A24
Last Updated: September 13th
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 good movies and TV shows out there to choose from if you know what you’re looking for.
To help you out, we’ve ranked 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 Best Movies On Hulu Right Now, Ranked
Paramount Vantage
1. There Will Be Blood (2007)
Run Time: 158 min | IMDb: 8.1/10
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.
Criterion Collection
2. Mulholland Dr. (2007)
Run Time: 147 min | IMDb: 8.0/10
Director David Lynch has undoubtedly left his mark on movies and TV with many of his projects, but his masterpiece just might be Mulholland Dr. Set in a simultaneously glamorous and bleak vision of Los Angeles, the film follows two women, one who doesn’t know who she is (Laura Harring), the other a young actress with big dreams (Naomi Watts). Just like the audience, they both get sucked into an increasingly confusing mystery filled with cowboys, dead bodies, and a questionable reality. Lynch has always been a master of weaving uniquely eerie foreboding and humor into his stories, and it’s never more apparent than Mulholland Drive. It’s a throwback to glitzy Hollywood noir and a nightmarish thriller highlighted by Angelo Badalamenti’s evocative score, Watts’ complex performance, and an endless list of questions. It’s a long, strange journey down Mulholland Dr., but as, as many critics have ranked it, the best film of the 21st century so far, it’s worth the trip.
Lucasfilm/Disney
3. Indiana Jones And The Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Run Time: 115 min | IMDb: 8.5/10
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.
A24
4. Lady Bird (2017)
Run Time: 94 min | IMDb: 7.5/10
Greta Gerwig’s love letter to her hometown of Sacramento, California follows Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf as they navigate the often-frustrating relationship between mother and daughter. Ronan plays “Ladybird,” a young woman attending Catholic school who longs for the culture and change of scenery that New York City promises. Her mother, Metcalf, is overbearing and overprotective, and the family’s lack of money and social standing contributes to a rift between the two. Some hard truths are explored in this film, but watching Ronan manage teenage angst, first love, and everything in between will give you all kinds of nostalgia.
Paramount
5. Arrival (2016)
Run Time: 116 min | IMDb: 7.9/10
A methodic, thoughtful approach to an alien invasion story, Arrival follows linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) as she struggles to figure out a way to communicate with two creatures that have inexplicably shown up in Montana. While Louise tries to buy more time in understanding the visitors, she butts heads with the military side of the operation who keep pressuring her for quick answers. After its release, it exceeded expectations at the box office, grossing more than $200 million worldwide. That year it was nominated for seven Academy Awards, winning one for Best Sound Editing.
Oscilloscope Laboratories
6. Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008)
Run Time: 95 min | IMDb: 8.6/10
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.
De Laurentiis Entertainment Group
7. Blue Velvet (1987)
Run Time: 120 min | IMDb: 7.8/10
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.
MGM
8. Spaceballs (1987)
Run Time: 96 min | IMDb: 7.1/10
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.
PARAMOUNT
9. Shutter Island (2010)
Run Time: 138 min | IMDb: 8.1/10
DiCaprio and Scorsese team up again, this time for a dramatic thriller that feels different from their normal fare but still just as intense. DiCaprio plays a detective drawn to a mysterious island that houses a psychiatric facility for the criminally insane. He’s investigating the case of an escaped convict, but a conveniently-timed storm, a hostile staff, and some strange happenings lead him down a rather dark and dangerous rabbit hole. There’s a twist ending here worthy of its build-up, and DiCaprio shares the screen with some notable talents including Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams, Sir Ben Kingsley, and Emily Mortimer.
Moonlight
10. Moonlight (2016)
Run Time: 111 min | IMDb: 7.4/10
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.
A24
11. Green Room (2016)
Run Time: 95 min | IMDb: 7/10
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.
CJ Entertainment
12. The Handmaiden (2016)
Run Time: 144 min | IMDb: 8.1/10
Based on a historical crime novel set in Victoria-Era England, Park Chan-wook’s lavish, mesmerizing thriller focuses on two young women fighting to escape oppression by the men in their lives. Chan-woo has traded the stuffy British countryside for Japanese-occupied Korea, telling the stories of Lady Hideko and her handmaiden Sook-hee in three parts, weaving a tale of passion, betrayal, dark secrets, and revenge with grander themes of imperialism, colonial rule, and patriarchal corruption. The two women are the draw of the film with both resorting to illicit, illegal, morally compromising schemes in order to gain their freedom, but love is an unintended consequence that leaves the third act — one you might think you have figured out halfway through the film — completely unpredictable.
Lionsgate / Amazon
13. The Big Sick (2017)
Run Time: 120 min | IMDb: 7.6/10
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.
A24
14. The Witch (2016)
Run Time: 92 min | IMDb: 6.8/10
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.
Open Road
15. Nightcrawler (2014)
Run Time: 117 min | IMDb: 7.9/10
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.
Lionsgate
16. American Psycho (2000)
Run Time: 102 min | IMDb: 7.6/10
Before Christian Blae was cleaning up the streets of Gotham as Batman, he was the criminal, playing Patrick Bateman in the classic serial killer flick, American Psycho. Bateman is your typical Wall Street bro, making big bucks and wearing sharp suits at his father’s trading company but his personal life is a little messier. Like hookers laying in pools of blood messy. The guy’s lust for killing random, innocent people only grows as the film moves along culminating in an iconic scene that will probably give you nightmares.
Oscilloscope Pictures
17. We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011)
Run Time: 110 min | IMDb: 7.2/10
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.
CBS Films
18. Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
Run Time: 104 min | IMDb: 7.5/10
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!.
Bleecker Street
19. Logan Lucky (2017)
Run Time: 118 min | IMDb: 7.1/10
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.
Paramount Vantage/Warner Bros.
20. The Machinist (2004)
Run Time: 101 min | IMDb: 7.7/10
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.
A24
21. The Disaster Artist (2017)
Run Time: 104 min | IMDb: 7.5/10
Only an actor as confusing and committed to swimming against the Hollywood tide as James Franco could direct this pseudo-biography of Tommy Wiseau, an aspiring filmmaker who made the wrong kind of noise in the industry with his theatrics while trying to get a feature film made. Wiseau in real life is an enigmatic kind of train wreck, and Franco plays him brilliantly here, injecting heart and a dreamy sense of possibility to his story.
CJ Entertainment
22. The Man From Nowhere (2010)
Run Time: 119 min | IMDb: 7.8/10
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.
MetroDome
23. Coherence (2014)
Run Time: 89 min | IMDb: 7.2/10
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.
Sundance
24. Beatriz At Dinner (2017)
Run Time: 81 min | IMDb: 6.1/10
A seemingly harmless dinner invitation leads to a bitingly sharp commentary on classism and racism in America with Beatriz at Dinner. Salma Hayek plays the title lead with John Lithgow and Connie Briton supporting. You wouldn’t think a simple dinner party, full of endless chatter and charged looks, would be so dramatically thrilling, but watching Hayek play a woman so self-contained and self-assured, despite the prejudice and ignorance she encounters, is enthralling.
Amazon Studios
25. The Lost City of Z (2016)
Run Time: 141 min | IMDb: 6.6/10
Charlie Hunnam and Robert Pattinson star in this adventurous retelling of the true-life drama of Col. Percival Fawcett. Fawcett (Hunnam) was a British explorer who disappeared while searching for a mysterious city in the Amazon in the 1920s. This biopic is the slowest of burns and takes liberties with Fawcett’s tale if only because no one really knows what happened to the man and his son when they went missing in the jungle, but stick around for some fantastic cinematography and a few thrilling action sequences — along with the sense of mystery that comes with a look at old-world exploration expeditions.
Recent Changes Through September 2018:
Removed: Warrior
Added: The Machinist
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