With the year (and the decade!) coming to a close and awards season in full swing, it's officially that time of year where we take stock of the best in movies. And in 2019, that list included more streaming titles than ever, with Netflix and Amazon continuing their rise towards cinema prestige and new heavyweight Disney+ entering the game of original content.

With that in mind, we've put together a handy list of the best movies of 2019 you can watch on Amazon Prime right now. For clarity's sake, these aren't all Amazon Studios originals (though some of them are,) these are the best 2019 from all studios and distributors that are streaming on the site at the moment. We'll keep the list updated as more titles are added, so be sure to bookmark this page if you're looking for more of the latest gems to add to your watchlist.

If you're looking for more of the best movies of the year on streaming, be sure to check out our Top 10 Netflix Movies of 2019 and click here for all of our Best of 2019 content.

High Life

Claire Denis was never going to make a straightforward sci-fi adventure—I hope Claire Denis never makes a straightforward anything, to be honest—and High Life is the gorgeous, terrifying, shockingly horny proof. This meditative trip through the cosmos stars Robert Pattinson as a man raising a daughter aboard a doomed spacecraft, the last two survivors of a dangerous experiment, hurtling toward a black hole. Again, this sounds straightforward, but Denis slowly peels back the layers on both her story and characters to reveal something much more complex, horrifying, and touching. Pattinson is a marvel here, quietly devastating and dangerous throughout; High Life is always the first film I recommend to anyone searching through the actor’s incredible post-Twilight resume. He anchors this free-floating tale all the way to its climax. It’s a risky recommendation, for sure. High Life is a complicated, unwieldy watch, and certainly won’t be for everyone, and that’s before you get to the “Fuck Box”. But even if you can’t quite wrap your head around everything it wants to say, I can almost guarantee you’ll be moved in some significant way. --Vinnie Mancuso

Late Night

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

Climax

A buckshot blast of paranoid, unhinged kinetic insanity, Gaspar Noé's Climax is the filmmaker's most crowd-pleasing and accessible film, but this is the director of Irreversible and Enter the Void, so take that for what you will. Sofia Boutella stars as the lead dancer in an international dance troupe, who Jetes, fan kicks, and backbends down a nightmarish rabbit hole to hell when the punch bowl winds up spiked with drugs. The fiilm's first act is a euphoric display of athleticism and talent, featuring one dance sequence after the next, but once things get dark, they cascade into a grimy, grim clusterfuck in a hurry. This is some bravado filmmaking, bolstered by performers (most of them novice actors) who put it on the line for this brutal, hallucinogenic talent show. -- Haleigh Foutch

Fast Color

If you like your superpowered stories on the serious side, you should definitely give Fast Color a shot. Julia Hart’s movie takes place in a near-future dystopia where water is scarce and it hasn’t rained in eight years. Into this picture, we see three generations of women who have the power to deconstruct and reconstruct matter, which becomes a potent symbol for trying to repair the broken bonds between them.

While serious superhero movies like Logan and The Dark Knight earn acclaim, Fast Color is equally worthy of recognition as it uses the mold of an indie family drama to explore initiate bonds that we feel may be broken beyond repair but just need work to heal. Anchored by three excellent performances from Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Lorraine Toussaint, and Saniyya Sidney, Fast Color is a movie that you shouldn’t let fly under your radar. – Matt Goldberg

Brittany Runs a Marathon

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

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

The Hole in the Ground

Irish filmmaker Lee Cronin makes a striking feature debut with A24's The Hole in the Ground, a slow-burn chiller about a woman, Sarah (Seana Kerslake), and her young son, Chris (James Quinn Markey), who flee a personal trauma to the countryside. Unfortunately, their search for a new life leads them right to a giant, creepy (you guessed it) hole in the ground that starts to change them. Cronin digs into the paranoid parental horror of the "evil kid" subgenre without heavily relying on the tropes of the ever-popular subgenre, honing in on Sarah's self-doubt and Kerslake's strong performance instead. Solemn and slow-burn, with a flourish of eerie otherworldliness,  The Hole in the Ground is a lowkey, pensive bit of folk horror that digs into emotional beats over familiar tropes, which only makes it more satisfying. -- Haleigh Foutch

Under the Silver Lake

Under the Silver Lake is one of the most infuriatingly enjoyable mind trips I’ve ever been on. In his first film after It Follows, director David Robert Mitchell explores a Los Angeles filled with odd fever dreams and fairy tale monsters, a noir-tinged wonderland. At its center (or so he thinks) is a perfectly mediocre 30-something named Sam (Andrew Garfield) who searches for a missing girl (Riley Keough) and stumbles upon a vast, impenetrable conspiracy. Each new clue leads Sam somewhere just a bit stranger—hidden codes, dog killers, underground cemetery raves set to R.E.M., a homicidal Bird Lady who will haunt your nightmares—until it’s impossible to tell the real-life from the red herring. That’s sort of the point and the reason some find this film maddening; its dreamy, sprawling nature is intentional, and it’s much more of a ride than a destination. But part of its genius is the way it uses Garfield’s wonderfully lazy performance as a way to challenge your typical white, male protagonist who naps his way into accepting the call to adventure. Is Sam at the center of a horrifying, twisting mystery, or does he just want to be? Under the Silver Lake, it’s hard to tell. --Vinnie Mancuso

The Last Black Man in San Francisco

Quietly gorgeous, with a palette of rich, sumptuous colors and arguably even more beautiful character work, The Last Black Man in San Francisco is a knockout. Jimmie Fails stars in a story partially based on his own life, as a young man determined to reclaim his childhood home in a gentrified San Francisco neighborhood where it now goes for about $4 million on the market. Fails has described the film as a love story between him and the house, and in many ways, it is that, a rapturous descent into the obsessions of love and the increasingly desperate and determined steps a man will take to win back the object of his affection. But it's also a moving story of friendship (including a singular and staggering performance from Jonathan Majors as Jimmie's longtime best friend) and a poetic, heartfelt meditation on the emotional and historical power of the past even as it's being purged for profit, the search for legacy in a culture that's left you behind, and the breaking point when looking towards the past poisons your present. The Last Black Man in San Francisco is a lovely film with a haunted heart, and marks a stunning debut for director Joe Talbot. -- Haleigh Fouth

Gloria Bell

After having a hell of a 2018 with Disobedience and A Fantastic Woman,  Sebastian Lelio returns to his own material with Gloria Bell. An English-language remake of his 2013 film Gloria, the A24 drama stars an easy, relaxed and always-engaging Julianne Moore as the title character; a woman in her 50s who loves dancing and looks for love in the nightclubs where she indulges her passion. There, she meets a charming but unpredictable man named Arnold (John Turturro) and strikes up a passionate, if passing romance. The whole dang movie hinges on Moore generally being infinitely watchable and as ever the Oscar-winning actress is very much up to the task. Effervescent, endlessly likable and tenderly flawed, Moore builds Gloria into the kind of woman you just love to be around for two hours, dancing the night away with the lovely woman she brings to the screen. -- Haleigh Foutch

Honey Boy

Director: Alma Har'el

Writer: Shia LaBeouf

Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Noah Jupe, Lucas Hedges, Laura San Giacomo

Starring Shia LaBeouf and written by Shia LaBeouf about Shia LaBeouf, Honey Boy has "vanity project" written all over it, but the 2019 biopic is anything but. Featuring sumptuous directing from Alma Har'el and a transformative performance from LaBeouf in the role of his own father, Honey Boy is a tender, heartbreaking look at trauma, the lunacy of stardom, and a poisonous but powerful bond between father and son that emerges as a brave act of self-reflection. -- Haleigh Foutch

The Farewell

Writer/Director: Lulu Wang

Cast: Awkwafina, Shuzhen Zhao, Diana Lin, X Mayo, Tzi Ma, Becca Khalil

Lulu Wang's Golden Globe and Spirit award-winning gem The Farewell may not have received the Academy attention it so deserved, but that doesn't make it any less an essential, cathartic watch. Based on her real-life experiences, Wang crafts a nuanced and deeply emotional journey through the highs and lows of loving someone with your whole heart. And the seemingly impossible task of saying goodbye with grace when the time comes.

Awkwafina stars in her best performance to date as Billi, a young Chinese-American woman who returns to China when she learns her grandmother (a truly extraordinary Shuzhen Zhao) is diagnosed with terminal cancer. And her struggles only intensify when she realizes her family intends to keep the diagnosis a secret from her grandma so that she can live the rest of her life in peace. The result is some of the best happy-sad filmmaking this side of Taika Waititi with wonderful moments of wit layered into the rich emotional story and a thoughtful examination of what happens when cultural values clash in a moment of crisis. And if you've ever had to say goodbye to someone you love, you won't find a lovelier or more honest depiction of the crushing weight of mortality when that person is still right in front of you but you know it might be the last time. -- Haleigh Foutch

Midsommar

Writer/Director: Ari Aster

Cast: Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, William Jackson Harper, Vilhelm Blomgren, Will Poulter

There are few up-and-coming filmmakers out there who have delivered the technical mastery and emotional savagery that Ari Aster one-two punched with his first two films. First with Hereditary (see below) and now with Midsommar, his sun-drenched folk horror ode to classics like The Wickerman that sends the audience to gorgeous a summer solstice hellscape of grief, anxiety and codependence. Florence Pugh gives a knockout performance as a young woman dealing with an insurmountable tragedy when she journeys abroad with her checked-out boyfriend (Jack Reynor) and his friends, and winds up smack in the middle of a terrifying pagan ritual. Gorgeously shot, scored, staged, etc., etc., Midsommar isn't just a deviously elegant spin on a classic horror subgenre, it also packs a wicked sense of humor and pitch-black comedy. -- Haleigh Foutch

Fighting with My Family

Writer/Director: Stephen Merchant

Cast: Florence Pugh, Nick Frost, Lena Heady, Dwayne Johnson, Vince Vaughn, Jack Lowden, Olivia Bernstone

Florence Pugh had a hell of a year in 2019, culminating in an Oscar nomination for her scene-stealing work in Little Women. But before the awards tour, and before the horrors of Midsommar, Pugh kicked the year off strong with the absolutely delightful wrestling comedy Fighting with My Family. Written and directed by Extras and Life's Too Short co-creator Stephen Merchant, the film is inspired by the life of real-world wrestling star Paige and chronicles how she was raised in a family of wrestling fanatics and went from smalltown gigs with the fam to dominating the ring on an international stage.

You don't have to be into wrestling to dig the heck out of this movie (I've never seen a full match and I loved it -- so did my mom and pretty much everyone else I've talked to for that matter), though you might find yourself inclined to watch some once its over, but Fighting with My Family is just a classic feel-good sports movie with a heck of a lot of charm and a knockout ensemble cast that includes Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson himself and Vince Vaughn giving his most charismatic performance in ages. -- Haleigh Foutch