It's the weekend, and in the COVID era, that means it's time for soft pants and binge-watching. Heck, even if you're reading this during the week, same vibe. But if you spend enough time looking for good movies to watch, you might start to realize a lot of the same titles just shuffle from streaming service to streaming service month after month, and sometimes you just want to watch something different! Never fear, we've got you covered with our picks for the best new movies streaming on Amazon Prime Video this month, from hidden archive gems you might have missed to the latest original release and one of 2020's best horror movies so far.

Admittedly, when it comes to new content, Netflix is the reigning champ of the game and they only seem to be ramping up original releases with each month. It's a much slimmer month for Amazon, with only a handful of New Actually movies hitting the service in July, but there's still a handful of can't-miss titles. We've layed out the 7 best new movies on Amazon Prime this month below, but if you're looking for more, you can check out every single new movie and show hitting the streaming service this month here. 

Big Fish

Available: July 1

Director: Tim Burton

Writer: John August

Cast: Ewan McGregor, Billy Crudup, Albert Finney, Jessica Lange, Danny DeVito, Alison Lohman, Helena Bonham Carter, Marion Cotillard

One of Tim Burton's most touching films, Big Fish channels the filmmakers love for the freaks and free spirits of the world into a sweet and sentimental father-son tale. It's a Tim Burton movie, so obviously it's a feast for the eyes, but Big Fish is a bit less flashy than much of his signature fare, focusing instead on being all about heart. The film centers on a traveling salesman on his death bed (played by Albert Finney in his older years and Ewan McGregor in his youth,) who spends his last days sharing the wild stories from his life's adventures with his son (Billy Crudup). His great loves and great losses all come to life through an absolutely magnetic performance from McGregor, and a swooning sense of romance and whimsy that transports you, temporarily, to Burton's gleaming world of weird wonders, where mortality isn't quite so scary when you've got a life well-lived behind you and a family you love by your side.

Bug

Available: July 1

Director: William Friedkin

Writer: Tracy Letts

Cast: Michael Shannon, Ashley Judd, Lynn Collins, Harry Connick Jr., Brian F. O'Bryne

If you're looking for a movie that will get way under your skin, you really can't do better this month than William Friedkin's relentless adaptation of Tracy Letts' equally relentless stageplay Bug. Letts penned the screenplay himself and Michael Shannon returned to play the role he originated on stage, joined by the curiously underrated Ashley Judd in one of the best performances of her career. Friedkin brings his signature flourish for all things positively fucked up and Letts' script makes for a natural transition to the screen, carrying over the boxed-in build of stage productions in a way that enhances rather than detracts from the cinematic quality. Because Bug is all about being boxed in, be it a tiny motel room or a terrifying reality, Letts' tale of claustrophobia and paranoia is so inescapable, you can practically feel the tarnished walls of their seedy shared madness closing in around you. Bug is one of those movies that fits firmly in the "not for everyone" category, but if you like psychological horror that sticks with you, or if you just like watching Michael Shannon make an absolute meal of the scenery, it's a real winner.

Pineapple Express

Available: July 1

Director: David Gordon Green

Writers: Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg

Cast: Seth Rogen, James Franco, Danny McBride, Amber Heard, Craig Robinson, Rosie Perez

Few filmmakers have a resume as fluid and unpredictable as David Gordon Green, but it wasn't until 2008's Pineapple Express that we really started to get an idea of how hard his left turns could get. After a series of indie dramas, Green took a turn to stoner comedy, and it's that genre-bending knack for filmmaking that makes Pineapple Express such a damn delight. And he's matched in the script from Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, who have spent the last two decades demonstrating a similar passion for blending the boundaries of genre formats. Pinapple Express is a giddy comedy with a steady stream of juvenile but effective gags, but it's also an ass-kicking action thriller that doubles down every time you expect it to pull a punch.

Panic Room

Available: July 1

Director: David Fincher

Writer: David Koepp

Cast: Jodi Foster, Kristen Stewart, Forest Whitaker, Jared Leto, Dwight Yokum

Look, Panic Room is a David Fincher movie so if you haven't seen it, you're missing out. But if it's been a while since you last revisited Fincher's 2002 Fight Club followup, it's well worth a revisit. Probably because of the fact that it was coming off of the Fight Club hype, Panic Room was a bit slept on at the time, but almost two decades later, it holds up as a pretty much perfect thriller that's hugely undervalued on Fincher's resume. Jodie Foster and Kristen Stewart star as a mother-daughter duo who wind up trapped in their panic room after a trio of burglars break into their new home -- problem is, the bounty the thieves are after is in the panic room too and they'll stop at nothing to get it. Lots of movies get called Hitchcockian, but this is the real stuff, straight from the tap. Fincher's use of space and willingness to lean right the hell into the gimmick calls back to Hitchock's high-concept thrillers of yore a la Rope and Lifeboat, but Fincher's vision reigns supreme, resulting in a thriller that homages the greats of the genre past while setting a new template that filmmakers are still following to this day (wee see you, Breaking In)

Ali

Available: July 1

Director: Michael Mann

Writers: Michael Mann, Eric Roth, Stephen J. Rivele, and Christopher Wilkinson

Cast: Will Smith, Jamie Foxx, Jon Voight, Mario Van Peebles, Ron Silver, Jeffrey Wright, Mykelti Williamson

Ali is not one of Michael Mann's best films, but it is still a Michael Mann film, which makes it better than most. It's also just a fascinating flashback to a moment in prestige film history, marking one of the turning points in Will Smith's career. He had already gone from comedy star to A-list action hero, but with Ali, Smith announced himself as an actor who wanted to be taken seriously in dramatic roles, stripped of his superstar charisma and blockbuster backings. The result is mixed. Smith earned an Oscar nomination for his work, earning heaps of praise for his measured, intense work (Jon Voight also earned a supporting actor nom that year) and Ali is certainly one of Mann's most emotional films, but there's something slight beneath the excellent aesthetics and acting showcases, a sense that the film barely scratches the surface of Ali's extraordinary life and legacy. All the same, Ali is a must-watch for Mann, Smith, and sports movie enthusiasts alike with some really outstanding fight sequences.

Vivarium

Available: July 11

Director: Lorcan Finegan

Writer: Garret Shanley

Cast: Imogen Poots, Jesse Eisenberg, Jonathan Aris

If you like Twilight Zone inspired contained tales of horror and existential dread, boy does Amazon have the right horror movie streaming for you this month. Lorcan Finegan's Vivarium is dark as hell and a walloping bummer, but it's a very good bad time. Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg star as a couple on the hunt for their first home and wind up trapped in a surreal suburban neighborhood from which there's no escaping. No matter how many streets they drive through, how many fences they hop, they just can't get out. Then the nightmare baby shows up. On the surface, Vivarium is an effective portrait of the horrors of getting trapped in a white-picket-fence life you never wanted, but the scarier, much more effective undercurrent comes from the way the film embraces the cruel indifference of nature's life cycles and the helplessness of being stuck in them.

Radioactive

Available: July 24

Director: Marjane Satrapi

Writer: Lauren Redniss and Jack Thorne

Cast:  Rosamund Pike, Sam Riley, Anya Taylor-Joy, Aneurin Barnard, Jonathan Aris, Simon Russell Beale

Since we were just talking about David Fincher, let's just take a moment to acknowledge that Rosamund Pike gave one of the all-time great on-screen performances in Gone Girl. With that in mind, if you're in the mood to watch Pike do her thing, Amazon's big original release this month might just be the ticket. Pike stars as groundbreaking scientist Marie Curie, who helped develop the theory of radioactivity -- a word she also invented, by the way. Radioactive debuted at TIFF last year, where it earned mixed reviews but uniform praise for Pike's commanding performance as the scientific legend. Collider's Adam Chitwood said in his review, "Pike is nuanced and yet strikingly human, bringing complexity to a role that in the wrong hands may have come off as either maudlin or cold—and Curie was neither."