Paramount Vantage
Last Updated: May 15th
Amazon Prime is way more than just a way to get your electronics and books in two days or less. There’s a wide breadth of programming available to stream, and it’s not just recycled titles from Netflix or straight-to-DVD rejects. Although it’s not the easiest streaming service to navigate, there are some surprisingly good movies and TV shows out there to choose from if you know what you’re looking for.
To help you out, we’ve put together the 25 best movies on Amazon Prime right now, all of them unavailable on Netflix. From new Oscar winners to classic titles, you might be surprised as to what the service has available.
Related: The 55 Best Netflix Original Series Right Now, Ranked
A24
Room (2015)
On the surface, director Lenny Abrahamson’s adaptation of an Emma Donoghue novel is the story of a kidnapped young woman and the child she bore in captivity as they make their break for long-desired freedom. Room opts to tackle so much more, however. At its heart, the film is about the prides and pangs of parenthood at the dawn of a child’s entry into the great wide world. Abrahamson tempers his usual quirky cinematic style, allowing the film to thrive on the individual and combined energies of Brie Larson and young Jacob Tremblay. And boy, does it ever. Larson earned an Academy Award for her heartrending performance as the imprisoned Joy, and Tremblay — just seven years old at the time of filming — made his acting debut with a haunting performance.
New Line
Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)
Adapted by David Mamet from his own play, Glengarry Glen Ross offers up one memorable line after another in a drama filled with screen legends playing desperate men working to survive at a real estate office. Alec Baldwin’s famous monologue gets most of the attention, but it’s the rest of the tense, commanding performances — particularly Al Pacino’s and Jack Lemmon’s — that really seal this as a classic. The plot is seemingly simple, which just makes it more gripping. Glengarry Glen Ross‘ accuracy in capturing this slice of life has made it a how-to for training salesman for decades (although it seems like it would deter most people considering the field).
Lucasfilm/Disney
Indiana Jones And The Raider of the Lost Ark (1981)
In 1977, George Lucas released a movie that drew on the sci-fi serials of his youth for inspiration and we got Star Wars. A few years later, while on vacation with his pal Steven Spielberg, Lucas looked to the same era’s adventure serials. And so Indiana Jones was born. The series has had its ups and downs over the years, but this first outing from 1981 both introduces the gruff, unflappable archeologist hero played by Harrison Ford and gives him his greatest adventure as he squares off against Nazis as both seek the Ark of the Covenant, a sacred artifact that could change the course of WWII.
Moonlight
Moonlight (2016)
Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight will always be remembered for winning the Academy Award for Best Picture after a mix-up that initially named La La Land as the winner. But that’s just as asterisk attached to a momentous coming-of-age story set over three eras in a young man’s life as he grows up in Miami, grappling with the sexuality he feels will make him even more of an outcast while searching for guidance his drug-addicted mother (Naomie Harris) can’t provide. The film is both lyrical and moving, and won justifiable acclaim for its talented cast, including a Best Supporting Actor award for Mahershala Ali as a sympathetic drug dealer.
Lionsgate / Amazon
The Big Sick (2017)
Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Gordon drew from their own unusual love story for their script about a Chicago comic named Kumail (Nanjiani) who falls in love with Emily, a woman (Zoe Kazan) who falls into a coma while in the midst of a rift in their relationship created by the expectations of Kumail’s traditional parents. The funny, moving romantic comedy also features strong supporting work from Ray Romano and Holly Hunter as Emily’s parents, who form an awkward bond with Kumail as they wait for Emily’s recovery.
Paramount Vantage
There Will Be Blood (2007)
There’s no mistaking a Paul Thomas Anderson film for anyone else’s but that doesn’t mean he’s not in the habit of throwing out everything that’s worked before and starting over with virtually every film. Anderson had developed a nice stock company of familiar faces with his first four features. For his fifth, none of them make appearances. Even words are in scant supply in the film’s opening, which finds Daniel Plainview looking for, and finding, oil in Texas, a discovery that leads him down a path toward wealth and away from everything that made him human. It’s, in some ways, a simple story that Anderson plays out on the broadest possible canvas, using the sweeping vistas to give one man’s journey toward damnation an epic sweep. But, with its mix of money, religion, greed, and the toll taken by progress, it doubles as nothing less than a journey into the darkest corners of the American heart.
A24
The Witch (2016)
Robert Eggers’ Sundance hit attracted some of the oddest complaints directed at any film in recent years when some disgruntled audience members suggested it wasn’t scary enough. Maybe they were watching a different movie? Set in colonial New England, the austere film follows a family outcast from their strict religious community and trying to make it on their own at the edge of some deep, dark woods. It essentially takes the witch-fearing folklore of the era at face value, watching the family disintegrate under the insidious influence of a nearby witch. It’s a slow-burn horror movie, light on shocks, heavy on unease, and thematically rich in ways that only become apparent later.
Oscilloscope Laboratories
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008)
When filmmaker Kurt Kuenne’s childhood friend Andrew Bagby is killed and his suspected killer/ex-girlfriend reveals she’s pregnant, Kurt decides to make a documentary chronicling Andrew’s life. While largely a love letter to a man who touched the lives of many for Zachary, the son he never met, Dear Zachary also tells the starkly bitter side of a broken Canadian legal system that directly endangered a baby. We follow the drawn-out custody battle between Andrew’s parents and Zachary’s mother, interspersed with loving snapshots into the Bagby family. The story sucks you in, but it’s also the at times comedic, fast-paced, and downright enraging documentary style of the film that breaks up the emotional tale.
Paramount Vantage/Warner Bros.
The Machinist (2004)
Way more than “that movie where Christian Bale looks like a skeleton,” The Machinist is a psychological thriller about Trevor Reznik, a man at his wit’s end. Which is understandable since he hasn’t slept in a year and may or may not be caught up in a murderous nightmare. While it has a mysterious and intriguing plot, this film is largely carried by a visceral performance from Bale as he pulls the audience down his character’s rabbit hole of unraveling sanity. The grittiness and bleakness of Reznik’s deteriorating state and the world he lives in are almost palpable…which is meant to sound like a selling point of this dark tale.
Open Road
Nightcrawler (2014)
Jack Gyllenhaal brings an unparalleled level of creepiness to Louis Bloom, the titular character in Dan Gilroy’s Nightcrawler. The film follows Bloom’s budding interest and cold practicality to the world of crime news. He can’t even be called an “anti-hero,” just a sociopath willing to do whatever it takes and cut down whoever it takes to make it to the top, which is a journey that would have made a much funnier movie had he gotten involved in, say, miming or aggressive stamp collecting instead of journalism. Nightcrawler also boasts many watcher’s first glimpses into the talents of Riz Ahmed, who manages to not get swallowed up by Gyllenhaal’s presence.
CBS Films
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
A portrait of a particular moment in music history, when the folk revival found young musicians discovering their voices in old styles and old songs, Inside Llewyn Davis stars Oscar Isaac as a singer/songwriter who can never quite translate his talent into professional success. Joel and Ethan Coen both exactingly recreate early ‘60s New York and use it as the site of one of an affecting tale of the clash between artistic impulses and the needs of the material world, a theme they’d previously explored with Barton Fink and would pick up again with Hail, Caesar!.
CJ Entertainment
The Man From Nowhere (2010)
A mysterious pawnshop owner (Won Bin), whose only friend is a child that lives next door, tears the local criminal presence apart after she’s kidnapped. This South Korean thriller from Lee Jeong-beom follows a similar format to such films as Léon: The Professional and Man On Fire of “guy with a shady past protects little girl”, but The Man From Nowhere still crafts an original tale of a heartbroken man out to save the only thing he has left in this world. The action sequences are bloody and intense, and Bin’s stoic performance brings a painful depth to the brutal savior.
MGM/New Line
Creed (2015)
A years-later sequel to Rocky focusing on the illegitimate son of Rocky’s one-time foe Apollo Creed doesn’t sound like a great idea, but director Ryan Coogler and star Michael B. Jordan make it work and then some. Jordan’s a marvel, playing the young Adonis Creed as a man who has to learn not to be controlled by his anger with the help of an aging, lonely Rocky (Sylvester Stallone, in a thoughtful take on one of his most famous roles). It shouldn’t work. But it works in virtually every moment.
A24
Green Room (2016)
When a punk rock group accidentally witnesses the aftermath of a murder, they are forced to fight for their lives by the owner of a Nazi bar (Patrick Stewart) and his team. It’s an extremely brutal and violent story, much like the first two features from director Jeremy Saulnier (Blue Ruin and Murder Party), but this one is made even tenser by its claustrophobic cat-and-cornered-mouse nature. Once the impending danger kicks in, it doesn’t let up until the very end, driven heavily by Stewart playing against type as a harsh, unforgiving, violent character.
De Laurentiis Entertainment Group
Blue Velvet (1987)
David Lynch’s Blue Velvet is more grounded in realism than some of his other abstract, dream-like works, but that only makes it more strange and offputting. After a college student (Kyle MacLachlan) finds a severed ear in a field, he gets involved with an emotionally damaged woman (Isabella Rossellini) and her deranged tormenter (Dennis Hopper), shaking up his seemingly idyllic hometown. It’s a raw and bleak tale, with plenty of Lynch’s trademark dark humor. Rossellini and Hopper are especially compelling every time they’re on screen, and the film earned Lynch his second Oscar nomination for direction.
Oscilloscope Pictures
We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011)
Eva Khatchadourian (Tilda Swinton), who’s unwilling and unable to properly care for her troubled son Kevin, watches her life unravel as her husband (John C. Reilly) ignores their problems and Kevin grows more and more sociopathic and violent. The story jumps around in time, showing Swinton’s character as both a new mother who blames her son for ruining her life and as a woman who eventually blames herself for what becomes of her son. Swinton proves once again that she’s the actress that indie movies need for complex characters that live their lives in grey areas. At its core, We Need To Talk is about the importance of proper parenting, communication, and probably therapy. And it’s not for the faint of heart.
Paramount
Anomalisa (2015)
Chalie Kaufman spent working as a TV and movie writer before he took a turn in the director’s seat with Synecdoche, New York. He waited another seven years before helming his second feature, Anomalisa, which narrowed the scope from Synecdoche to focus on a man too caught up in himself and his past to appreciate the world around him. Michael Stone (David Thewlis), a famous customer service author, is sparked out of boredom by Lisa (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a woman who finally stands out in the sea of people and monotony. It’s a surreal, human tale that could only be told through its unique stop-motion animation.
United Artists
Rocky (1976)
Rocky Balboa, a little known, small-time boxer, is offered a shot at taking on the heavy-weight champion Apollo Creed for a shot at the title. Rocky takes what could have been a familiar underdog story and became a symbol of inspiration, largely thanks to Sylvester Stallone’s vision and performance. While the sequels lost a little of the message, the original will never lose the title of “classic.”
AVCO Embassy Pictures
Escape From New York (1992)
Few directors enjoyed a hot streak quite like John Carpenter in the years between Halloween and The Thing when he turned out one genre-changing classic after another. Escape From New York imagined a near-future New York (well, 1997 was the near future then) that’s become so ruined that it’s been turned into a prison for the country’s most-hardened criminals. Kurt Russell stars as a badass reluctantly enlisted to drop into the city to retrieve the President of the United States. It’s a bleak satire that takes the urban decay and political corruption of the post-Watergate era to an awful, but strangely logical conclusion and its dim vision of the future can still be felt in the dystopian movies of today.
Paramount
Zodiac (2007)
With Seven and Fight Club, David Fincher and his direction became synonymous with the thriller in the ’90s. It’s that dark tone and colors that just makes you feel uneasy no matter the context. He brings that style to the true story of one of the most notorious serial killers in recent history, the Zodiac Killer. But instead of constant brawling or a lot of chase scenes in the rain, Zodiac conveys intensity throughout conversations and people watching the news. When grizzly murders start plaguing California, a cartoonist, a reporter, and a detective fall down the career- and life-consuming rabbit hole of trying to put the pieces together and find the killer. It’s a sad tale, but it needs to be, as Fincher went to great lengths to present the story accurately.
Mystic River (2004)
A young girl’s murder throws the lives of three friends — who themselves went through a formative trauma when they were little — into chaos as a suspect is pursued and inner demons come out. The term “tour de force” is thrown around way too much in film, but this is one work that actually deserves that title, with incredible performances from each cast member and Clint Eastwood’s signature touches powering this Dennis Lehane adaptation. It’s dark. It’s moody. It’s emotionally exhausting. And it rightly earned Oscars for Sean Penn and Tim Robbins.
Coherence (2014)
Coherence is one of those low-budget sci-fi stories that is extremely tough to explain without either giving too much away or requiring an extended entry. Essentially, a group of friends sifts through their own issues and insecurities during a mind-bending paradoxical experience. Taking place almost entirely in the same room on a single night, the characters struggle to find answers just as much as the viewer. It’s a challenging yet enthralling film, perfect for those who love to overthink things.
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001)
In the future, a mother and father, trying to get over their comatose son, adopt a robot boy David (Haley Joel Osment) whose sole programming is to love his parents. When the “real” boy wakes up, though, David is forced out into a cruel, unforgiving world and befriends a gigolo robot (Jude Law) to find some semblance of purpose and life. The topic of AI rights and feelings has been explored even more as of late since it’s becoming more of a reality, but few stories rarely capture the paralyzing loneliness of a thing given thought but still treating it like a thing. It’s quite possibly the saddest movie Steven Spielberg has helmed, most likely thanks to it being a story largely developed with Stanley Kubrick.
Bleecker Street
Logan Lucky (2017)
Ten years after his last Ocean‘s entry, Steven Soderbergh revisits the heist genre, this time centering on a pair of unlucky brothers (Channing Tatum and Adam Driver) working a scheme to rip off a big NASCAR race. Memorable side characters, rapid-fire dialogue, and charismatic performances keep the story from becoming too predictable even for a twist-filled heist tale. Soderbergh was even able to cut out major studios and keep complete creative control over the movie, thanks to streaming services and international distribution. It’s a largely light-hearted movie, and frankly, that’s necessary sometimes.
MGM
Spaceballs (1987)
Mel Brooks’ spoof of Star Wars and the like follows Lone Starr on his quest to save Druish Princess Vespa and defeat the overcompensating Dark Helmet. As if Brooks’ works would ever age out of being funny, Spaceballs remains one of the best sci-fi parodies while providing a world of quotes and hilarity that stand on their own. The only problem is that we’re still waiting for its sequel, The Search For More Money.
Recent Changes For May 2018:
Removed: The Warriors
Added: Logan Lucky, AI: Artificial Intelligence, Mystic River, Rocky, Spaceballs, Coherence
What TV shows do you need to watch in 2018? Check out the TV Avalanche podcast to find out!
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