Best movies on Amazon Prime Video: find something great to watch
We're panning for gold in the Amazon film library to bring you these brilliant Prime Video treats.
One of the best things about Amazon Prime Video: many people don't realise they have it at first. You get access with Prime subscription, so when the penny drops it feels like you get a Netflix-a-like for free - as this best movies on Amazon Prime Video list proves.
It's not a perfect service. Spend long enough browsing and you'll find the equivalent of a VHS collection sat in the backroom of a charity shop for 10 years. E.T. rip-off Extraterrestrial Visitors and Hot Wax Zombies on Wheels are unlikely to feature on many must-watch lists.
However, Amazon Prime is home to hundreds of great films worth watching. We've picked out a few handfuls of our favourites, ones we think you should stream as soon as you get a free hour or two...
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1. If Beale Street Could Talk
This film has heavyweight pedigree. It is Barry Jenkins’ follow-up to Oscar Best Picture winner Moonlight, and was adapted from a novel by James Baldwin.
The Academy must have thought Jenkins had had enough love, because If Beale Street Could Talk is a much stronger film than some of that year’s Best Picture nominees. It’s an affecting story of a young black couple’s lives in New York.
2. Inside Llewyn Davis
Prime Video is not a rich resource for Coen brothers films. But we do get Inside Llewyn Davis, which fits comfortably into the Coen's top 10 best movies.
It’s a work of fiction, but based in part on the situation of (and real-life anecdotes from) Dave Van Ronk. He was a folk singer, part of the same scene of musicians as Bob Dylan. But where Dylan soared to success, Van Ronk did not. The film examines this kind of failure.
3. Lost In La Mancha
Terry Gilliam spent decades trying to make a movie version of Don Quixote. It was finally released in the UK in January 2020, to a fairly muted critical and box office response.
But this documentary film about Gilliam’s attempts to shoot an earlier version of the film in 2000 is arguably far better. It’s a look into the pitfalls of the movie-making process, and Gilliam’s own maddening struggle to commit to film a story he clearly has deep affection for.
4. Control
Control is one of the better music biopics of the last 20 years. It’s based on a stirring memoir by Deborah Curtis, wife of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis.
For the non Joy Division fans out there: Ian Curtis committed suicide in 1980, aged just 23. Unlike many music biopics, the central performance is entirely Sam Riley’s own, complete with excellent Curtis-a-like vocals.
5. Wild Rose
Wild Rose sounds like the perfect fodder for a by-the-numbers biography film. A young woman dreams of being a country singer, and this is her rocky road to some kind of success.
But the movie is far from ordinary, willing to lean heavily on our main characters flaws. For its first third, you may not even like Rose all that much. Its ability to play with this kind of fire without losing the audience’s interest is the sign of a quality flick.