James R | On 31, Dec 2018

2019 is getting off to dramatic start with a whole new box set landing on Sky on New Year’s Day: Showtime’s Escape at Dannemora, a prison break thriller starring Benicio Del Toro and Patricia Arquette. January, meanwhile, also sees the long-awaited arrival of True Detective’s third season, as well as the return of Tim Roth drama Tin Star.

Don’t have Sky? You can stream all of the above live and on-demand through NOW, Sky’s contract-free VOD service, which costs £8.99 a month for an Entertainment Membership. For more information, click here.

Sky Cinema, meanwhile, is thinking big with blockbusters this January including Pacific Rim: Uprising and Solo: A Star Wars Story. It’s also unveiling its latest Sky Cinema Original, Life Itself, Dan Fogelman’s (This Is Us) sentimental drama with a star-studded cast that includes Olivia Wilde, Antonio Banderas and Oscar Isaac.

Again, if you don’t have Sky, you can stream all of Sky Cinema live and on-demand through NOW, for £11.99 a month. For more information on that, click here. For F1 and other sports, you can also sign up to NOW’s Sky Sports Pass on a contract-free basis. For more information, click here.

Here’s your guide to what’s coming soon in January 2019:

TV

Escape at Dannemora (9pm, Sky Atlantic) – 1st January

Escape at Dannemora is a Sky Atlantic drama based on the stranger-than-fiction account of a prison break in upstate New York in the summer of 2015 that spawned a massive manhunt for two convicted murderers. Starring Oscar-winners Benicio del Toro (Traffic) and Patricia Arquette (Boyhood), alongside Paul Dano (There Will Be Blood) and Bonnie Hunt (Life with Bonnie). All episodes will be available on-demand alongside the premiere’s broadcast.

Living the Dream (9pm, Sky One) – 8th January

Mal and Jen are battling to earn their stripes stateside as the sunny Sky original production returns for a second season. They’ve settled in Florida for good, spruced up the park with a new tearoom and taken on a new and mysterious resident (Leslie David Parker). But Mal and Jen Pemberton (Philip Glenister and Lesley Sharp) aren’t quite living the dream yet. They have had to downsize to a rougher neighbourhood, their park residents are as eclectic as ever and busybody mayor Herman Bloch is about to make it even harder for them to keep their venture afloat. An attempted burglary triggers Mal to buy a gun in episode one, and that means going behind Jen’s back. And there are some very dodgy brownies on offer when they are invited to their new next door neighbours. As for the kids, Tina tries to find a way to dump boring boyfriend Conan without breaking his heart and Freddie worries his mum when he starts falling for the class bad girl.

A League of Their Own: European Road Trip (9pm, Sky One) – 10th January

Freddie and Jamie hit the road for a series of James Corden-set sporting challenges. They’ll be totting up points as they abseil down Rotterdam’s Euromast tower, go wheel to wheel in a Holland Cup cycle race, double up with celebs for tennis at the Monte Carlo Masters, play darts with Anthony Joshua, hit Paris’s Formula E circuit and shoot pens at the San Siro. And what happens to the loser? Well, they’ll have to bungee-jump off that massive dam you see at the beginning of GoldenEye.

True Detective: Season 3 (9pm, Sky Atlantic) – 14th January

The award-winning HBO drama returns for a long-awaited third season on Sky Atlantic. Focusing on a macabre child-murder case that plays out over the course of 35 years, this season stars Mahershala Ali (Moonlight), alongside Stephen Dorff and Carmen Ejogo. The disappearance of a young Arkansas boy and his sister in 1980 triggers vivid memories and enduring questions for retired detective Wayne Hays (Ali), who worked the case 35 years ago with his then-partner Roland West (Dorff). What started as a routine case becomes a long journey to dissect, and attempt to make some sense of, the life-changing event. The mystery begins with a double-bill of episodes, broadcast at the same time as the US (2am), before being repeated at 9pm.

Magnum P.I. (9pm, Sky One) – 16th January

Jay Hernandez (Hostel, Friday Night Lights) stars as the charming paradise-based private eye in this fast-paced reboot of the cult 80s show. Magnum is an American hero and ex-Navy SEAL who’s back from Afghanistan and about to channel his military skills into private investigation. He lives in a guest cottage on novelist Robin Masters’ fancy estate where he works as a security constituent to supplement his PI business. It’s there where disavowed MI6 agent Juliet Higgins (Perdita Weeks – Penny Dreadful, Ready Player One) works as major-domo, with her second job being to keep affable rogue Magnum in line. With keys to a vintage Ferrari in one hand and aviators in the other, Magnum’s straight back on the case in episode one. Expect cool stunts and rapid car chases from the off because Justin Lin directs.

Just Another Immigrant (10pm, Sky One) – 16th January

Romesh Ranganathan uproots his family and heads to LA in a bid to make it in America. Taking his wife, kids, Sri Lankan mother and eccentric uncle with him, this ‘mostly true comedy’ follows them as they throw themselves into their new lives in La La Land. And Romesh hasn’t exactly made things easy for himself. He’s booked a gig at the 6,000-seat Greek Theatre and has just three months to sell it out. In the first episode, Romesh arrives in America and immediately gets to work touting tickets. But it’s not easy when he has no profile or connections. As he tries to set down his roots, he also makes an unlikely mate.

Tin Star: Season 2 (9pm, Sky Atlantic) – 24th January

Tim Roth returns in a second season of Sky’s hit drama about a man facing his demons in a remote community. We pick up with the Worth family where we left them in Season 1. As what he lives for threatens to fade away, Jack fights back. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Bradshaw (Christina Hendricks) attempts to forget her traumatic ordeal, and the depths she had to sink to get out of it, but any relief is cut short… All episodes will be available on Sky Box Sets following Season 2’s premiere.

Rob and Romesh VS (9pm, Sky One) – 25th January

Comedian mates Rob Beckett and Romesh Ranganathan are on a laugh-out-loud mission to get to know more of their celeb and sporting idols in this new Sky series. They’ll strut their stuff with model David Gandy, take to the pitch with some of the biggest stars of the NFL, get singing tips from country star Shania Twain, and dance into the jet-setting, deck-spinning world of superstar DJs. In the first episode, they hook up with legend Usain Bolt in his Jamaican homeland. But before they do, Rob takes Romesh on LightningBolt themed trip around the island. Will their friendship survive the tour?

Box Sets

Sally4Ever: Season 1 – 6th January

When the Guardian states that “a singular mix of humiliation, emotional agony and bodily fluids skewers the viewer in exquisite agony” and the Independent calls it “brilliant, but more than usually disturbing”, you know you’re on to a winner. And that it’s probably something only the brilliant mind of Julia Davis could have concocted.

The Heist: Season 1 – 14th January

Ten law-abiding citizens. A quarter of a million pounds. One perfect crime. In the picturesque market town of Thirsk, nestled in the rolling North Yorkshire countryside, 10 law-abiding local citizens are embarking on a journey into an extraordinary life of crime. They’ve been tipped off that a cash-in-transit van containing £250,000 will be left unattended for a short amount of time. If they
can successfully plan and execute a heist, and hide the quarter of a million pounds from a crack team of detectives for two weeks, it’s theirs.

The Blacklist: Seasons 1 to 5 – 20th January

James Spader stars as Raymond ‘Red’ Reddington, a high-profile criminal who turns himself in to the FBI to help them catch some of the world’s most dangerous criminals in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Expect double crossing, dark secrets and messy personal lives aplenty.

Movies

Pacific Rim: Uprising – 1st January

In this heavy-metal robot sequel, Star Wars stalwart John Boyega plays Jake Pentecost, son of Idris Elba’s Stacker Pentecost from the original, and finds himself facing a new threat from the Kaiju., the giant submarine monsters. A burnt-out Jake reunites with Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) to lead a new generation of Jaeger pilots against a fresh menace from the deep.

Life Itself – 4th January

Writer-director Dan Fogelman weaves a multigenerational tale of life loss and love, with Oscar Isaac starring as a young man, Will, struggling to cope after the breakdown of his relationship with beautiful partner Abby (Olivia Wilde). Moving forward in time we meet the couple’s troubled daughter Dylan (Ready Player One’s Olivia Cooke), while another chapter introduces Spanish olive farmer Javier (Sergio Peris-Mencheta), the woman he loves (Laia Costa) and the moneyed landowner (Antonio Banderas) who comes between them.

Solo: A Star Wars Story – 18th January

Stand-alone Star Wars spin-off chronicling the story of the young Han Solo, played by Alden Ehrenreich. Director Ron Howard traces Han’s trajectory from rebel pilot to criminal colluder with Woody Harrelson’s intergalactic tea leaf. Along the way we discover the circumstances leading to Han meeting his future brother-in-arms Chewbacca and the first time he took the controls of the Millennium Falcon.

Zama – 23rd January

18th century Spanish crown magistrate Don Diego de Zama (Daniel Gimenez Cacho) is hoping to return home from his lonely posting on the Ascuncion coast…but his pleas for a transfer are constantly rebuffed. Director Lucrecia Martel’s surreal oddity charts the slow unravelling of her protagonist as escape seems ever more elusive.

A Quiet Place – 25th January

Silence isn’t just golden, it’s life-saving in this horror about a future life on an Earth inhabited by mysterious blind creatures which hunt human prey by sound. John Krasinski directs and stars as Lee, a father who – together with his pregnant wife (Emily Blunt) – must noiselessly guide his family to safety. A story which – whisper it quietly – will strike viewers dumb with terror.

 

Other films coming to Sky Cinema and NOW in January 2019:

2nd January
I Got Life!

3rd January
Wildling

5th January
Truth or Dare

6th January
10×10

7th January
An Actor Prepares

8th January
2036 Origin Unknown

9th January
Mario

10th January
Freak Show

11th January
Red Sparrow

12th January
A Wizard’s Tale

13th January
The Senator

14th January
Breaking Brooklyn

15th January
The Last Witness

16th January
Jeune Femme

17th January
A Crooked Somebody

19th January
The Wedding Guest

20th January
Unsane

21st January
The Last Movie Star

22nd January
Higher Power

24th January
I See You

26th January
Isle of Dogs

27th January
The Leisure Seeker

28th January
Who We Are Now

29th January
Beast of Burden

30th January
The Elephant and the Butterfly

31st January
The Toybox

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