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.

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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17. The Wolf Of Wall Street

Financial crimes. Big yachts. Piles of cocaine. Being chased by the FBI. Sounds like fun? It’s all there in The Wolf of Wall Street, based on the memoirs of Jordan Belfort.

And, America being America, Belfort still makes big bucks to this day as a motivational speaker.

The Scorsese film sizzles through its 3-hour runtime, and features career defining performances by Leonardo DiCaprio and Matthew McConaughey.

16. 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.

15. The Big Sick

Kumail Nanjiani is currently famed across the internet as the nerd who got "swole". But The Big Sick was a highlight of his pre-muscle days.

It was written by Nanjiani and his wife Emily Gordon, and is based on their own experiences of an interracial relationship and their struggles with Gordon’s health issues. It is real, relatable and dances effortlessly between its funny and serious sides.

14. 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.

13. 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.

12. Snowpiercer

Six years before Bong Joon Ho won a best film Oscar for Parasite, his earlier work Snowpiercer hit cinemas. It’s an off-kilter sci-fi film with ambition and intellect you wouldn’t expect when you hear a one-line summary.

The only people left alive on Earth are those inside a 1001-car train forever travelling across the globe. It’s based on a French graphic novel series by Jacques Lob.

11. 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.

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