The Best Movies to Watch From United States of America on Amazon Prime (Page 2)
Created by Janine Nabers and Donald Glover (Atlanta), Swarm is a dark and bloody deep dive into fan culture. It follows Dre (Dominique Fishback), a young woman whose obsession with a Beyoncé stand-in takes a dark turn after the unexpected death of a loved one. Artful, daring, and legitimately scary, Swarm is one of the […]
It’s hard not to watch The Unknown Country and think of Nomadland: along with similarities in their Terrence Malick-inspired visuals, both films follow lone women seeking catharsis on the road as they grieve profound losses. But Morrisa Maltz’s debut feature is a decidedly lower-key, more spiritual affair — and is all the better for it. […]
South African director John Trengove follows-up his debut The Wound with another take on masculinity, this time set in the States. Manodrome stars Jesse Eisenberg and Adrien Brody as a newbie and a veteran in a support group for men who have been emasculated by women and feminism. That’s right, this is a film about […]
Black Snow has the sleek style of a modern murder mystery, but its concern with Australia’s colonial past that sets this show apart. As a neo-noir series centered on a murder, the show has all the classic elements: the hardboiled detective, the suspicious townsfolk, and the murder. As the murder is set in 1994, nostalgic […]
While it might not be the most inspired story featuring the titular caped crusader—nor is it a particularly Christmas-y tale—Merry Little Batman still stands out just for how bright and warm its versions of these characters are. In this Gotham, crime is literally pushed aside for once, and that odd sense of holiday isolation takes […]
True to its name, Joy Ride is a raucous delight that has everything you want out of a road trip comedy and more. There’s love, sex, adventure, and even music, but most of all there’s friendship, the interesting complexities of which are explored against the backdrop of race. There’s something meaningful keeping everything together at […]
The agonizing tug of war between dogma and desire is sharply illustrated in writer-director Laurel Parmet’s feature debut, set inside the claustrophobic confines of a conservative Christian community in Kentucky. Seventeen-year-old Jem (Eliza Scanlen) is at the age her elders believe is the right time to start thinking about a lifelong partner — a choice […]
Going to school can be tough, moreso in a neglected, corrupt and violent town with not much opportunities to improve. But sometimes, once in a while, going to school can be great because of a good teacher. It’s a real teacher that inspired Radical (2023), a Mexican entry to Sundance that year, and while it […]
Produced by National Geographic, A Small Light is a ten-part miniseries that tells the incredible true story of Miep Gies (Bel Powley), the Dutch woman who bravely hid her Jewish friends from the Nazis during World War II. Among these friends is her kindly mentor Otto Frank (Liev Schreiber) and his daughter Anne (Billie Boullet), […]
Sophia Castuera’s first feature after two indie shorts seems like a low-key affair, but it fits neatly into a canon of post-mumblecore, or a Gen Z mumblecore. It features a fumbling protagonist named Cal and played by Ali Edwards (who also wrote the script), a wanna-be actress fresh out of college who finds herself stuck […]
Between HBO’s The Rehearsal and Peacock’s Paul T. Goldman, it would seem that genre-bending reality-based shows are having a moment. Among the more lighthearted and enjoyable ones out there is Jury Duty, which follows a trial involving improvisational actors, save for one: Ronald Gladden, a friendly everyman who has yet to realize that everything around […]
Director Garth Davis (who worked with Jane Campion on Top of the Lake) adapts Iain Reid’s novel Foe with little concern about realism and veracity. The psychologically dense event at the film’s centre—an impending separation of husband and wife—renders the whole world around them meaningless. Saoirse Ronan stars as the self-assured Henrietta (Hen) and Paul […]
Deadloch begins like any other self-serious police procedural. A body washes up on shore, sparking widespread fear and a twisty mystery that eventually and intriguingly reveals layers of itself. Local officer Dulcie Collins (Kate Box) takes to it like it’s the most important case in the world, and for some reason, everything we see onscreen […]
Kenneth Branagh’s third Hercule Poirot movie does everything it can to divorce itself from the quaintness of a typical Agatha Christie adaptation. Loosely based on the novel Hallowe’en Party, this outing swaps exotic locales for the claustrophobic confines of a gothic Venetian palazzo and flirts outright with horror. The film, shot through more Dutch angles […]
Silver Dollar Road isn’t a new story– it’s one of many that comes as a consequence of systematic Black land loss that continues to happen to this day. Director Raoul Peck tells it in a new way, completely focusing on the Reels family and hearing their story entirely, from the initial confusion to two of […]
Judy Blume, the author behind enduring classics like Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, Superfudge, and Forever, gifts us with her comforting presence and precise insight in Judy Blume Forever, a delightful documentary about a delightful woman. Here, Blume looks back and lets us in on the eventful private life that inspired her prolific […]
As biopics go, Cassandro skews towards the conventional. It follows a template familiar to anyone who has seen a life-story movie about the underdog climbing up the ranks thanks to their unmatchable heart and talent. But it’s also a template that’s elevated by Bernal’s wonderful performance and Roger Ross Williams’ careful and naturalistic direction. Save […]
Domestic abuse is a delicate matter, and onscreen depictions always run the risk of being either too sensational or mopey. The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, thankfully, is neither. It sensitively and creatively tells the story of Alice and all the other survivors who June shelters on her flower farm. More than just decor, these […]
Five Blind Dates is a squeaky clean, hopelessly boring film pretending to be a raunchy romcom. Despite Lia (Shuang Hu) going on five (or four, really) dates, she doesn’t find real chemistry with any one of them. There’s no heat, no passion, no inane fun to be had, or reckless experimentation. It’s clear that what […]
The Red, White & Royal Blue film adaptation might feel familiar to some viewers, albeit with a gay twist. A rivals to hidden lovers relationship that shifted because of increased exposure to each other via PR outings is exactly the type of plot seen in romance comedies like the second Princess Diaries. However, this film […]
This Hits Home has an important mission: make the connection between traumatic brain injury and domestic abuse victims more well-known to the public. Every day, wives, girlfriends, and children get their skulls knocked, slammed, and smashed by their abusers, their heads targeted because the injuries are easier to hide and the symptoms of trauma don’t […]
More psychological drama than bloody horror, The Passenger focuses on its two leads, Randy (Johnny Berchtold) and Benson (Kyle Gallner), and the odd bond they form while on the run. Randy is held hostage by the violent Benson, but Benson only asks that Randy confront his trauma and realize his potential. They’re not quite friends, […]
There’s something genuine at the core of Jackpot that unfortunately gets lost in the movie’s violence, spectacle, and “humor,” which is that life has become so unlivable in America that resorting to a Purge-like scenario now seems more likely than receiving actual care and rights from the state. You can see it whenever Katie (Akwafina), […]
Amazon Prime’s Harlan Coben’s Shelter is the latest addition to the slew of supernatural teen-led mysteries that have come out in recent years. Like Netflix’s Lockwood & Co., Paramount’s School Spirits, and even Showtime’s Yellowjackets, Shelter is genuinely intriguing and surprisingly mature, making it watchable regardless of how old you are. The show’s TV-14 rating […]
For Love & Life could have easily been a generic documentary about ALS, but Wallach and Abrevaya elevate the film with their confidence and charm. With help from friend and director Christopher Burke, they manage to make something innately dreadful not just watchable, but engaging and uplifting as well. There’s also something to be said […]
While this documentary may not provide the level of insight or as cohesive a narrative as other films from recent years about children’s entertainment, Hot Potato benefits from the sheer charm and approachability of The Wiggles themselves. It’s inspiring to see these men and women be perfectly ordinary people who just patiently put in the […]
Not much happens in Women Talking, but what it lacks in action it more than makes up for in message. As the wronged women of an insular Christian colony decide whether they should leave or stay in their community, valuable points on each side are raised and debated fiercely. Are the men at fault or […]
Earnest, beautiful, and tender, Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All is many things: a road trip movie that sweeps the midwest deserts of 1980s America; a coming-of-age story that brings together two outsiders into an understanding world of their own; and a cannibal film that is unflinchingly flesh deep in its depiction of the practice. Bizarrely, […]
A Million Miles Away sticks so closely to the Hollywood biopic template that it threatens to be less about José Hernández as a person with his own complexities and more about the idea of him as a one-size-fits-all inspirational figure. This isn’t to say the film isn’t effective when it really counts; Hernández is worth […]
Murder mysteries don’t have to be full of twists to be worthwhile, but if you’re going the predictable route, you might as well make it an exciting one. Killer Heat, despite its name, feels cold and dragging. Gordon-Levitt’s Bali shoots for mysterious and debonair, like the detectives of noir past, but instead, he feels more […]
The big ideas swirling at the center of The Creator are about human heartlessness versus AI compassion, man’s coldness versus robot warmth. Unfortunately, the movie winds up being an unwitting example of the former: visual effects take precedence over emotion here, meaning you rarely feel any of the intended poignancy of this story about a […]
Those who grew up watching baseball legend Reggie Jackson will know that his was a name you read all over the news. One of America’s first athlete superstars, Jackson had a reputation that preceded him—he was a celebrity you’d just as soon find in Studio 54 than in the gym, wearing diamond bracelets more than […]
I’m still stuck between calling The Tour 23 a clever marketing trick or a feast for the senses. Contradictions have always nested at the heart of the brand, between beauty and its toxic standards, so it’s self-aware of them to highlight that in an audience-facing film. It’s undeniable that the VS shows have held spectacle […]
As a spin-off of The Boys, Gen V returns to the same well of explicit, hyperviolent satire about seemingly benevolent superheroes—touching on many ideas that the franchise has already explored more strikingly before. This series’ first three episodes are at their least effective when they get hung up on the shock factor of it all, […]
The first thing we learn about Dolores Roach is that she is a person of sensation and scandal, a masseuse who, as the newspaper clippings reveal, turned out to be a murderous cannibal serving human flesh to unwitting customers at a local eatery, a la Sweeney Todd. But the series is less about the horrors […]
This a small-town, true-crime thriller that has John Hamm (Mad Men) as the detective, Nick Mohammed (Ted Lasso) as the trusty sidekick, and Tina Fey (30 Rock) as the love interest. They’re a charismatic cast helming a bizarro story whose real-life details are already teeming with juicy details, and yet, the resulting film, directed by […]
There is no shortage of TV shows that dive deep into the weird wired world of social media, but F#Ck1Ng Social Media deserves credit for doing it effortlessly. You can tell the writers have an intimate knowledge of internet fame by how it contrasts has-been influencer Amanda with rising content star Vicky (Azul Guaita). Amanda’s […]
Sweetwater has a precious story in its hands, along with a sparkling cast of tried-and-true actors and a generous budget that allows them to go all in with the movie’s 1950s setting. But the parts are far greater than the sum here, because all together, Sweetwater is a mess. It promises to be a biopic […]
Wilt Chamberlain’s story is inherently fascinating. An athletic wonder who rose to fame in the South during the Jim Crow era, Chamberlain had to pave the way for other Black athletes who followed in his footsteps. It wasn’t enough that he was good, or that he had the height to end all heights; Chamberlain had […]
