” (Jan. 26) and “The Wolf of Wall Street” (Jan. 28).

‘The Polka King’
Starts streaming: Jan. 12

Based on the true story of Jan Lewan — who is also the subject of a 2009 documentary — “The Polka King” stars Jack Black as Lewan, a popular Pennsylvania polka bandleader who takes advantage of his mostly older fan base to raise money in a shady investment scheme. The film finally arrives on Netflix this month, almost exactly one year after it was well received in its debut at the Sundance Film Festival.

‘The Open House’
Starts streaming: Jan. 19

Over the past year or so, Netflix has been quietly assembling a healthy library of original horror films, calling on fledgling creative teams and emerging genre auteurs to share their original visions. For “The Open House,” the novice writer-director team of Matt Angel and Suzanne Coote collaborate with Dylan Minnette, the star of Netflix’s “13 Reasons Why,” for a supernatural thriller about a teenager and his mother, who encounter menacing spirits in their new home.

‘A Futile and Stupid Gesture’
Starts streaming: Jan. 26

A hit list of notable comic actors pay homage to the influentially anarchic humor magazine “National Lampoon” in this movie about the troubled genius of its high-living writer, editor and co-founder Doug Kenney. Will Forte plays Kenney, Joel McHale plays Chevy Chase, Seth Green is Christopher Guest, Paul Scheer is Paul Shaffer, and a host of other comedians play the likes of Bill Murray, John Belushi, Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd. The “Wet Hot American Summer” director David Wain — who has more than a little experience with corralling brilliantly funny folk — directs what looks to be a raucous film about the tricky business of making people laugh.