The best Amazon Prime TV series you can stream, from The Boys to Upload.
Looking for the best Amazon Prime shows? There are loads of great TV series to choose from on Amazon Prime Video these days, with the online retailer investing big in shows like The Boys and The Marvelous Mrs Maisel. Then, of course, there’s The Grand Tour, with its highly anticipated Madagascar episode getting a December release date and trailer. The best Amazon Prime shows also feature some fantastic series not made by Amazon, but licensed from elsewhere. In this list, you’ll find a mix of both. When we picked the best shows on Amazon Prime for this list, we threw in a mixture of great comedies, high-end sci-fi and factual entertainment you won’t want to miss. Amazon Prime Video is a solid service right now, and more shows are coming in the months and years ahead, like The Lord of the Rings. You’ll find our list of the 20 best Amazon Prime shows below, including our latest addition, Small Axe. Steve McQueen’s set of five films have been a revelation as they follow the lives of West Indian people in London between the ’60s and ’80s, featuring John Boyega and Letitia Wright. So, for that and more, here’s what’s worth binge-watching on Amazon Prime Video. Troubling the boundaries between film and TV, Small Axe is a set of feature-length stories centred around West Indian people living in London from the ’60s to the ’80s. Directed by Steve McQueen, the first starred Letitia Wright as the so-called Mangrove 9 faced trial following the harassment of a black-owned restaurant by racist police officers, with another featuring John Boyega training to be the first black police officer in the London MET. None of them, especially Lover’s Rock, are to be missed. Seasons on Amazon Prime Video: 1 Hanna was first a 2011 feature-length thriller starring Saoirse Ronan, but it’s just as tense and thrilling as a series. The titular central character is a gifted teenager broken out of captivity and raised in the wilderness. As she’s hunted down by unpleasant forces that want to learn the truth about her, and use her for their own ends, Hanna faces the difficulties of a normal teen growing up, in extraordinary circumstances. If you saw the original film and aren’t convinced you should commit to the two seasons available right now, check out our interview with Hanna’s creator, David Farr. Seasons on Amazon Prime Video: 2 Based on the podcast of the same name, Julia Roberts stars in the first season of this thriller, which is quietly one of the best shows on Amazon Prime. Set in a mysterious facility called Homecoming, where soldiers are given therapy, this show lacks any massive twists but features plenty of deep character development between therapist Heidi Bergman (Roberts) and patient Walter Cruz (Stephan James). Homecoming is the work of Sam Esmail, creator of Mr Robot, and it’s similarly stylish and unpredictable. A second, shorter season, starring Janelle Monáe, is now available. Each episode is only 30 minutes long, meaning you could binge watch the whole thing in a single weekend no problem. Seasons on Amazon Prime Video: 2 Created by The Office’s Greg Daniels, Upload is a better effort than his recent Netflix show Space Force. Nathan Brown (Robbie Amell) is badly injured in an automated car crash, and instead of dying, he’s uploaded into a digital afterlife at the behest of his wealthy girlfriend, Ingrid (Allegra Edwards). While getting used to life after death, he falls for his ‘moderator’ in this virtual world, Nora (Andy Allo). What seems like a tech-y spin on The Good Place becomes more of a Silicon Valley-esque thriller in later episodes, when it appears there’s more to Nathan’s death than it first seemed. A second season is on the way. Seasons on Amazon Prime Video: 1 A contemplative sci-fi series about a town living above The Loop, a mysterious machine that makes impossible things real, Tales from the Loop is based on the striking viral paintings of Simon Stålenhag. Over the course of this first season, which is divided up like an anthology show, you’ll get a full picture of what it’s like to live here. Starring Rebecca Hall and Jonathan Pryce, it’s a more life-affirming and hopeful sci-fi show than we’re used to seeing these days, and it features a stirring soundtrack by the legendary Philip Glass.
