18 Best Movies on Amazon Prime You’re Missing Out On

18 Best Movies on Amazon Prime You’re Missing Out On

November 16, 2024

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Amazon Prime is a mine of hidden gems if you’re looking for quality movies. Netflix might invest more in new original content, most of which is average at best, but Amazon Prime has had a solid acquisition push over the past couple of months. 

So the moment you know how to navigate it, you will think of Amazon Prime differently – less as something you go on every time there is a new The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel season, and more as a source of good movies. 

Below is a list of the best movies on Prime that you probably don’t know were there, but for a full look at what the big streaming platform has to offer – you can visit our Amazon Prime page. 

11. Nightcrawler (2014)

best

8.6

Country

United States of America

Director

Dan Gilroy

Actors

Alex Ortiz, Ann Cusack, Bill Blair, Bill Paxton

Moods

A-list actors, Challenging, Character-driven

The film stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Lou Bloom, an impromptu freelance videographer who begins covering the crime world in LA for a local TV station. Almost as dark as a mystery can get, it is disturbing, and plays out as a combination of “Drive” and “The Network”. The film is visually stunning as well as immensely suspenseful. It then becomes almost impossible to look away, even when you’re the most horrified by just how far Bloom is willing to go to reach success. Gyllenhaal’s performance is widely compared to that of Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver, which should give you an idea of its caliber.

12. The Disaster Artist (2017)

best

8.6

Country

United States of America

Director

James Franco

Actors

Adam Scott, Adwin Brown, Alison Brie, Amechi Okocha

Moods

A-list actors, Easy, Funny

A hilarious and smart comedy that is almost impossible to hate. It doesn’t matter if you liked The Room or not; or if you’ve even heard of it, you will find The Disaster Artist extremely enjoyable. Same applies for James Franco, it’s irrelevant if you think he’s the hottest man walking or a complete waste of screen-time – this movie is better approached without any preconceived ideas. It follows the true events surrounding Tommy Wiseau’s making of The Room, a movie so bad it actually became a worldwide hit. Tommy’s character, played by Franco, is 100% mystery. He pops out of nowhere and does and says things that contain little to no logic. Capitalizing on this, the movie is both absolutely hilarious and intriguing from beginning to end.

13. Leave No Trace (2018)

best

8.6

Country

Canada, United States of America

Director

Debra Granik, Female director

Actors

Alyssa McKay, Art Hickman, Ayanna Berkshire, Ben Foster

Moods

Character-driven, Touching, Well-acted

Leave No Trace is the amazing new movie from the director of Winter’s Bone, Debra Granik. It’s the story of a father and his daughter who live completely off the grid in a national park in Portland, and their quiet quest to not be separated and remain off the grid. It’s not the sensational, tear-jerker story that you’d expect something with this premise to be. Rather, and like Winter’s Bone, it chooses a humane and realistic approach to the subject matter. The decision to live outside society is almost irrelevant to this movie. More so, its inevitability for certain people with certain mindsets is what is interesting. A stunningly quiet movie, really well-acted too.

14. Stranger Than Fiction (2006)

best

8.5

Country

United Kingdom, United States of America

Director

Marc Forster

Actors

Andrew Rothenberg, Bob Papenbrook, Bradley Mott, Bruce Jarchow

Will Ferrell plays a well organized IRS agent named Harold Crick who seems to have figured out everything in his life to the dot. Little does he know his life is being run by someone else, a nervous and morbid novelist, famous for ending her works with the death of the main character. As the nature of his life and eventual doom, he decides to lay back and enjoy the ride, breaking all his ingrained and boring habits. While this film is recommended for everyone, Will Ferrel fans, especially, need to watch this to see Will’s acting variety.

15. The Believer (2001)

best

8.4

Country

United States of America

Director

Henry Bean

Actors

A.D. Miles, Billy Zane, Chuck Ardezzone, David Bailey

Moods

Challenging, Intense, Thought-provoking

Ryan Gosling plays a Jewish Neo-Nazi in this extremely riveting window into the definition of inner conflict. It is a prime example of how character development should be done and it put Gosling on the map for me. He starts out as an exemplary student in Hebrew school until he starts questioning his teachings and exploring alternative ideologies, leading him to the neo-Nazi movement. Won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance

16. Election (1999)

best

8.3

Country

Germany, United Kingdom, United States of America

Director

Alexander Payne

Actors

B.J. Tobin, Chris Klein, Colleen Camp, Delaney Driscoll

Starring Matthew Broderick and a young Reese Witherspoon as, respectively, Jim McAllister, a high school teacher and Tracy Flick, a notorious ‘that girl’ in his class. When Tracy decides to run for class president, we see the floodgates open as all sorts of bizarre and insane behavior pours out of the two. Quickly, it becomes clear that Tracy will do nearly anything to win, and as circumstances spiral out of control, madness descends – along with hilarity!

17. The Whistleblower (2010)

best

8.3

Country

Canada, Germany, United States of America

Director

Female director, Larysa Kondracki

Actors

Adriana Butoi, Alexandru Potocean, Alin Panc, Anca Androne

Moods

Challenging, Touching, True-story-based

Based on a true story, The Whistleblower is the biography of a once Nebraskan police officer who volunteers for the U.N. peacekeeping mission in post-war Bosnia. Once there, she uncovers a human trafficking scandal involving peacekeeping officials, and finds herself alone against a hostile system in a devastated country. Rachel Weisz plays the whistleblower in a powerful lead role, but the true star of the movie is its director, Larysa Kondracki, who thanks to near documentary-style film-making delivers a perfectly executed political thriller with utmost authenticity.

18. The Florida Project (2017)

best

8.3

Country

United Kingdom, United States of America

Director

Sean Baker

Actors

Aiden Malik, Andrew Romano, Bria Vinaite, Brooklynn Prince

Moods

Heart-warming, Touching

Every once in a while there are movies that expand the definition of quality film-making. This is one of those movies.

Here is an incredible, yet delicate film that follows three children from poor families who are stuck living in subpar motels. Their lives and friendships are portrayed with honesty and precise aesthetics. It’s a story that at first seems as plot-free as life itself.

It succeeds in capturing an innocence that is usually reserved to a child’s imagination: a precarious living condition full of adventures and fun. It’s hard to describe it beyond that; it’s the kind of film that must be seen to be fully understood.

And it ends on a very high note.

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