The last days of Spring are fading as we continue on into the heart of the Summer, which means there are a whole bunch of new streaming offerings coming to Amazon Prime in June. Yes, there is the return of the hit series The Boys, which remains as vulgar and incisive as ever, though there are also some other good flicks to check out. From comedy classics to more recent action films, we’ve rounded up the best of the best to check out this month.
Call Me By Your Name
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Writers: James Ivory, André Aciman
Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Michael Stuhlbarg, Amira Casar
A reflective yet poetic look at first love, Call Me By Your Name is one of those films that captures messy feelings with moments of overwhelming and profound grace. Based on the novel of the same name by André Aciman, it stars a never-better Timothée Chalamet as the young Elio who becomes romantically drawn to a graduate student who is both older and more experienced than him. As we see him get caught up in a romance that will certainly break his heart, the scene that remains the most striking is the one Chalamet shares with acclaimed actor Michael Stuhlbarg. Playing his father, Stuhlbarg imparts both wisdom and love for his son in a monologue overflowing with gravitas that puts all other monologues to shame in how it ties everything together. When paired with a melancholic yet mesmerizing score by Sufjan Stevens, the film becomes something far more than the sum of its parts.
Fences
Director: Denzel Washington
Writer: August Wilson
Cast: Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, Stephen McKinley Henderson
A film where the gargantuan talent that is Denzel Washington puts in work both in front of and behind the camera, Fences takes the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1985 play by the magnificent August Wilson to the big screen. It is a movie that makes the most of one location where Washington plays patriarch Troy Maxson, a working-class man reflecting on the sacrifices he has made in his life. Alongside him, in more ways than one, is a revelatory Viola Davis as his wife Rose. The two have had to give up much for their son to have a shot at a better life they never had, a choice they both are reckoning with and trying to come to terms with. It is a film that is about showing the strength of its actors, giving them page after page of meaty dialogue to sink their teeth into. The entire cast not only rises to the occasion but takes it in interesting new directions that ensure it remains an adaptation all its own. There is just so much weight to every word uttered over its more than two-hour runtime, making it a film that may seem small in its scope and setting while still becoming epic in its emotional range.
mother!
Director/Writer: Darren Aronofsky
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris
A film that was met with wildly varied reactions upon its release, mother! remains a distinct vision from Darren Aronofsky which proves to be one of his most audacious. It stars Jennifer Lawrence as an unnamed woman who resides in a seemingly idyllic house alongside Javier Bardem who is simply credited as Him. In case it wasn’t already clear, this is a story that wears its aspirational biblical references on its sleeve before smashing you over the head as it begins a slow descent into Hell. Confrontational and chaotic, the film is as frequently blunt as it is brutally beautiful. The house is a malleable and malicious setting, going from being claustrophobic in one moment to eerily expansive in the next. As we see Lawrence roam the halls, this is heightened by the near-perpetual closeups on her face as increasing dread becomes to sink in. It is not going to be for everyone though, perhaps despite itself, that only makes it all the more fascinating.
No Time To Die
Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga
Writers: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Cary Joji Fukunaga, Phoebe Waller-Bridge
Cast: Daniel Craig, Léa Seydoux, Rami Malek
An imperfect yet intriguing end to the Daniel Craig era of Bond, No Time To Die sees the dashing spy’s long history finally catch up with him. The result is a film that goes in directions that the franchise has never gone before, arriving at a conclusion that is as bittersweet as it is fitting. It also never skimps on the action, starting right out of the gate with an explosive sequence of events that sees Bond nearly killed in a surprise attack while he is mourning a past love. We then flash forward five years where he has retired, content to leave the violence and death of his life behind. Of course, being a Bond film, he is drawn back in for another mission that will be his last in one way or another. Even with a bit of an underdeveloped villain, the film is Craig really giving it his all in a final farewell that wraps everything up nicely.
The Sandlot
Director: David Mickey Evans
Writers: David Mickey Evans, Robert Gunter
Cast: Tom Guiry, Mike Vitar, Art LaFleur
One of the most hilarious and heartfelt coming-of-age films of all time, The Sandlot is a sports movie that is silly as it is sweet. It centers on Tom Guiry's Scotty Smalls, an endearingly dorky yet lonely kid who has moved to a new place where he doesn’t know anyone. Just when it seems like he won't have any friends for the Summer, he meets Mike Vitar's charismatic Benny 'The Jet' Rodriguez who introduces him to a group of kids that go play baseball every day. It is there that Smalls, as the other kids call him, finds both friendship and a whole lot of shenanigans when a priceless baseball is accidentally hit over a fence that contains a beast no one dares confront. Tightly written and sharply funny, it captures a portrait of youth that is sentimental without being superficial. It is a film that lives in the details, capturing what it means to grow up with both accuracy and love for all adolescence has to offer.
The Wolf of Wall Street
Director: Martin Scorsese
Writer: Terence Winter
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie
A brilliantly excessive and endlessly exorbitant portrait of wealth, The Wolf of Wall Street is an uproarious work of art from Martin Scorsese at his most unrestrained. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio as the callous real-life Jordan Belfort, it takes a look at how he will do anything to get to the very top. Alongside him are the equally outstanding Jonah Hill and Margot Robbie who steal every scene in this bonkers ride of a film. Charting Belfort’s fall from being a filthy rich stock-broker to a corrupt crook who made his wealth at the expense of others, the film puts his brand of American greed under a microscope to excavate every corner of what made him tick. It also is darkly hilarious, letting scenes of drug-addled incompetence play out in all their glory. However, by the time the shoe drops, the laughter has long since faded into stunned silence. In its place, we see a man and the system at large revealed in all its brokenness. It finds entertainment in the eccentricity and dread in the looming collapse that it is all building to.
Whip It
Director: Drew Barrymore
Writer: Shauna Cross
Cast: Elliot Page, Drew Barrymore, Kristen Wiig
A film that remains forever slept on for all its wit and charm, Whip It sees Drew Barrymore confidently direct a comedy-drama that hits all the right notes. It stars Elliot Page as Bliss Cavendar, a scrappy misfit living in small-town Texas who secretly joins a roller derby team to escape the crushing conformity of a controlling mother and the world of beauty pageants. The world of roller derby brings freedom and a new sense of meaning for Bliss, though it can’t last forever as a choice will have to be made between these two vastly different worlds. It is a film that doesn’t reinvent the wheel but instead sends it speeding ahead, packing a sense of joy mixed with melancholy in the struggles of its central character trying to find a path forward. Page captures this vulnerability and vision with ease, making for an experience that finds a tender passion in the life of its underdogs who have carved out a world for themselves.