In addition to delivering much-needed supplies like toilet paper and headphones directly to your door, Amazon Prime also actually makes pretty great original movies. Amazon entered the original film realm a few years ago just as Netflix was also ramping up production of its own movies. The early Amazon Prime original movies were really angling for prestige, and they succeeded! Films like Manchester By the Sea and I Am Not Your Negro found success at the Oscars, but recently Amazon has begun diversifying its catalogue with horror films, comedies, and just straight-up feel good movies.
We’ve gone through all of Amazon Prime’s original movies and singled out the very best ones. So if you’re in the mood to watch some great recent releases, we’ve got you covered. Check out our list of the best Amazon Prime original movies below.
Late Night
Director: Nisha Ganatra
Writer: Mindy Kaling
Cast: Mindy Kaling, Emma Thompson, Hugh Dancy, John Lithgow, Denis O’Hare, Reid Scott, and Amy Ryan
If you’re a fan of behind-the-scenes Hollywood stories and romcoms, you’ll probably like Late Night. The film follows a young woman (Mindy Kaling) who joins the all-male writing staff of a formerly famous but now in decline late night host, played by Emma Thompson. The idealistic young writer meets the cynicism of the host and her staff head on, as they try to turn the show around while other obstacles arise. It’s sweet and fun and funny, but also surprisingly emotional as it reaches the end. Thompson delivers a terrific performance as a complex and powerful woman, and Kaling is charming as the naïve comedy newbie who idolizes her boss. – Adam Chitwood
Brittany Runs a Marathon
Director/Writer: Paul Downs Colaizzo
Cast: Jillian Bell, Michaela Watkins, Utkarsh Abudkar, Lil Rel Howery, and Micah Stock
Brittany Runs a Marathon is not the movie you think it is, in the very best way. The film stars Jillian Bell as an overweight woman who sets out to train for and run the New York marathon as a way to get in shape, which she also believes will change her life for the better. Changes do come, but they’re a mix of positive and negative as Bell’s character learns the hard way that her issues are related to who she is as a person rather than how she looks on the outside. It’s a surprising, sweet, and frequently hilarious comedy with a dash of romance for good measure. But it’s also genuinely moving, and Bell gives a star-making performance that deftly navigates both comedic and dramatic territory. Brittany Runs a Marathon isn’t just one of the best comedies of 2019, it’s also one of the best films of the year full-stop. – Adam Chitwood
The Report
Director/Writer: Scott Z. Burns
Cast: Adam Driver, Annette Bening, Jon Hamm, Michael C. Hall, Ted Levine, Corey Stoll, Maura Tierney, and Sarah Goldberg
The Report is an excellent procedural thriller in the vein of All the President’s Men. It marks the directorial debut of Contagion and Side Effects writer Scott Z. Burns and chronicles the Senate’s investigation into the CIA’s use of torture following the 9/11 attacks, with Adam Driver playing the staffer assigned to head up the investigation at the behest of Dianne Feinstein (Annette Bening). This is a contained, sharp, and incisive thriller that doesn’t take detours to dig into the character’s personal life or a love story—it’s extremely matter-of-fact in simply following the path that led to the creation of the titular report, and it’s as engrossing as it is infuriating. Driver is spectacular. – Adam Chitwood
Cold War
Director: Pawel Pawlikowski
Writers: Pawel Pawlikowski, Janusz Glowacki, and Piotr Borkowski
Cast: Joanna Kulig, Tomasz Kot, and Borys Szyc
Between this film and Ida, I love what director Pawel Pawlikowski is doing: making rich, deep, complicated, emotional movies that are less than 90 minutes. Some filmmakers labor under the belief that a heavy movie requires an epic runtime, but Pawlikowski’s economy of storytelling is so brilliant that he gets everything he needs packed into a single scene or a single moment. In Cold War, he explores a tortured love affair that spans 15 years and has you rise and fall between composer Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) and singer Zula (Joanna Kulig) in post-war Eastern Europe. The core of the movie are two people who can’t be apart and can’t be together, and yet the emotional richness always shines through without ever feeling overwrought. Cold War is an anti-romance that’s never bleak or nihilistic. – Matt Goldberg
Honey Boy
Director: Alma Har’el
Writer: Shia LaBeouf
Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Noah Jupe, FKA Twigs
Family trauma bubbles to the surface in the most heartbreakingly poetic ways in Honey Boy, written by Shia LaBeouf and directed by Alma Har’el. Honey Boy marks LaBeouf’s foray into screenwriting and it is a hell of a debut. LaBeouf mines from his own past as a child actor living in Los Angeles and his past with his father, Jeffrey LaBeouf. As a result, LaBeouf crafts a fictionalized version of his own life that is both critical of and loving toward his father, a relationship at the very heart of Honey Boy. With the help of Har’el’s precise, lyrical direction and tender, raw performances from Noah Jupe, who plays the younger analogue of LaBeouf, and Lucas Hedges, who plays the older version, Honey Boy blooms into an affecting work of art. There are zero wasted moments onscreen, with every look, word, and reaction perfectly measured to stir something within you as you watch without devolving into overwrought melodrama. - Allie Gemmill
Suspiria
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Writer: David Kajganich
Cast: Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton, Mia Goth
Beauty and horror collide in both the story and visuals of Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria, a remake of the 1977 cult Italian feature of the same name from Dario Argento. Guadagnino re-teams with Dakota Johnson (a cinematic duo I love and demand even more work from in the future — the results are that good) to bring to life the story of Susie (Johnson), a sheltered, religious American woman who comes to Berlin in the late ‘70s and joins the avant-garde dance company she’s only appreciated from afar. As Susie ingratiates herself with the dance company and its leader, Madame Blanc (Tilda Swinton), her talent blossoms in unexpected ways. Soon, Susie is pegged as the star and, under the tutelage of Blanc, comes into an otherworldly power that is used by Blanc and the other dance company teachers for their own mysterious, witchy purposes. Guadagnino may not be as visually bombastic as Argento, but that doesn’t mean his version of Suspiria is a bore. Instead, the contemporary Italian director’s Suspiria is just as moody and evocative as its predecessor, with Johnson and Swinton forming a beguiling pair and working off one another magnificently. There is plenty to delight in as you watch Suspiria, especially in the very bloody, horrific, and supremely transcendent final act. - Allie Gemmill
You Were Never Really Here
Writer/Director: Lynn Ramsay
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Judith Roberts, Frank Pando, Alex Manette, Ekaterina Samsonov
Lynne Ramsay always makes us wait for it, but my goodness, does she always make it worth our time. Seven years after her shattering Tilda Swinton vehicle We Need to Talk About Kevin, Ramsay teamed with Amazon for You Were Never Really Here, giving Joaquin Phoenix a showcase for one of the most stunning performances of his career. Phoenix stars as Joe, a veteran with a traumatic past, who spends his nights tracking down trafficked girls and putting punishment to those who harm them. But when a job goes haywire, Joe gets caught up in a conspiracy that leaves his life in shambles while finally giving himself something to live for. You Were Never Really Here is an exquisite and tender, but it's also searing and wrenching, presenting a portrait of a man defined by violence but also softened and betrayed by it. And there's simply no one in the game with a better eye than Ramsay right now. -- Haleigh Foutch
Paterson
Director/Writer: Jim Jarmusch
Cast: Adam Driver, Golshifteh Farahani, Barry Shabaka Henley, Cliff Smith, and William Jackson Harper
Jim Jarmusch's Paterson is one of the quietest, most contemplative movies in the director's oeuvre, but it's hardly a snooze-fest. Adam Driver stars as Paterson, a bus driver living in Paterson, New Jersey with his wife, Laura (Golshifteh Farahani) and their dog, Marvin. Paterson is a soft-spoken, salt-of-the-earth type who spends his days whipping up poetry inspired by the people and scenes unfolding around him on his bus routes. A man of simple pleasures, Paterson just needs a pen and paper to keep him content. Through Jarmusch’s lens and courtesy of his script, Paterson has little in the way of stakes, big drama (with the exception of one devastating scene involving Marvin and no, it’s not what you think), or scenery-chewing moments. Instead, Jarmusch’s story opts to contemplate what it means to be truly content and examine where that contentment may stem from. Blessedly, this is also a movie unreliant on technology, high concept plotting, or any other fancy contemporary tomfoolery that requires you to be locked in. Instead, Paterson simply invites you to come sit and stay a while, which is just about as pleasant an invitation as you’re gonna get from a movie these days. - Allie Gemmill
The Big Sick
Director: Michael Showalter
Writers: Emily Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani
Cast: Kumail Najiani, Zoe Kazan, Holly Hunter, Ray Romano, Anupam Kher, Zenobia Shroff, Bo Burnham, Aidy Bryant
Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Gordon’s real-life love story serves as inspiration for the most delightful romantic comedy in years in The Big Sick. Directed by Michael Showalter from a script by Nanjiani and Gordon, the film stars Nanjiani as himself and Zoe Kazan as Emily in the stranger-than-fiction story of two people falling in love despite clashing cultures, family expectations, and a mysterious life-threatening illness.
The story follows a standup comic (Nanjiani) who falls for a woman who heckles him (Kazan) at a show. He tries to hide the relationship from his parents, who expect a strictly traditional arranged marriage to a Muslim woman, but their romance faces an even greater hurdle when she falls into an inexplicable coma and he bonds with her parents (who you can’t help but fall in love with thanks to the performances from Ray Romano and Holly Hunter). Bursting with heart and earnest good nature, The Big Sick is a witty and charming exploration of love, commitment and family, and it’s a bonafide crowd-pleaser to boot. — Haleigh Foutch
The Lost City of Z
Director/Writer: James Gray
Cast: Charlie Hunnam, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Sienna Miller, and Angus Macfadyen
If you’re in the mood for an adventure film told through the lens of an auteur filmmaker, look no further than The Lost City of Z. Based on the novel of the same name, the film stars Charlie Hunnam as an explorer who continually is sent to Brazil to search for a supposed lost ancient city deep in the Amazon. He is accompanied by his son (Tom Holland) and a fellow explorer (Robert Pattinson), and while the film is certainly an adventurous drama, at heart it’s a moving father-son story. But be warned: this is probably not exactly the movie you’re expecting it to be—it’s better. – Adam Chitwood
The Handmaiden
Director: Chan-wook Park
Writers: Seo-kyeong Jeong and Chan-wook Park
Cast: Min-hee Kim, Tae-ri Kim, Jung-woo Ha, Jing-woo Jo
The Handmaiden is the most downright gorgeous erotic thriller ever made. Liberally inspired by Sarah Waters‘ British melodrama, Chan-wook Park
gives the source material a cultural transplant to 1930s Japan-occupied Korea where Sook-Hee (Tae-ri Kim) takes a job as a handmaiden to the mysterious, troubled Lady Hideko (Min-hee Kim), sparking a passionate affair that reshapes their lives. Our entry point to the twisted tale is through Sook-Hee, a thief by trade and family tradition who is in fact teaming with a fake count Fujiwara (Ha Jung-woo) in a scheme to defraud Lady Hideko of her fortune, but when Sook-Hee falls for her mark, the fiendish plan is thrown for a loop as new layers of deception and manipulation are uncovered at every turn.
Director Park unleashes his signature eye for fiendish delights, artfully framing all manner of depravity, and equally, The Handmaiden shows off his proven gift for intoxicating, propulsive thrillers that keep you hanging on every beat and character reveal. Who else but Chan-wook Park could find the eroticism in something as universally reviled as dentistry? But damn if that tooth-filing scene isn't the sexiest scene to burn through screens i recent memory, and damn if every frame, beat, and character that surround it aren't as gripping and gorgeously crafted. -- Haleigh Foutch
Beautiful Boy
Director: Felix van Groeningen
Writers: Luke Davies, Felix van Groeningen
Cast: Steve Carell, Timothée Chalamet, Maura Tierney, Amy Ryan
When was the last time you open-faced, straight-up wept in a movie theater? Me, no contest, 2018’s Beautiful Boy. Based on a true story, the film sensitively and expertly guides us through the journey of a father, Steve Carell, and his drug addicted son, Timothée Chalamet. Both actors deliver career-best performances, perfect studies in nuance and contrast. Chalamet is the higher-pitched of the two performers, cascading agonizingly and authentically between aggressive symptoms of withdrawal and genuine pleas for help. And Carell beautifully underplays the role with determination, patience, boundaries, and love. While the film wears its emotions on its sleeve, it’s not a manipulative nor sentimental affair. The creative team of director Felix van Groeningen, DP Ruben Impens, and editor Nico Leunen craft a very interesting visual language for the film, featuring bright and saturated colors, elliptical editing, and long takes focused on atypical subjects for what’s happening in the scene. Watch Beautiful Boy from the comfort of your own home, cry to your heart’s content, call a loved one immediately after. – Gregory Lawrence
Manchester by the Sea
Writer/Director: Kenneth Lonergan
Cast: Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Kyle Chandler, and Lucas Hedges
Be forewarned: Manchester by the Sea is not a “fun” watch. The film is masterful in its writing and execution, but it is definitely a bummer. This original drama actually came from an idea by Matt Damon and John Krasinski, but they handed the project off to Kenneth Lonergan to make it a reality. Casey Affleck stars as a man working as a janitor who is tasked with caring for his nephew after his brother dies unexpectedly. Haunted by past drama, he struggles to return to his hometown and confront past mistakes, all while attempting to raise his nephew right. The premise in the wrongs hands could be a hackneyed, saccharine Lifetime Original Movie, but as told by Lonergan it’s a phenomenally introspective story of grief and loss. – Adam Chitwood
I Am Not Your Negro
Director: Raoul Peck
Writers: James Baldwin (writings), Raoul Peck (scenario)
I Am Not Your Negro is an essential perspective on black life in America from one of the leading black intellectuals of all-time, James Baldwin. With Samuel L. Jackson narrating Baldwin's writings, the film is an incisive look at white supremacy in America. If you're white, you need to just sit with the film and feel bad for a while. Baldwin is not here to comfort a white audience, but in fact disrupt the comfort of white Americans who, even if they're well-meaning, have allowed their fellow black citizens to live under racist conditions. I Am Not Your Negro is the opposite of a movie like Green Book with its facile bromides. I Am Not Your Negro doesn't know if reconciliation is possible, but it knows that if it can even be attempted, we first have to accept some hard truths about race in America. – Matt Goldberg