The Best Character-driven Movies to Watch on Amazon Prime

The first things that grab your attention in Nickel Boys are its beauty and technicality. Director RaMell Ross, a large-format photographer, ensures every frame relays something deep, intimate, and moving. Then there’s how he takes these shots: we see things unfold through the POV of Elwood and Turner, students at an abusive reform school in […]

Oscar-winner Emerald Fennell got a lot of free reign with her debut, Promising Young Woman, which was a slightly modest ordeal even with a lead of Carrey Mulligan’s calibre. But now, with her sophomore film, she go to have some fun. Assembling a devout cast of particularly skilled actors—Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike, and […]

Often deemed as South Asian John Wick, Monkey Man, of course, has plenty of the stylish action that’s been captivating today’s filmmakers and audiences alike. Dev Patel, now writing and directing alongside leading the film, created a crazy combination of action sequences that mess around with perspective, that’s fuelled by insane choreography, and that take […]

Frida Kahlo is an iconic Mexican painter, not just because of her outstanding art, but also because of her outlook in life, despite her ill health and tragic accident. Because of this, she has been talked about in multiple books, movies, and exhibitions, but a new documentary has popped up, this time from her own […]

Set in the British colonial era, Captain Miller is more unapologetically violent than its counterparts, but it’s not mindlessly so. Sure, the film has plenty of spectacle with numerous battles between townsfolk versus British colonialists, some scenes having gruesome, gory deaths. But in between these battles is Dhanush as the central character, contemplating the oppression […]

In the vein of classic 80s films, Totally Killer is an homage to the genres that got its heyday in the decade. This film happens to be a serial killer mystery, a time-travel sci-fi adventure, and a teen comedy all at once. With mentions of Back to the Future and Molly Ringwald, the new addition […]

It’s rare to see a prequel surpass its antecedent, but Pearl is that exception. You can watch it before or after X and still get the same satisfaction from piecing together the puzzle of Mia Goth’s many roles (three in total across the trilogy). If the first film owed a lot to slasher classics like […]

In 1984, Michael Jordan was a rising star and Nike had yet to make its mark in the basketball industry. With nothing to lose, Nike had to make a choice: settle behind the far more successful Adidas and Converse or shoot its shot and bet everything they have to win Jordan? You don’t have to […]

You’d expect a film with a premise like this to make constant parallels between its two main storylines, or to at least have them intersect more often and more significantly. But impressively, Mast Mein Rehne Ka makes the jump from chance encounter to wandering slice-of-life drama with ease—becoming a portrait of Mumbai and the isolation […]

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 […]

Like many coming-of-age films about films, it’s easy to assume that Last Film Show would be a derivative of all-time film classic Cinema Paradiso. Both films from opposite corners of the world, separated by more than three decades, do share that awe of cinema from a projection booth. However, unlike Paradiso, the awe of Last […]

In Marlowe, Liam Neeson joins the lofty lineup of actors who have stepped into the shoes of Raymond Chandler’s titular detective, famously played by Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum, and Elliott Gould. These are big boots to fill — and, if you’ve been paying attention to Neeson’s career over the last decade or so, you’ll be […]