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A young woman wearing a purple dress looks ahead, with dull bricks behind her, in The Handmaiden. Image: Prime Video

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The best movies on Prime Video right now

What to watch on Prime, from explosive thrillers to one of the scariest movies ever made

We’ve all been there: flipping through Amazon Prime Video’s movie offerings, but stuck wondering, Uh, what’s good? The commercial giant’s streaming service has quietly collected a giant archive of films, and since 2006, has released a number of acclaimed films under the Amazon Studios banner, like Sound of Metal, Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero, Leos Carax’s Annette, The Vast of Night, and Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria remake.

But along with originals, there are tons of back catalog picks just waiting to be discovered in the platform’s, let’s say, challenging UX. So we’ve looked through the service and cherry-picked some of our favorite films currently on the platform to try out. Our latest update added The Suicide Squad as our editor’s pick for the month.


Editor’s pick: The Suicide Squad

(L-R) Joel Kinnaman, Alice Braga, Daniela Melchior, Idris Elba, and John Cena standing in a tropical forest clearing in The Suicide Squad. Image: Warner Bros.

Genre: Superhero action
Director: James Gunn
Cast: Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena

It wasn’t so long ago that James Gunn was persona non grata in Hollywood, having lost his job at Marvel in 2018 after becoming the target of right-wing trolls who surfaced old offensive jokes in a coordinated effort to smear him. Produced in the interval between Gunn’s initial firing and his subsequent rehiring to helm Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, The Suicide Squad marked the most turbulent professional upswing of the director’s career to date. The result is a film that shares the same irreverent over-the-top tone of Gunn’s earlier work, albeit now with a gleeful sense of masochism as he takes the concept of this imprisoned team of DC Comics supervillains at its word, killing characters off at random and building something new from the detritus.

While admittedly it’s not all that high a bar to clear, Gunn’s movie improves on 2016’s Suicide Squad in almost every conceivable way. Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, and John Cena deliver a trio of terrific performances as Harley Quinn, Bloodsport, and Peacemaker; the action on the whole is exhilarating and entertaining; and hilarious cameos from the likes of Nathan Fillion, Pete Davidson, and more round out an overall satisfying superhero flick that knows better than to take itself too seriously. That’s not even mentioning David Dastmalchian’s breakout performance as Polka-Dot Man, a depressed superhuman with one of the most bizarre on-screen powers yet seen in a live-action superhero movie.

All in all, the film was a big win for both Gunn and Warner Bros. The Suicide Squad introduced the character of Peacemaker to the DC cinematic universe, whose story would later be expanded upon in the Peacemaker TV series created by Gunn. Not long after, Gunn was appointed as the co-CEO of Warner Bros.’ newly formed DC Studios. —Toussaint Egan


Catherine Called Birdy

a man wearing a chainmail snood holds up a young teenage girl Photo: Alex Bailey/Prime Video

Genre: Coming-of-age comedy
Director: Lena Dunham
Cast: Bella Ramsey, Andrew Scott, Billie Piper

Lena Dunham’s delightful adaptation of the young adult novel set during medieval times is one of the best comedies of the year, anchored by warm and layered performances by Bella Ramsey and Andrew Scott and bringing a real teenage energy to a normally gray and dreary setting. —PV

From our review:

It isn’t a faithful adaptation of the book, but it’s the adaptation that works best for an audience discovering this story on screen. Catherine Called Birdy the movie tells a tighter story than the book’s delightful diary entries tell, and it needed a conclusion with more finality than a journal that simply runs out of pages. It’s an updated version of the story, but not updated out of cowardice over a tragic ending, or a “How do you do, fellow kids” misplaced attempt to appeal to young people by being “edgy” or “different.” Instead, the changes come from a desire to augment the best parts of the book. Catherine’s sharp narration and the insight into her daily Middle Ages life, juxtaposed with a more narratively cohesive conclusion, make the film stronger, and let Dunham seek her own path and audience.

Coherence

Nicholas Brendon, Maury Sterling, Lorene Scafaria, Alex Manugian, Lauren Maher, and Emily Baldoni in Coherence (2013) Image: Oscilloscope Laboratories

Genre: Sci-fi thriller
Director: James Ward Byrkit
Cast: Emily Baldoni, Maury Sterling, Nicholas Brendon

Writer-director James Ward Byrkit’s 2013 sci-fi thriller Coherence is a taut puzzle box of multidimensional weirdness and fraught existential terror. Holding it all together are strong performances led by Emily Baldoni, Homeland’s Maury Sterling, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Nicholas Brendon. If you’re hungry for an intriguing blend of mumblecore cinema and sci-fi horror, Coherence is it. —罢贰

Fist of Fury

a shirtless Bruce Lee is ready for a fight in Fist of Fury Image: Shout! Factory

Genre: Martial arts drama
Director: Lo Wei
Cast: Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee followed up his first action movie, The Big Boss, with Fist of Fury, which saw Lee take over as action choreographer as well as in the leading role. Lee plays Chen Zhen, a martial arts student looking to defend the honor of his school from a Japanese dojo that has been harassing and bullying them after the death of Chen’s teacher.

Probably the most famous scene from this movie comes when Chen visits the dojo and pummels every student, and the teacher, one by one. This movie has been remade many times (Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and Donnie Yen all played Chen Zhen early on in their careers, and Chan briefly appears in this one), and the movie and character both earn their major legacy in the history of Hong Kong cinema and action cinema. —PV

The Handmaiden

Kim Min-hee and Kim Tae-ri in Ah-ga-ssi (The Handmaiden) Image: Magnolia Pictures

Genre: Psychological erotic mystery thriller
Director: Park Chan-wook
Cast: Kim Min-hee, Kim Tae-ri, Ha Jung-woo

Park Chan-wook is one of the greatest filmmakers working today, and his newest project Decision to Leave is my personal favorite movie of the year so far. He’s made many great movies (and a stellar TV show) over the years, but only one is available to watch on Amazon Prime: the excellent erotic historical mystery The Handmaiden.

Adapted from Sarah Waters’ novel Fingersmith, Park takes the story to Japan-occupied Korea, following a pickpocket and a con man who together conspire to steal a wealthy Japanese heiress’s fortune. A winding tale of seduction and intrigue, it’s a wonderful playground for Park to deploy his distinct style, and is aided by terrific performances by Kim Tae-ri (as the pickpocket/titular handmaiden), Kim Min-hee (as the heiress), and Ha Jung-woo (as the con man).

So while you wait to see Decision to Leave (or after you do), go ahead and check in with (or revisit) The Handmaiden. You won’t regret it. —Pete Volk

Hellraiser

The cenobite Pinhead in Hellraiser, with needles all up in his head Image: Entertainment Film Distributors

Genre: Horror
Director: Clive Barker
Cast: Andrew Robinson, Clare Higgins, Doug Bradley

Clive Barker’s 1987 directorial debut adapts his 1986 novella The Hellbound Heart to tell the story of Larry (Andrew Robinson) and Julia Cotton (Clare Higgins). The Cottons are a married couple who move into the home of Larry’s recently deceased brother, Frank (Sean Chapman), with whom Julia had a previous affair. After inadvertently being resurrected by a drop of blood spilled by Larry on the floor of the house’s attic, Frank seduces Julia into luring new men to the house so that he can drain their life force and fully regain his mortal form. Surrounding this core narrative is the the story of the Lament Configuration, a puzzle box Frank acquired before his untimely death. When solved, it conjures hellish beings known as Cenobites to the mortal plane of existence, which indulge in hellish exercises of sadomasochistic mutilation. Easily the best and most enduring of the Hellraiser movie series, Barker’s 1987 original is a must-watch for horror fans. —罢贰

Karnan

Image: Amazon Prime Video

Genre: Action drama
Director: Mari Selvaraj
Cast: Dhanush, Lal, Yogi Babu

Karnan (Dhanush) is a young, temperamental man from a village in southern Tamil Nadu who wants to set the world right all on his own. His village is prevented from getting its own bus stop, causing great strife for people of all generations — their lack of mobility to the city prevents children from going to good schools, adults from getting good jobs, and simply makes life difficult for the villagers. Karnan fights and fights and fights to make things right, taking on opponents as varied as police officers, people from another local village, friends and family who simply want to help, and his own demons.

This Tamil-language drama from director Mari Selvaraj is influenced by a real-life incident where hundreds of police attacked a village in Tamil Nadu. One of the highest-grossing Tamil films of 2021, it is Selvaraj’s follow-up to the award-winning Pariyerum Perumal.

Karnan is a beautiful film with powerful visuals, a terrific soundtrack filled with folk genre songs from local Tamil Nadu musicians, strong leading performances, and a palpable righteous anger at unjustness in the world. —PV

Love & Friendship

Image: Roadside Attractions/Amazon Studios

Genre: Comedy
Director: Whit Stillman
Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Morfydd Clark, Tom Bennett

After the death of her husband, Lady Susan Vernon (Kate Beckinsale) is looking for new husbands, plural — one for herself, and one for her only daughter, Frederica (Morfydd Clark). Lady Susan is an audacious flirt and a calculating schemer, and Beckinsale absolutely excels in the layered role, delivering a bold and unforgettable lead performance in an uproarious film. While writer-director Whit Stillman is known for modern day comedies of manners like Metropolitan and Barcelona, his 2016 adaptation of Jane Austen’s Lady Susan is still firmly in his creative wheelhouse and stands as one of the funniest comedies in recent memory. —PV

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