Take the guesswork out of what to watch with our curated list of the best movies streaming on Amazon Prime Video right now.
Finding a good movie to watch on Amazon Prime Video can be difficult to say the least. While Amazon’s robust library of titles is available to every Amazon Prime subscriber, they don’t exactly make it easy to find what you’re looking for. That’s where we come in. Below, we’ve assembled a growing list of the best movies on Amazon Prime right now. Our carefully curated selection runs the gamut from crowd-pleasing blockbusters to Oscar-winning dramas to delightful rom-coms and beyond. There’s a little something for everyone, so stop the endless scrolling and simply choose one of these great movies to watch. Check out our list of the best movies on Amazon Prime video below. The list will be updated weekly with new titles. If you can look past the forgettable title, “What If” is actually a wonderfully charming romantic comedy gem that flew entirely under the radar. Daniel Radcliffe stars as a medical school dropout who meets a young woman (played by Zoe Kazan) during his first night out in a year. At the end of the night, he finds out the woman is in a relationship, and the two subsequently become best friends as the story charts their close relationship and whether Radcliffe’s character will summon the courage to tell her how he really feels. While the premise feels familiar, the 2014 film is executed in a sweet, hilarious and charming manner (it was originally titled “The F Word”) and boasts a pair of supporting performances by then up-and-comers Adam Driver and Mackenzie Davis that are delightful. A Tom Holland adventure movie of a very different sort, “The Lost City of Z” is based on the David Grann book of the same name and follows a British explorer in the early 1900s who is sent to Brazil to search for a supposed lost city in the Amazon. Charlie Hunnam plays the explorer Percy Fawcett, Robert Pattinson plays fellow explorer Henry Costin and Tom Holland plays Percy’s son Jack. As directed and written by James Gray, “The Lost City of Z” is an enthralling story about colonialism and the relationship between a father and a son. One of the best movies ever made, “Fargo” holds up tremendously well. The 1996 Oscar winner is written and directed by The Coen Brothers and stars Frances McDormand as Marge Gunderson, a pregnant police chief in Minnesota who’s investigation into a dead body threatens to unravel a conspiracy and kidnapping. Supporting turns by William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare are all-timers, and the score by Carter Burwell is one of the best ever. If you’ve already seen Aaron Sorkin’s fictional account of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in “Being the Ricardos,” check out the Amy Poehler-directed documentary “Lucy and Desi.” The film explores the partnership between the “I Love Lucy” stars, offering an insightful and candid look at the relationship between the two buoyed by interviews with Lucie Arnaz Luckinbill, Norman Lear, Desi Arnaz Jr, Carol Burnett and Bette Midler. If you’re in the mood for a classic,1973’s road trip comedy “Paper Moon” holds up tremendously well. Directed by Peter Bogdanovich, the film takes place during the Great Depression and stars real-life father and daughter Ryan and Tatum O’Neal as a con man and orphan who team up when the con man agrees to take the young girl from Gotham, Kansas to St. Joseph, Missouri. Heartwarming, hilarious and rich in character, “Paper Moon” is a classic for a reason. Director Peter Weir’s 1989 drama “Dead Poets Society” continues to inspire generation after generation, and the film (which won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar) holds up tremendously well three decades on. The story follows a group of students at an elite conservative Vermont boarding school, where a charismatic English teacher played by Robin Williams forces his students to reconsider their place in the world and embrace the power of art – specifically through poetry. The film has an added resonance at this particular time, and the performances from young Ethan Hawke, Robert Sean Leonard, Josh Charles and others are excellent. Ridley Scott’s 2012 “Alien” prequel “Prometheus” was received with a somewhat mixed response, but in hindsight it’s a bold left-turn for the sci-fi franchise. The film takes place long before the events of the other “Alien” films as it chronicles the misadventures of a crew following a star map that was discovered on Earth. The map takes them to a seemingly deserted planet where they encounter a massive abandoned spaceship and learn the truth about humanity’s origins. Co-written by “Lost” alum Damon Lindelof, the film tackles themes of mortality and hubris and boasts a terrific ensemble that includes Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Idris Elba and Noomi Rapace. The 2007 comedy “Walk Hard” didn’t make much of an impact at the box office, but it has since become a cult favorite. Directed by Jake Kasdan (who went on to direct the blockbuster “Jumanji” films) and co-written and produced by Judd Apatow, the film skewers a specific type of music biopic as it tells the story of fictional musician Dewey Cox, played by John C. Reilly. The film traverses Cox’s entire life, taking cues from films like “Ray” and “Walk the Line” but working as a genuinely compelling (and hilarious) story all its own. “The Office” alum Jenna Fischer plays Dewey’s love interest, Kristen Wiig plays his first wife and Tim Meadows is a scene-stealer as Dewey’s drug-taking best friend. Plus, the songs are genuinely catchy. The only horror film to win the Best Picture Oscar, “The Silence of the Lambs” holds up tremendously well. This 1991 adaptation of the Thomas Harris book stars Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling, an FBI trainee who is roped into collaborating with incarcerated serial killer Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) to try and catch a killer on the loose. The film not only won Best Picture but also Best Actress, Actor, Director and Adapted Screenplay, and indeed the secret weapon that makes “The Silence of the Lambs” so good is filmmaker Jonathan Demme, who refuses to revel in the violence and instead brings an empathetic touch to telling the story from Clarice’s perspective. One of the best blockbusters ever made, there’s never really a bad time to watch “Die Hard.” The 1988 film from director John McTiernan stars Bruce Willis as NYC-based cop John McClane, who travels to Los Angeles to visit his estranged wife at her place of business, only to happen upon a terrorist hostage situation. As the only person unseen by the terrorists, McClane sneaks his way around the LA high-rise, sabotaging the terrorists every chance he can get. This one’s a pulse-pounding thriller, dark comedy and effective romance all in one, with an iconic Alan Rickman performance to boot. Before Marc Webb directed “The Amazing Spider-Man” movies, he burst onto the scene with 2009’s romantic dramedy “(500) Days of Summer.” The film chronicles a relationship in a fractured narrative, flashing forward and backwards to follow a man named Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and his 500-day relationship with a girl named Summer (Zooey Deschanel). While seeing different stages of their relationship out of order, the audience gets deeper into Tom’s point of view, and the film ends with a smart reversal of the “boy pines for girl” trope. It’s quite possible that Michael Bay has never made a better film than “The Rock,” which pairs Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage in a thrilling action film that sees the two breaking into Alcatraz prison. Cage is an FBI agent who enlists the help of a notorious criminal played by Connery to break into Alcatraz to free hostages being held by a rogue Marine (played by Ed Harris) who threatens to unleash a toxin on San Francisco. The film is both ridiculous and ridiculously entertaining. There are those that will tell you “Lincoln” is “minor Spielberg,” but those people are wrong. This 2012 drama had long been a passion project of Steven Spielberg’s, and as realized is a thoughtful, insightful and surprisingly funny chronicle of the American governmental process. The film doesn’t take the “cradle to grave” route to Lincoln’s story but instead focuses on his efforts to pass the 13th Amendment. In doing so, Spielberg creates one of the best films about political process ever made, while also digging deep into the contradictions in Lincoln himself. As portrayed by Daniel Day-Lewis, it’s a complex, fascinating portrayal of a man trying to do best by himself and his country, but who doesn’t always have the right answers. The film is far deeper than a simple “that was nice” story, and is “West Wing”-esque in its compelling chronicle of the political process. In short, it’s masterful and it’s absolutely top tier Spielberg.
