Nightmares And Tragedies: The January 2022 JustWatch Top 10
Our friends at JustWatch, which should be your go-to resource for the streaming homes of virtually every movie and TV show imaginable, have supplied us with an intriguing new list, cataloging their top 10 streaming titles throughout the month of January 2022. Like all of the lists JustWatch sends our way, these stats are predicated on the site’s “popularity score” for these titles on JustWatch. The “popularity score” is determined by the most-searched-for movies and shows for the month on the JustWatch platform, weighed with a few other internal ranking factors.
A lot of new flicks hit the list, and a lot of blockbuster titles from yesteryear with ties to recent releases also made an appearance, as audiences clamored to locate streaming locations for some old favorites. As has become the status quo, almost every new movie that charted had been a movie before, outside of two notable exceptions. Adult-oriented mature dramatic content fared better in JustWatch searches than it did at the domestic box office last month, as several intriguing adaptations of venerated older properties made an appearance.
Check out the full top 10 right here:
Sequel Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021), helmed by recent The Movies That Made Me podcast guest Jason Reitman, topped the charts as the most popular movie on JustWatch. The movie also enjoyed a solid pandemic-era showing at the worldwide box office, raking in $196.8 million so far.
The new family friendly CGI celeb sing-along fest Sing 2 (2021) was hot on the fourth Ghostbusters movie’s heels in second place, and its predecessor Sing (2016) came in as the eighth-most popular flick on JustWatch.
Sing wasn’t the only movie sporting a fresh sequel that inspired some frantic JustWatch searches. The first Scream (1996), which saw a successful fourth sequel, confusingly also called Scream (2022), top the theatrical stateside box office charts during its debut weekend last month, was the sixth top streaming flick this January, per JustWatch’s internal metrics. Thanks no doubt to the breakout success of Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), featuring a timeline-hopping plot that united current web slinger Tom Holland with original cinematic Peter Parker Tobey Maguire and his successor, Andrew Garfield, the original Maguire-starring Spider-Man (2002) found itself in tenth place last month.
In terms of true cinema for adults, three movies rose above the fray to number among the 10 most sought-after titles. The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021), the first movie made by just one Coen brother (Joel), placed third. The latest big-screen adaptation of the classic William Shakespeare tragedy stars Oscar-winning heavyweights Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand. Trailers From Hell Guru and recent podcast guest Guillermo del Toro’s latest, a 2021 remake of the classic noir Nightmare Alley (1947) starring Bradley Cooper, Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett, is right behind Macbeth in fourth place. Finally, Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel (2021), a medieval drama adapted from a 2004 book but never before made into a film, came in fifth place overall, and third among the more adult-oriented fare.
Free Guy (2021), the Ryan Reynolds-starring, Shawn Levy-helmed special effects spectacular, was the only movie not based on pre-existing content of any kind to crack last month’s top 10, charting in seventh place.