The 30 Best Movies on Amazon’s Prime Video Right Now

Photo: Phillip Caruso/Columbia/Kobal/Shutterstock

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.

This Week’s Critic’s Pick

The Age of Innocence

Year: 1993
Runtime: 2h 12m
Director: Martin Scorsese

Every time some troll claims that Scorsese only makes violent mob movies, they should be forced to watch this masterpiece, a period romance adapted from the 1920 novel by Edith Wharton. Daniel Day-Lewis plays Newland Archer, a wealthy New Yorker who is going to marry a woman named May (Winona Ryder) when he meets the unforgettable Countess Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer). Sumptuously made and perfectly added, it’s one of the best films of a very good year.

Drama

*After Yang

Year: 2022
Runtime: 1h 35m
Director: Kogonada

What a beautiful movie this is. Colin Farrell stars in a near-future tale in which androids are more common. When one dies, it feels like a member of the family is gone, almost like losing a child. Farrell’s character tries to fix Yang, discovering what’s important about life along the way. It also contains a gorgeous score by Ryuichi Sakamato.

Blow Out

Year: 1981
Runtime: 1h 47m
Director: Brian De Palma

Brian De Palma’s best film stars John Travolta as a sound effects technician who is out recording sounds one night when he thinks he hears something terrifying. De Palma’s films often riff on Hitchcock, and this is his Rear Window, taking the voyeuristic elements of that film and applying them to a deeply cynical but brilliant study of violence, politics, and sex in the early 1980s.

*Born on the Fourth of July

Year: 1989
Runtime: 2h 24m
Director: Oliver Stone

The director of the Best Picture-winning Platoon returned to Vietnam era with a very different film that’s more about coming home than going to war. Tom Cruise gives one of the best performances of his career as Ron Kovic, an average American kid forced into combat, who came home paralyzed and in a country that had no idea what to do with its veterans. It’s a very moving drama that landed eight Oscar nominations, including Cruise’s first, and won a second trophy for Oliver Stone.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Year: 1977
Runtime: 2h 14m
Director: Steven Spielberg

There are a bunch of ‘70s and ‘80s classics on Amazon Prime (and on this list), but this is one of the best, a Steven Spielberg classic that may not get the same attention as his franchise starters but has held up as well as any of his most beloved films. This is probably a movie you haven’t seen since you were a kid. It plays differently if you’re now an adult. Trust us.

*Donnie Darko

Year: 2001
Runtime: 1h 53m
Director: Richard Kelly

It’s a mad world in Richard Kelly’s sci-fi hit starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore, Patrick Swayze, and Jena Malone. Darko made almost nothing in theaters but developed a loyal following on the home market, becoming one of the more acclaimed sci-fi films of the ‘00s. Join in the conversation that seems to constantly surround this film (and maybe Kelly will be encouraged to make another one soon — he hasn’t directed in over a decade).

Fitzcarraldo

Year: 1982
Runtime: 2h 37m
Director: Werner Herzog

Werner Herzog set out to make a movie about a man who was insane enough to try and move a steamship over land from one river to another and Herzog himself was insane enough to actually try and replicate it. The result is a film that’s mesmerizing in its detail and blatant in its study of power gone mad, both in the narrative and the filmmaking. Watch Burden of Dreams after – a great doc about the crazy making of this film. (It’s on Prime too.)

House of Games

Year: 1987
Runtime: 1h 41m
Director: David Mamet

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet made his directorial debut with this insanely clever thriller starring Lindsey Crouse and Joe Mantegna. Crouse plays a therapist who becomes fascinated with the life of a con, played by Mantegna, but Mamet always keeps his full hand hidden, only revealing the complexities and brilliance of his script one card at a time.

King of New York

Year: 1990
Runtime: 1h 43m
Director: Abel Ferrara

The amazing Abel Ferrara directed this crime epic that oozes with style. Three decades after its release, it’s still one of the most cited films of this kind of its era. One of the main reasons for that is the cast. Christopher Walken leads the way as the legendary drug lord Frank White, but the whole ensemble here is amazing, including Laurence Fishburne, David Caruso, Wesley Snipes, Steve Buscemi, and Giancarlo Esposito.

The Limey

Year: 1999
Runtime: 1h 28m
Director: Steven Soderbergh

Steven Soderbergh directs a searing performance by Terence Stamp in his thriller about a Brit who comes to California trying to find his missing daughter, and those who may be responsible for hurting her. Soderbergh rarely missteps and The Limey is one of his most underrated films, a perfectly paced angry shout of a movie that matches its captivating leading man.

*Manhunter

Year: 1986
Runtime: 2h 1m
Director: Michael Mann

Believe it or not, this Michael Mann flick isn’t regularly available for streaming subscribers, so take this chance while you can to watch one of the best from a masterful American director. Adapting Red Dragon by Thomas Harris, this is actually the first cinematic iteration of Hannibal Lecter, played here by future Succession Emmy winner Brian Cox. William Petersen is great as Will Graham, the role that Hugh Dancy would play many years later in the NBC series. This one is tense, and truly terrifying.

Memento

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.

Oppenheimer

Year: 2023
Runtime: 2h 58m
Director: Christopher Nolan

One of the biggest and best movies of 2023 has been doing a victory lap on the streaming services following its Oscar win for Best Picture. Of course, one of the draws of Nolan’s brilliant examination of the development of the atomic bomb was the way it played on Imax screens around the world. It’s best viewed large, loud, and in a one 3-hour chunk. So don’t break this one up and don’t watch it on your phone. Give yourself over to one of the most truly cinematic experiences of the decade.

Passion Fish

Year: 1992
Runtime: 2h 15m
Director: John Sayles

The brilliant writer/director John Sayles delivered one of his most beloved films in this 1992 drama about a soap opera star (Mary McDonnell) who has been paralyzed after being hit by a cab. She returns to her family home, where she crosses paths with a nurse (Alfre Woodard) who refuses to give up on her. It’s moving in a way that feels genuine, never manipulative.

Platoon

Year: 1987
Runtime: 1h 54m
Director: Oliver Stone

Oliver Stone’s deeply personal and powerful film about the Vietnam War remains his best work, winning the filmmaker an Oscar for Best Director and nabbing Best Picture too. It stars Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen, and Willem Dafoe in a story that cast a light on morality in wartime in a way that hadn’t really been seen before. It’s still incredibly moving stuff, and it always will be.

*Psycho

Year: 1960
Runtime: 1h 48m
Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Often on lists of the best movies ever made, Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller undeniably changed the genre forever. With its drastic POV shift and stunning mid-film murder, no one had ever seen a movie that played with structure like this one before. It’s still a riveting piece of work, a movie in which one can find new tricks and joys with every single viewing. It’s a masterpiece.

Requiem for a Dream

Year: 2000
Runtime: 1h 41m
Director: Darren Aronofsky

Darren Aronofsky adapted Hubert Selby Jr.’s novel of the same name into one of the most harrowing films about addiction that has ever been made. Jared Leto, Ellen Burstyn, Marlon Wayans, and Jennifer Connelly star in a film that looks at four different spirals into drug abuse and the horrors that can often come with it. The performances are unforgettable, but it’s the incredible visual confidence that Aronofsky displayed in only his second film that makes this such a riveting experience.

Saving Private Ryan

Year: 1998
Runtime: 2h 49m
Director: Steven Spielberg

War movies haven’t gone anywhere, a prominent part of film history from its early days through 1917. There are certain tentpoles in that history of war movies that feel like game changers, and one came in 1998 when Steven Spielberg returned to World War II to tell a different story of history, reminding everyone in the world about the sacrifices that were made that day, and the obligation we all have to make them worthwhile.

Taxi Driver

Year: 1976
Runtime: 1h 48m
Director: Martin Scorsese

One of Martin Scorsese’s early masterpieces, Taxi Driver is the wildly influential story of a man pushed off the edge of sanity, featuring a fearless performance from a young Robert De Niro. Few movies from this era are cited more than this one, and it’s not just because it touches on themes that remain timeless but that it does so in such a riveting, harrowing way. It’s unforgettable and the rare perfect film that holds up every single time you watch it.

Horror

High Tension

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.

Phantasm

Year: 1979
Runtime: 1h 29m
Director: Don Coscarelli

Another low-budget flick that produced an empire, Don Coscarelli’s totally bonkers 1979 film isn’t as much an influential genre classic as it is kind of unlike anything before or since. Who can forget the first time they saw Angus Scrimm as The Tall Man, one of the best horror characters of his era? The crazy plot here is secondary to the unforgettable imagery and style. There’s a reason it spawned four sequels and has a very loyal cult following 40 years later.

Comedy

Bottle Rocket

Year: 1996
Runtime: 1h 31m
Director: Wes Anderson

Made for almost nothing in the heart of Texas by an unknown young man named Wes Anderson, this 1996 comedy changed the indie landscape. Not only did it launch Anderson’s career, it introduced the world to the Wilson brothers, Owen and Luke. It’s a great film, and one that Martin Scorsese even named as one of the ten best films of the 1990s.

*Fargo

Year: 1996
Runtime: 1h 34m
Director: Joel Coen

Joel and Ethan Coen’s 1996 masterpiece is only one of the best films ever made, a story of violence and redemption in the great American North. The Coens won Best Original Screenplay and Frances McDormand took her first Oscar home for playing the unforgettable Marge Gunderson, a Minnesotan cop who gets entangled in a car salesman’s deeply inept foray into the criminal world.

Heathers

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.

The Holdovers

Year: 2023
Runtime: 2h 13m
Director: Alexander Payne

Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph were Oscar-nominated for this phenomenal comedy (and Randolph won!), which was exclusive to Peacock but has now escaped out to Prime Video. The ‘70s-set story of a boarding school over holiday break already feels like a comedy classic, a movie that people will be watching, especially around the end of the year, for generations to come.

Action

Gladiator

Year: 2000
Runtime: 2h 34m
Director: Russell Crowe

The first Best Picture winner of the new millennium was one of the most beloved period action films of all time. Russell Crowe gives his most iconic performance as a Roman general named Maximus, who watches his family murdered and his life destroyed by a vicious ruler named Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix). Forced into slavery, Maximus must become a gladiator, competing in arenas until he can achieve his ultimate revenge.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Year: 1967
Runtime: 2h 58m
Director: Sergio Leone

Is this Sergio Leone’s best movie? It might be. It’s arguably his most influential, changing the landscape of the Western in ways that are still being felt a half-century later. Clint Eastwood plays “The Good,” Lee Van Cleef plays “The Bad,” and Eli Wallach plays “The Ugly.” It’s even better than you remember.

Interstellar

Year: 2014
Runtime: 2h 49m
Director: Christopher Nolan

The most underrated film from the director of The Dark Knight and Oppenheimer remains this 2014 sci-fi epic, a film that’s better if you approach it as an emotional journey instead of a physical one. Matthew McConaughey gives one of the best performances of his career as an astronaut searching for a new home for mankind, and realizing all that he left behind to do so. It’s a technical marvel with some of the most striking visuals and best sound design of Nolan’s career.

*The Lord of the Rings trilogy

Year: 2001-2003
Runtime: Various
Director: Peter Jackson

The Oscar-winning franchise by Peter Jackson bounces around the streaming services with alarming regularity, now finding its way to Prime Video for an indeterminate amount of time. Watch the entire saga of Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, and the rest of the Fellowship while you can.

Reservoir Dogs

Year: 1992
Runtime: 1h 39m
Director: Quentin Tarantino

Maybe you’ve heard of it? One of the only Quentin Tarantino flicks on Prime Video right now is his first effort, a movie that announced a major new talent as much as any debut of the ‘90s. Remarkably, unlike a lot of ‘80s and ‘90s debuts, Reservoir Dogs works just as well today. It would arguably be an even bigger hit if it came out in 2024. That’s how much QT influenced the form for three decades and counting after its release.

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