Incorporating the fabled MGM, a Hollywood studio literally 100 years old, Amazon Prime Video has a huge and eclectic selection of movies available to stream. Critic Craig Mathieson lists 50 of the best.
American Fiction (2023)
Watch on Prime VideoCord Jefferson’s debut feature, a sardonic comedy about African-American professor and author ‘Monk’ Ellison (Jeffrey Wright) sideswiping his way to self-awareness, pulls off the not inconsiderable task of being thorny, witty, and illustrative, as Monk deals with a changing family and surprising publishing success when a satirical novel is taken very seriously.
The Babadook (2014)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOOne of the great Australian debuts of all time, and an equally great horror film from Jennifer Kent, where the monster is not only under the bed but also inside Essie Davis’ besieged parent. Whether it’s fear of love or love of fear, this claustrophobic thriller lodges itself where it can’t be ignored.
Babette’s Feast (1987)
Watch on Prime VideoWinner of an Academy Award in 1987 for Best Foreign Language Film, Gabriel Axel’s Danish drama is set in a remote and pious 19th century community, where spinster sisters have accepted a political exile as their housekeeper. After many years the woman asks to cook a lavish thank you meal for her employers and their acquaintances, creating both scandalous attention and a celebration of cuisine that has a rapturous impact.
Bicycle Thieves (1948)
Watch on Prime VideoItalian neorealism was born out of the rubble of World War II, as young filmmakers found a stripped-down means of expression on the barely liberated streets of Rome. Shot on location with actors and non-actors, Vittorio De Sica’s classic is a story of poverty’s grasp, the paternal bond’s painful parameters, and lost illusions.
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (2020)
Watch on Prime VideoSacha Baron Cohen’s finest creation, bumbling Kazakhstani journalist Borat Sagdiyev, returns to the scene of the crime as he tours Donald Trump’s America for a candid camera documentary that reveals xenophobia and the paranoid conspiracy mindset. There’s a shocking moment with a notable Trump associate as Borat continues to be both a hilarious figure and a deeply incisive mirror.
Breaker Morant (1980)
Watch on Prime VideoAustralia’s belief in defining itself through the deeds of soldiers is torn apart in Bruce Beresford’s ground-breaking examination of war crimes, scapegoats, and imperial hypocrisy as a trio of Australian combatants fighting in the Boer War—memorably played by Edward Woodward, Bryan Brown, and Lewis Fitz-Gerald—face a court-martial.
Casino (1995)
Watch on Prime VideoBased on the real-life story of two Mafia associates—Robert De Niro’s shrewd numbers cruncher and Joe Pesci’s brutal gangster—given the run of Las Vegas in the 1970s, Martin Scorsese’s organised crime epic reveals the yin and yang of his masculine longing. There are numerous sequences that pulse with the purest of filmmaking pleasure, but the transformative note is played by Sharon Stone as a Vegas insider who moves between the two men, even though she knows the fix is always in.
Casino Royale (2006)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOThe crucial Bond instalment that reinvigorated the franchise for the 21st century debuts Daniel Craig as a flinty, unforgiving version of the British secret agent. The pared down scale helmed by Martin Campbell is intimately invigorating, while the dynamic between Craig and Eva Green has never subsequently been topped.
Crash (1996)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEODavid Cronenberg proved the ideal interpreter of J.G. Ballard’s 1973 novel about car crash fetishists who become sexual aroused by collisions, engineering a romance of twisted metal and bleeding bodies. James Spader, Holly Hunter, and Elias Koteas give coldly compelling performances, allowing for both desire and the darkest of humour. Hugely controversial upon release, but now a cult classic.
The Dry (2021)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEORobert Connolly’s outback noir thriller about culpability and regret stars Eric Bana as a financial crimes police officer who returns to the hometown he fled as a teenager to investigate a horrific crime attributed to his best friend. Less interested in plot twists than allowing the drought-stricken landscape and its frayed inhabitants to take hold, it’s a masterful Australian genre piece.
Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOIf you’ve ever had a bad thought about Tom Cruise, this alien invasion blockbuster is the film for you: his character, callow soldier William Cage, endlessly dies in a daily loop tied to an alien attack in Europe. Respawning like a video game character, William trains with a hardnosed warrior, Emily Blunt’s Rita Vrataski, as the battlefield carnage becomes the blackest of jokes and dying becomes the only way to stay alive.
The Endless (2018)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOA film in which the possibility that everyone gets out alive is as horrifying as no-one, this immersive and empathetic slow burn thriller took the filmmaking team—and lead actors—Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead into the mainstream. The pair play brothers who revisit the rural home of the cult they fled a decade prior, discovering unknown forces that could be economic inequality or Lovecraftian monsters—or a mix of the two.
The Falcon and the Snowman (1985)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOBetrayal is at the centre of director John Schlesinger’s sombre true story, in which two privileged sons of the American military-industrial complex betray their country to the Soviets. Christopher Boyce (Timothy Hutton) is motivated by soured idealism, while Andrew Daulton Lee (Sean Penn) sees profits. Both come into focus amidst the many spooks.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOBoth loopier and more emotionally authentic than the standard Hollywood rom-com, Nicholas Stoller’s quest for happiness follows a just dumped composer (Jason Segel) who finds himself at the Hawaiian resort where his TV star ex (Kristen Bell) and her rock star boyfriend (Russell Brand) are also staying. It has a loose tone, ideas about service culture, and sterling contributions from Bill Hader and Paul Rudd.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEODavid Fincher amped up Stieg Larsson’s novel and its original Swedish made-for-TV adaptation, with the sleek agility of his English language remake. Starring Daniel Craig as a fallen reporter and Rooney Mara as the punk hacker trying to solve a teenage girl’s disappearance decades prior, the pair find that history’s crimes were always there, luxuriating in their power.
Gladiator (2000)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEORidley Scott’s revival of the swords-and-sandals genre is a canny blockbuster, focusing on the noble Roman general Maximus (Russell Crowe), who’s supreme in battle but betrayed by politics. Cast into slavery by a jealous new emperor (Joaquin Phoenix), he uses success as a gladiator to steer him toward revenge and a satisfactory death. It’s a doomed scheme, but the digital spectacle helps render it heroic.
The Green Knight (2021)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOA heady mix of Arthurian legend, folk horror, mediaeval comedy and revisionist fantasy, David Lowery’s incantatory epic stars Dev Patel as Gawain, a knight forced into a fantastical quest to determine his identity and survive. Unexpectedly challenged at each turn, his very existence is a mystery.
Groundhog Day (1993)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOA comedy so perfectly crafted that it appeals after countless viewings, Harold Ramis’ classic stars Bill Murray as an abrasive weatherman trapped in a day that he lives on endless repeat. The existential conundrum is both hilarious and telling, complete with Andie MacDowell as the perfect foil.
Hancock (2008)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEONow prescient for the way it examines Hollywood and America’s lucrative reliance on superheroes, Peter Berg’s film stars Will Smith as the titular superhero, who’s often drunk and generally despised by the residents of Los Angeles. When a public relations whiz (Jason Bateman) gives him a makeover, while his wife (Charlize Theron) watches on, the film becomes a knowing commentary on how heroes are created and marketed.
Heathers (1988)
Watch on Prime Video“Dear diary, my teen angst bullshit now has a body count.” The seminal satire of the teen movie genre, Michael Lehmann’s scorching black comed—determined to bite every hand that would even think of feeding it—offers a bleakly hilarious high school critique with note-perfect performances from Winona Ryder and Christian Slater.
High Tide (1987)
Watch on Prime VideoGillian Armstrong reunited with her My Brilliant Career star, Judy Davis, for this bittersweet and beautifully observed drama about three generations of women—Claudia Karvan’s teenage daughter, Davis as a long-absent mother, and Jan Adele’s wary grandmother—reunited in a wintry New South Wales coast town. It’s an essential Australian movie.
His Girl Friday (1940)
Watch on Prime VideoIs there a better screwball comedy from Hollywood’s Golden Age? Absolutely not. Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell are aces together as a pair of divorced newspaper reporters whose farewell gets side-tracked by a breaking story. With wisecracks and witticisms delivered at madcap speed, this is a timeless Howard Hawks classic.
Inglourious Basterds (2009)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOQuentin Tarantino, as is his wont, turns World War II’s textbook facts and the role of cinema into an alternate history spaghetti western where in 1944 a unit comprised of Jewish-American soldiers commanded by Aldo “Apache” Raine (Brad Pitt), campaign behind German lines in occupied France while Hitler and the Nazi hierarchy come to Paris for a film premiere. Christoph Waltz got an international career out of his mercurial Nazi sadist, Colonel Hans Landa.
It Comes at Night (2017)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOSet in the end days of an apocalyptic pandemic that’s left a palpable sense of fear among the few survivors, this psychological horror film from Trey Edward Shults about one sequestered family taking in another is menacingly suggestive.
John Wick (2014)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOBy my count Keanu Reeves’ retired assassin kills 76 people as an act of revenge, after his beloved pooch is murdered by a crime lord’s son. But what’s notable is how stuntmen turned directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch eschew jump cuts for lengthy tracking shots. The head shots and vicious stabbings are as choreographed as a Busby Berkeley routine.
The Lego Movie (2014)
Where to watchThis madcap brick symphony is a riot of visual and verbal gags, in which blocky everyman Emmett Brickowski (Chris Pratt at his most goofily appealing) learns that creativity is right and corporate tie-ins can be repurposed for hilarious laughs. Blockbuster conventions are busted, while the likes of Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, and Liam Neeson add exemplary voice work.
Local Hero (1983)
Watch on Prime VideoBill Forsyth’s idiosyncratic 1983 comedy is the source code for successive generations of quirky independent features about small towns and their eccentric populace charming outsiders. But it remains the first and the best, with Peter Riegert as the American envoy of Burt Lancaster’s Texan oil magnate, who is sent to purchase a tiny Scottish town and quickly becomes unstuck.
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
Watch on Prime VideoPeter Jackson and a small army of New Zealand collaborators set the modern ideal of the fantasy epic in stone with this epic middle instalment of the Tolkien trilogy where good and evil clash on both vast and intimate levels and the technical skill—as much physical as digital—brings a world into being.
Lost in Translation (2003)
Watch on Prime VideoAn ode to ennui and wearing Marc Jacobs, Sofia Coppola’s now totemic second feature has some brief cultural cliches, but they’re easily overcome by the platonic bond created by Bill Murray’s ageing movie star and Scarlett Johansson’s becalmed young wife. The duo pal around Tokyo’s neon nights and ponder their lives, sharing a bittersweet cinematic moment as the future looms.
Love Lies Bleeding (2024)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOThe American neo-noir thriller gets unbound desire and fantastical flourishes in this bracing update from English filmmaker Rose Glass, which tells a deception-laden story about the lesbian relationship between a gym clerk (Kristen Stewart) and an itinerant body builder (Katy O’Brian). Roid rage takes on a whole new meaning.
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Watch on Prime VideoThe best action film of this century, or simply of all time? Either way, George Miller rebooted his post-apocalyptic franchise with Tom Hardy as the taciturn anti-hero and Charlize Theron as a feminist rebel for the ages to create a magisterial automotive experience. “Fang it!” screams one of the road warriors, and this movie absolutely does.
Malcolm (1986)
Watch on Prime VideoThe team of director Nadia Tass and screenwriter David Parker nailed a mix of gentle whimsy, unlikely friendship, and madcap set-pieces for this eccentric heist comedy about a shy Melbourne engineering genius (Colin Friels)—he builds his own tram!—who takes on an ex-con (John Hargreaves) as a boarder and finds himself in a criminal enterprise. An absolute pleasure.
May December (2023)
Watch on Prime VideoAppearances can be deceiving: Todd Haynes turns this drama about an actress (Natalie Portman) embedding herself in the family of the woman she’ll be playing in a biopic (Julianne Moore), who was jailed for having sex with a boy and subsequently marrying him when grown up (Charles Melton), into a terrifying black comedy about control, role-playing, and the past’s imprecise but cruel grip.
Moonlight (2016)
Watch on Prime VideoBarry Jenkins’ Academy Award winner for Best Picture is a work of lyrical, incisive filmmaking, seemingly wrenched from three ages—an uncertain boy, a vulnerable teenager, and a hardened young man—in a single black life. Flourishes of high art and tender realism refute clichés, as does the healing required to refute deeply felt trauma.
Monster (2003)
Watch on Prime VideoPatty Jenkins’ dramatization of the adult life and crimes of Eileen Wuornos, the roadside prostitute who was convicted of killing six clients and subsequently executed in Florida in 2002, has an enthralling double act in Charlize Theron as Wuornos and Christina Ricci as her needy girlfriend Selby. Optimism and bitter manipulation unexpectedly collide, cutting deeper than any criminal transgressions.
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOTransposing Homer’s ancient Greek myths to the 1930s Deep South, the Coen brothers turned the escape of a trio (George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson) from a chain gang into a farcical and rambunctiously entertaining road movie. Come for the slapstick, stay for the killer soundtrack of vintage folk tunes.
Palm Springs (2020)
Watch on Prime VideoAndy Samberg and Cristin Milioti are aces together in this barbed time loop romantic comedy, where a wedding party in the titular American resort town soon turns into one guest trapping another in his endlessly repeated life. This is Groundhog Day, but it’s a first-rate riff that makes much of the leads and hits on unexpected twists and realisations. It manages to be both funnier and sadder than you expect.
Past Lives (2023)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOGreta Lee delivers a breakthrough performance for the ages in Celine Song’s eventually overwhelming romantic drama, capturing the burden of moving between cultures, the pain of unresolved memories, and the wonder of being desired. Her Korean-born New York playwright, the now married Nora, is visited by childhood companion Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), upending her life in quietly riveting days.
The Player (1992)
Watch on Prime VideoAfter a decade outside Hollywood, director Robert Altman made the perfect return with this tart satire about a Hollywood studio executive (Tim Robbins) being blackmailed by a scorned writer. It’s a black comedy awash in celebrity cameos and bit parts, as Altman and writer Michael Tolkin send up storytelling tropes and the heroic leading man.
Priest (1995)
Watch on Prime VideoCondemned by the Catholic Church upon release, Antonia Bird’s drama charts the clash of faith and desire as a young priest (Linus Roache) new to a Liverpool parish discovers the realities of his vocation while struggling with his desire for another man (Robert Carlyle). It’s not a subtle film, but it has a startling power and performances that resonate long after the note-perfect finale.
Public Enemies (2009)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEODirector Michael Mann and masterful Italian cinematographer Dante Spinotti used high definition digital cameras to remove the past from this 1930s gangster drama. There’s a narrative immediacy and dynamic verisimilitude to the historic exploits of John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), a bank robber and calculate charmer pursued by Christian Bale’s Melvin Purvis, an agent with the nascent Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The Quiet Earth (1986)
Watch on Prime VideoThe wonderful New Zealand actor Bruno Lawrence, best known to Australian audiences as the conniving producer in television’s Frontline, gives a magnetic performance as a scientist who wakes one day to discover that his project has erased the world of other people. Freedom and fear spin out of control, with director Geoff Murphy making the possibilities feel claustrophobic.
Sausage Party (2016)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOSeth Rogen and long-time writing partner Evan Goldberg proved their worth with this adult animation, in which the secretly sentient foodstuffs in an American supermarket get a cruel, bloody and often hilarious lesson in the falsities of religious faith and consumerism. Start with the crude double entendres between a hot dog (Rogen) and a bun (Kristen Wiig), stay for the disaster film references.
Secretary (2002)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOPoised (or is that bound?) between the uncomfortable and the illuminating, Steven Shainberg’s BDSM romantic comedy has a macabre charm. James Spader’s controlling lawyer and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s new secretary strike up a co-dependent office relationship of master and servant in a break-the-mould movie, with Spader astutely deferring to Gyllenhaal’s compelling performance.
Shame (1988)
An underseen Australian classic, this modern-day western is a palpably direct B-movie that offered a prescient depiction of how misogyny can metastasise into sexual violence. Deborra-Lee Furness is the motorcycle-riding barrister who stops in a small town for repairs and discovers that the community condones by silence a group of young men gang-raping local girls. Her defiance is both inspirational and costly.
Shoplifters (2018)
Watch on Prime VideoHirokazu Kore-eda’s sublime family drama, which rightfully collected the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, unfolds on the tucked away margins of Japanese society, where a multi-generational clan lives in a tiny apartment. Observed with tender, telling detail, their lives spill out of the overcrowded home in much the same way that a need for caring and connection spills out from their hearts.
Sicario (2015)
Watch on Prime VideoA horror film told through female endurance, Denis Villeneuve’s crime thriller stars Emily Blunt as an FBI door-kicker seconded to a drug cartel task force, menacingly staffed by Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro, whose purpose is at odds with her belief and, ultimately, her safety.
A Simple Favour (2018)
Watch on Prime VideoPaul Feig updates the camaraderie and competition of female friendship for the influencer age with this wildly knowing and genre-defying melodrama about school mums—Anna Kendrick’s over-achiever and Blake Lively’s flamboyant publicist—whose friendship becomes a mystery when one of them disappears.
Step Brothers (2008)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEOWill Ferrell and John C. Reilly play entitled 11-year-olds in adult bodies in Adam McKay’s finely revved comedy about two cosseted grown men forced to share a room by their respective parents. The stars make the concept ludicrously believable, irrepressible escalation turning their idiocy into one lunatic moment after another.
Walkabout (1971)
WATCH ON PRIME VIDEONicolas Roeg, a British filmmaker of peculiar originality, set the scene for the Australian New Wave with this revered classic about a pair of white children stranded in the outback. Their journey with the Aboriginal teenager who aids them (David Gulpilil, in a remarkable debut performance) is defined by striking imagery, cultural exclusion, and nature’s primal grasp. A timeless survival film.
The Wild Goose Lake (2020)
Watch on Prime VideoRife with uneasy assignations and buried truths, this noir thriller confirmed Chinese filmmaker Diao Yinan (Black Coal, Thin Ice) as a premier director of visually arresting crime dramas. Hu Ge plays a budding gangster on the run from police, Kwei Lun-Mei the sex worker who could deliver safety or surrender. Yinan keeps you guessing until the very end.
Titles are added and removed from his page to reflect changes to the Prime Video catalogue. Reviews no longer available on this page can be found here.
