Sometimes, Amazon Prime Video is a lot like the video stores of yesteryear. There’s a wide selection, but at first glance, there’s not always a lot of things that you want to watch. Fortunately, Prime Video has a major addition this week in the form of Air, a new drama from Ben Affleck that tells the story of how Michael Jordan and Nike united to create one of the most enduring brands in sports apparel: Air Jordan.
If you know where to look, then you’ll see that Prime Video has a wide selection of new and classic titles. But at times, it can be a challenge to find something good to watch. That’s why we update our list of the best movies on Amazon Prime Video on a weekly basis. If you stick with us, you’ll quickly find something fun.
We’ve also put together guides to the best shows on Prime Video, the best movies on Hulu, the best movies on Netflix, the best new movies to stream, and the best movies on Disney+.
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Air2023 -
Mamma Mia!2008
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A Beautiful Mind2001
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Fatal Attraction1987
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The Way Back2020
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Game Night2018
Prepare for the origin story of Michael Jordan’s shoes. Don’t worry, Air is more compelling than it sounds. And while it is the story of how the Air Jordan sneakers came into being, it’s also the story of how executives at Nike realized that teaming up with Jordan was a once-in-a-generation opportunity. But first, they have to convince Jordan’s mother, Deloris Jordan (Viola Davis).
Ben Affleck directed the film and stars as Phil Knight, one of the co-founders of Nike. At Phil’s behest, talent scout Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon) is tasked with turning around the company’s basketball operation. And as soon as Nike gets behind the Jordan pitch, the future of the company is on the line.
In the ABBA-inspired musical Mamma Mia!, young bride-to-be Sophie Sheridan (Amanda Seyfried) just wants to get her father to walk her down the aisle. Unfortunately, she’s not sure who her father is. But she does have three likely candidates: Harry Bright (Colin Firth), Bill Anderson (Stellan Skarsgård), and Sam Carmichael (Pierce Brosnan).
Much to the alarm of Sophie’s mother, Donna Sheridan (Meryl Streep), Sophie invites all three of these men to her wedding. Even Donna doesn’t know which one is Sophie’s father, but each of her trio of ex-lovers soon become convinced that they are the dad that Sophie is longing to find. And it’s going to take a lot of singing and dancing to resolve this issue.
Paramount+ may have the Fatal Attraction series, but Prime Video has the classic film that inspired the show, and it will not be ignored! In the movie, Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas) is a happily married man who nevertheless has a one night stand with Alex Forrest (Glenn Close). Afterwards, Dan thinks he’s free to go back to his wife, Beth Rogerson Gallagher (Anne Archer), and their daughter, Ellen (Ellen Hamilton Latzen). And when Alex tries to advance their affair, Dan shuts her out of his life.
However, Alex simply won’t take “no” for an answer, and she continuously escalates the situation while threatening to expose Dan’s infidelity to Beth. And when that fails to produce results, Alex starts to become truly dangerous to both Dan and his family.
Ben Affleck lives so much of his life in the tabloid haze of Hollywood that it’s sometimes easy to forget that he’s a good actor. The Way Back gives Affleck another chance to prove his dramatic chops, while dealing with a subject matter that is very close to him. In the film, Affleck stars as Jack Cunningham, a former high school star basketball player whose marriage to Angela (Janina Gavankar) is threatened by their shared grief over the death of their son, and by Jack’s alcoholism.
Jack is soon recruited by Father Edward Devine (John Aylward) to return to his alma mater and coach the school’s basketball team, which has fallen on hard times. At first, the kids give Jack a new sense of purpose. However, a resurgence of his grief threatens to cost Jack everything he holds dear.
Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams make a delightful husband and wife team in Game Night, a wild comedy in which they play Max and Annie Davis. This couple loves to play, but their game nights have been getting pretty stale. When Max’s brother, Brooks Davis (Kyle Chandler), hosts his own game night, Max and Annie, along with two other couples, witness Brooks’ abduction by armed men.
Initially, the assembled couples assume that Brooks’ kidnapping was all part of the game. Unfortunately, the danger turns out to be all too real, which forces Max and Annie to turn to Gary Kingsbury (Jesse Plemons), their lonely policeman neighbor who had recently been excluded from their game nights.
Perhaps the most amazing thing about Amazon Studios’ new documentary Judy Blume Forever is that the author herself, Judy Blume, is not only still alive, but she was able to be an active participant in the movie. The film essentially tells her life story, often in her own words, as it chronicles her journey from a housewife to a beloved children’s author whose books are still widely read.
Several famous commentators also share their thoughts about Blume, including Molly Ringwald, Lena Dunham, Anna Konki, Samantha Bee, Mary H.K. Choi, and Jacqueline Woodson. But the ones who really stand out are the ordinary women whose lives were deeply touched by Blume and her stories.
There’s a simple reason why Ticket To Paradise is such an effective romantic comedy. George Clooney and Julia Roberts are so comfortable together onscreen that you can almost believe that they were married at one point. In the film, they play David and Georgia Cotton, a divorced couple whose marriage fell apart two decades earlier.
Despite their lingering resentment towards each other, David and Georgia make a pact to break up the impromptu wedding of their daughter, Lily (Kaitlyn Dever), and her fiancé, Gede (Maxime Bouttier). And while David and Georgia plot together, the tropical setting and their renewed partnership reawaken the old feelings that they used to have.
Nicolas Cage recently vamped it up on the big screen as Dracula in Renfield. But in terms of over-the-top performances, Cage would be hard-pressed to surpass his masterpiece: Face/Off. In this John Woo-directed flick, Cage plays a terrorist named Castor Troy who falls into a coma after hiding deadly bombs that are primed to go off. To save lives, FBI Agent Sean Archer (John Travolta) agrees to undergo an experimental face transplant so he can go undercover as Troy and find the bombs.
When Troy awakens from his coma without a face, he forces the doctors to attach Archer’s face to his body before killing anyone who knows the truth. Thus, for nearly the entire movie, Cage is playing his version of Archer, while Travolta gets to go wild as Troy with Archer’s face. This film is so ludicrous that it becomes incredibly enjoyable to watch.
For most of his screen time in Life of Pi, Suraj Sharma shares the stage with a CGI Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. And it is absolutely mesmerizing. Ang Lee directed Yann Martel’s novel with an elevated sense of magical reality. When young Piscine Molitor “Pi” Patel (Sharma) and his family are caught in a shipwreck, he finds himself stuck on a lifeboat with animals from his family’s zoo, including tiger Richard Parker.
As the tiger takes out the other animals, Pi has to find a way to co-exist with Richard Parker, as well as the strength of will to survive a harrowing ordeal at sea. This film is a visual masterpiece, and it has an unforgettable story.
Did you know that Star Wars and dozens of other films were greatly influenced by the French sci-fi comic Valérian and Laureline by Pierre Christin? However, the comic didn’t make it to the big screen until director Luc Besson adapted it into Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. True to its title, the space station Alpha is indeed the product of aliens from thousands of worlds, and it is kept under the watchful eye of the United Human Federation.
Two of the station’s primary operatives, Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Laureline (Cara Delevingne), try to keep the peace before they unknowingly stumble upon a conspiracy that could bring down Alpha itself. Laureline also has her hands full keeping Valerian’s amorous intentions toward her in check, even though his attraction to her isn’t one-sided.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that Top Gun: Maverick is the most popular movie of 2022 and one of biggest blockbusters in years. And after cleaning up at the box office, the Top Gun sequel is coming in for a landing on Prime Video. Tom Cruise reprises his role as Capt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, a test pilot-turned-instructor who doesn’t quite have the same fire that he had in the ’80s.
While teaching the next generation of Top Gun pilots, Maverick also finds himself in conflict with one of his students, Lt. Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw (Miles Teller), the son of his late friend, Nick “Goose” Bradshaw. However, Maverick and his pilots will need to find common ground as they are drawn into a new mission with high stakes and breathtaking flying sequences.
Good Will Hunting is the movie that made Matt Damon and Ben Affleck into stars. They co-wrote the script together, and Damon plays the title character, Will Hunting, with Affleck as his best friend, Chuckie Sullivan. Will is a genius whose personal issues have held him back in life. But while working as a janitor at Harvard, Will solves an incredibly difficult math problem that catches the attention of Professor Gerald Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgård).
Lambeau is the first person to realize that Will has limitless potential if he can stay out of trouble with the law. Enter Dr. Sean Maguire (Robin Williams in an Oscar-winning turn), a psychologist who challenges Will to overcome his past and embrace the man he could become. It’s a riveting feel-good drama for the ages. How do you like them apples?
Jordan Peele’s latest film, Nope, is an impressive blend of sci-fi and horror. Siblings OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and Em Haywood (Keke Palmer) are on the verge of selling their father’s horse ranch when they realize that a UFO appears to be hanging around their property and devouring horses. With the assistance of a Fry’s Electronics tech, Angel Torres (Brandon Perea), they attempt to record footage of the UFO as a way to get rich.
Unfortunately for the unlikely trio, the aforementioned UFO is far more dangerous than they initially realized. And it’s not what they expected at all. Nope made DT’s list of the best movies of 2022, and there’s a good reason why: it’s entertaining and smart, which is a rare combination in blockbuster movies these days.
Pulp Fiction was not Quentin Tarantino’s first movie, but it is the film that made him a legend. Tarantino intentionally tells the events of the story in non-chronological order. But the characters are so memorable that it’s almost impossible to take your eyes off of them. This is especially true of the hitmen, Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson), as they find themselves in way over their heads after an accidental death.
Bruce Willis also has a strong turn as Butch Coolidge, an aging boxer who double-crossed the local crime boss, Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames), by refusing to throw a match after accepting a large bribe. And in Butch’s attempt to skip town with the money, he comes face-to-face with Marsellus himself.
The original Magnificent Seven is one of the all-time great Westerns. The modern remake is nowhere near that good, but it’s still enjoyable on its own terms. Strangely enough, it plays more like a superhero movie than a Western, as each of the seven brings a particular skill to the table.
Over a decade after the Civil War, Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard) and his men enslave and brutalize a small town. The beleaguered townspeople turn to U.S. Marshal Sam Chisholm (Denzel Washington), and his hastily assembled Avengers of the Old West, including Joshua Faraday (Chris Pratt), Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke), Jack Horne (Vincent D’Onofrio), Billy Rocks (Byung-hun Lee), Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), and Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier). The outcome is never really in doubt, but it’s still a fun ride.
In the same way that audiences fell in love with Pixar’s cute Wall•E, watching Good Night Oppy elicits a similar response, drawing you into the gushy human emotion surrounding a robot roaming Mars 50 million miles away. But that’s because this documentary is as much about the people at NASA that made the Opportunity Mars Exploration Rover mission possible as it is about the rover itself. Narrated by Angela Basset, Good Night Oppy tells the inspiring story of Opportunity, a six-wheeled, solar-powered vehicle that touched down on the Red Planet in January of 2004 and was supposed to roam and explore the landscape for a pre-determined 90 days. But beyond anyone’s expectations, Oppy’s mission endured for nearly 15 years before going dark. Told through interviews with many of the scientists and engineers on the project, as well as archival footage, this is a feel-good doc not to be missed.
Early Rotten Tomatoes critics’ reviews bode well for this haunting horror-thriller starring Katey Sagal who is terrifying as reclusive Nashville country icon Harper Dutch. Young, up-and-coming country duo Jordan Wilder (Abby Quinn) and Leigh Blackhouse (Alexxis Lemire) are paying their dues in Nashville bars when they get the chance to meet Harper and record a song with her at her decrepit mansion (which should have been the first sign). They say you should never meet your idols, which is the understatement of the year as the girls are drawn into Harper’s twisted nightmare — kind of like if Dolly Parton went all Jack Torrance. One respite from all the thrills is Torn Hearts‘ music: there are some truly great vocal numbers sung by Sagal herself.
The Northman is nothing short of brutal. That’s not a critique of the film (it has a Rotten Tomatoes critics score of 89%) — by that, we mean that The Northman is a dark and vicious Viking revenge tale that makes shows like Vikings and Vikings: Valhalla look like episodes of Sesame Street. Directed by Robert Eggers (The Lighthouse), Northman tells the Viking legend of prince Amleth (Alexander Skarsgård), whose father, King Aurvandill (Ethan Hawke), is murdered by his own brother, Fjolnir (Claes Bang), who assumes rule and takes Aurvandill’s wife (Nicole Kidman) as his own. Young Amleth flees by boat, narrowly escaping death, and spends the following years preparing and plotting his revenge. And boy, does he get it. Now a grown man and a trained berserker, Amleth tracks a usurped Fjolnir down in Iceland, where he’s living a much more modest life as a farmer. With the help of a young slave woman (Anya Taylor-Joy), all Viking hell is set to break loose.
Regina Hall (Nine Perfect Strangers, Insecure) stars in this social thriller/horror about an elite New England university that’s as old as the country itself and has just as many dark secrets. Hall plays Gail Bishop, the school’s new headmaster and the first Black person to hold the position. A Black student, Jasmine Moore (Zoe Renee), arrives as a freshman and is soon subjected to anonymous racist attacks that she is convinced are being done by an ancient presence from the school’s past — turns out the school was built on the site of some Salem-era witch trials. As Gail and Jasmine learn to navigate the school’s elite politics and privilege, they uncover the truth about the school and just how tied to its past it really is.
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