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Children of Men.
Photo: Universal Studios
This list is regularly updated as movies rotate on and off of Amazon Prime Video. *New additions are indicated with an asterisk.
Amazon has a little bit of everything on their streaming service, but they don’t have an interface that makes it particularly easy to find any of it. They also love to rotate out their selection with reckless abandon, making it hard to pin down what’s available when you want to watch a movie. It’s the kind of digital minefield that demands a guide. That’s where we come in! This regularly updated list will highlight the best films currently on Prime Video, free for anyone with an Amazon Prime account, including classics and recent hits. There’s truly something here for everyone, starting with our pick of the week.
Year: 2007
Runtime: 1h 49m
Director: Alfonso Cuaron
What happens to a society with no hope? That’s the vision of this ‘00s masterpiece, a film about a future in which all women have become sterile, meaning there will be no next generation. Clive Owen is phenomenal as a man who discovers that there may be hope on the horizon. It’s a film that was great when it was released and feels ahead of its time now.
Year: 1969
Runtime: 2h 28m
Director: Stanley Kubrick
It’s hard to overstate how much everything changed when Kubrick went to space to craft one of the most beloved sci-fi films of all time. Before 2001, there weren’t really movies like 2001, a film that blends genre storytelling with deeply philosophical themes about what it means to be human. It’s also a film that holds up remarkably well, although not one that fits casual watching while on your phone. Give this one all of your attention.
Year: 1984
Runtime: 3h
Director: Milos Forman
One of the best films of the 1980s, this Best Picture-winning drama hasn’t been on streaming services very often so take the chance to watch it while you can. Forman adapts the play by Peter Shaffer that imagines the rivalry between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Tom Hulce) and Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham, who won the Oscar). It’s a stunning study of creativity and competition.
Year: 2018
Runtime: 2h 28m
Director: Lee Chang-dong
The best foreign language film of 2018 has jumped from Netflix to Hulu to Prime Video and should definitely be seen by anyone who fell in love with Steven Yeun’s Oscar-nominated work for Minari or his equally captivating work in Beef. Lee Chang-dong adopts a novella by Haruki Murakami into a riveting dissection of class and gender in modern Korea. Yeun is mesmerizing as the mysterious Ben, someone who our protagonist starts to think might be a killer. Don’t miss this one.
Year: 1974
Runtime: 2h 10m
Director: Roman Polanski
Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown. This Best Picture nominee (and Best Screenplay winner) tells the story of Jake Gittes, played unforgettably by Jack Nicholson, as he investigates an adulterer and finds something much more insidious under the surface of Los Angeles. It’s a must-see, as important as almost any film from its era.
Year: 2021
Runtime: 2h 37m
Director: Ridley Scott
One of two 2021 films by the incredible Ridley Scott is already on Prime Video in this adaptation of the 2001 non-fiction book by Sara Gay Forden. Lady Gaga gives a fearless performance as Patrizia Reggiani, whose romance with fashion empire heir Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver) ended in violence. A modern camp classic just for Jared Leto’s accent alone, House of Gucci is a riveting exercise in excess.
Year: 2011
Runtime: 2h 15m
Director: Lars von Trier
One of Lars von Trier’s best films is this 2011 sci-fi/drama starring Kirsten Dunst as a woman who becomes aware that the world is about to end. Von Trier has said the film is an allegory for his depression, something that can come out of nowhere like an apocalyptic event. It feels particularly appropriate for the mid-2020s too.
Year: 2001
Runtime: 1h 53m
Director: Christopher Nolan
Christopher Nolan announced himself to the world with this Sundance thriller that really reshaped the indie and eventually the blockbuster landscape. Guy Pearce gives one of his best performances as a man with such severe memory loss that he has to use his body to remind himself of the details he needs to solve a mystery. It’s still so clever and riveting.
Year: 2007
Runtime: 2h 2m
Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Joel and Ethan Coen’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s crime novel is one of their best movies, a flick that won them three Oscars – Directing, Writing, and Best Picture of arguably the best year of the ‘00s. If you haven’t seen it since 2007, you may be surprised at how well it’s held up. The exact same film could be released today and it would have the same cultural impact. It feels like that will be the case for decades to come.
Year: 2023
Runtime: 1h 40m
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
One of the most inventive directors of his era adapted a screenplay for the first time when he tackled Paul Tremblay’s stunning 2018 novel The Cabin at the End of the World. Shyalaman does some bad things to the final act, but this is still worth a look for its incredible craft and an excellent performance from Dave Bautista as the leader of a group of people who believe that a sacrifice must be made to stop a pending apocalypse.
Year: 2018
Runtime: 1h 28m
Director: Gustav Möller
Gustav Möller’s 2018 film is a riveting thriller that takes place entirely in an emergency call center in Copenhagen. An officer, demoted to working there because of a pending court case, answers a call from a frightened woman. His life will never be the same as he works to try to save her and makes some false assumptions along the way. The kind of tight little thriller that you should watch before they inevitably remake it (which the director did himself for Netflix in 2021).
Year: 1987
Runtime: 1h 34m
Director: Clive Barker
The horror author Clive Barker directed this adaptation of his own novella The Hellbound Heart and made genre movie history. Introducing the world to the iconic Pinhead, who would go on to appear in so many sequels, the original film here is still the best, the tale of a puzzle box that basically opens a portal to Hell. The sequels have kind of lost the thread, but the original is still incredibly powerful. It’s one of the few films from the ‘80s that would still shatter audiences if it were released today.
Year: 2005
Runtime: 1h 29m
Director: Alexandre Aja
This movie is bonkers. Directed by Alexandre Aja (and sometimes called Switchblade Romance) it stars Cecile de France and Maiwenn as two young woman who go to a secluded farmhouse, where they’re attached by a serial killer. The twist ending to this brutal film will likely either make it or break it for you. Note: Shudder also added a few other French Horror Wave films, including Inside and Martyrs—both essential for horror fans, neither for the faint of heart.
Year: 1990
Runtime: 1h 53m
Director: Adrian Lyne
Adrian Lyne’s 1990 horror film has developed an increasingly vocal fan base in the three decades since its release (helped in part by a horrible remake in 2020 that reminded everyone how much better the original was.) Tim Robbins stars as Jacob, a man who starts having increasingly terrifying visions and hallucinations, many of them related to his time in Vietnam. A stunning journey into Hell, it’s also an anti-war film that’s given weight by Robbins’s genuine, in-the-moment performance.
Year: 2022
Runtime: 2h 10m
Director: Jordan Peele
The genius behind Get Out and Us delivered his most controversial film in 2022, a story that blends an alien invasion with a commentary on movie-watching and spectacle in general. Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer are fantastic in this story of people beset upon by an alien species that likes to watch. Brilliantly structured and gorgeously shot, Nope is blockbuster horror filmmaking at its finest.
Year: 2005
Runtime: 2h 56m
Director: Judd Apatow
Judd Apatow has made several funny movies and a great TV show (Freaks & Geeks) but this remains his best and funniest movie front to back. Steve Carell can try to go dramatic all he wants, but he will always be remembered for having his chest hair waxed. Carell is great but the supporting cast really makes this one, including Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, Romany Malco, and Catherine Keener.
Year: 1996
Runtime: 1h 59m
Director: Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols’ remake of the beloved La Cage aux Folles is a joyous comedy about acceptance and love that still works well today (which is not something you can about a lot of mid-‘90s comedies). Robin Williams and Nathan Lane are phenomenal as a gay couple forced to jump through hoops for their son’s new in-laws, played wonderfully by Gene Hackman and Dianne Wiest. It’s funny and smart from front to back.
Year: 1967
Runtime: 1h 45m
Director: Mike Nichols
Few films have impacted the culture as much as Mike Nichols’s 1967 dramedy based on the Charles Webb novel of the same name. It really was one of the first films in a wave of artistic expression that would make the late ‘60s and ‘70s the richest time in American film history. Dustin Hoffman stars as a recent college graduate looking for direction in his life in this sharp, clever comedy that spoke to an entire generation of young people looking for how to change the world.
Year: 2007
Runtime: 2h 1m
Director: Edgar Wright
The center of Edgar Wright’s Cornetto Trilogy (with Shaun of the Dead and The World’s End) remains the best film in the bunch, and they’re all on Prime, by the way. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost play a pair of ordinary police officers who get sucked into a crazy case involving multiple murders in their small England town. Both a parody of action films and a legitimately great action film on its own terms, this is one of the best genre hybrids of the 2000s.
Year: 1989
Runtime: 1h 43m
Director: Michael Lehmann
Talk about a movie ahead of its time. Coming-of-age teen comedies were never quite as wonderfully cynical before this movie about four teenage girls whose lives are upended by the arrival of a new kid, played by Christian Slater. More than just seeking to destroy the damaging cliques at his new school, Slater’s character has plans for something a little more permanent in this comedy that really shaped the teen genre for years to come.
Year: 1989
Runtime: 1h 35m
Director: Rob Reiner
Any list of the best romantic comedies of all time that doesn’t include this Rob Reiner classic is simply incomplete. Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal give their most charming film performances as the title characters, a pair who decide to test the theory that men and women can’t be friends without romance getting in the way. The real star here is Nora Ephron’s sharp and ultimately moving screenplay, one of the best in the history of the rom-com.
Year: 2013
Runtime: 3h
Director: Martin Scorsese
Leonardo DiCaprio should have won the Oscar for his amazing performance as Jordan Belfort, the financial criminal that rocked Wall Street and shocked audiences in one of Scorsese’s best late films. Arguments over whether or not this film glorifies a “bad guy” have become prominent — and could only really be made by people who haven’t actually watched it. Most of all, it’s a shockingly robust film, filmed with more energy in a few minutes than most flicks have in their entire runtime.
Year: 2011
Runtime: 2h 5m
Director: Takashi Miike
Takashi Miike has made directed over 100 movies, and this is one of the best, a stylish throwback to samurai cinema of old anchored by the modern filmmaking prowess of one of the best filmmakers alive. A remake of Eiichi Kudo’s 1963 film, this is loosely based on actual events from 1844 when 12 samurai and a hunter worked together to assassinate the leader of the Akashi clan. It’s a perfect balance of storytelling and sprays of samurai blood.
Year: 2022
Runtime: 2h 56m
Director: Matt Reeves
Matt Reeves now owns the saga of the Dark Knight as a sequel to this 2022 action blockbuster has already been announced. Dropping on HBO Max while it was still in theaters, The Batman is an ambitious epic reboot of the legendary hero, anchored by Reeves’s craft and fascinating performances from Robert Pattinson, Zoe Kravitz, Paul Dano, and many more. Along with a ton of DC Universe movies, it’s been imported over to Prime for now. Watch it while you can.
Year: 2006
Runtime: 2h 24m
Director: Martin Campbell
It’s hard to believe the most famous movie spy in history ever needed a comeback, but that’s really what happened when Daniel Craig stepped into 007’s shoes and it turned out to be one of the most acclaimed James Bond movies of all time. An origin story for the suave superspy, Casino Royale introduced new layers to the classic character, resulting in an action film that felt like it had real stakes. This is one of the best modern action movies, period, not just in the Bond franchise.
Year: 1981
Runtime: 1h 39m
Director: John Carpenter
John Carpenter’s 1981 action masterpiece imagined the distant future of 1997 when the island of Manhattan had become a maximum-security prison. When Air Force One is hijacked and crashed into New York on purpose, only Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) can stop the madness.
Year: 2009
Runtime: 2h 33m
Director: Quentin Tarantino
One of the most famous filmmakers of all time is reportedly prepping his last film, The Critic. Before then, why not catch up with one of his best in this Oscar-winning revision of history? For his last few films, QT has been blending actual history with his love of cinema to create a hybrid that only he could make. And Christoph Waltz’s Oscar-winning performance here might be the best in any Tarantino movie.
Year: 1987
Runtime: 1h 43m
Director: Paul Verhoeven
People like to point at ‘80s movies and say they were ahead of their time, but this may be most true about Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 masterpiece, a film that foretold how technology would impact law enforcement in ways that took decades to come true. A brilliant action satire, this is the story of a Detroit cop who is murdered and revived as the title character, a superhuman cyborg enforcer. It’s even more riveting and relevant almost four decades later.
Year: 2017
Runtime: 2h 15m
Director: Patty Jenkins
A major chapter of the DC Universe is about to end, which means it’s time to assess what worked best. Wonder Woman is undeniably near the top of the list. Take the recent DCU drop to Prime to go back and check out the phenomenal and best non-Batman film in the modern DC Universe. Gal Gadot stars in the title role and really anchors what’s an old-fashioned adventure film, one that owes as much to serial action flicks of the ‘40s and ‘50s as it does to movies with Batman and Superman.
Year: 1976
Runtime: 1h 42m
Director: Michael Ritchie
Walter Matthau rules in this Michael Ritchie classic from 1976. Pushing the boundaries of what would be acceptable in a kids movie, it’s a surprisingly raw and realistic story of an alcoholic and former minor league pitcher who ends up coaching a Southern California Youth Baseball League. At first, he barely tries, but this is the classic underdog sports movie for a reason.
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