The depths of winter demand a night in with a great movie. The problem? Choice paralysis. Every streaming platform has thousands of films available. To cut through that, here are 30 great hand-picked movies on Amazon Prime Video right now. Don’t have Amazon Prime Video? Check out our guides on Netflix, Stan* and HBO Max.
The Assistant (2019)
Kitty Green’s claustrophobic drama follows a young assistant (Julia Garner) at a film production company who suspects – in a reflection of real-life failings – that her mogul boss is sexually abusing women. Matthew Macfadyen plays the HR enabler.
The Babadook (2014)
A modern horror masterpiece, Jennifer Kent’s immaculately controlled debut feature turns the “monster under the bed” myth into a disturbing excavation of the tainted relationship between a mother (Essie Davis) and her young son (Noah Wiseman).
Blade Runner (1982)
The film that defined modern science-fiction. In a dystopian 2019 Los Angeles so complete it inspires awe, a haunted police detective (Harrison Ford) hunts a group of android replicants who have come to Earth to meet their maker.
Bottoms (2023)
Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri delight in a queer spin on the dodgy high school student comedy, playing a pair of lesbians who start a fight club so they can seduce cheerleaders. The film has a bonkers, escalating energy.
Bull Durham (1988)
The romantic comedy and the sports film were memorably intertwined in this flinty baseball love triangle that has a knowing fan (Susan Sarandon) torn between a hotshot young pitcher (Tim Robbins) and a veteran catcher (Kevin Costner).
Contagion (2011)
With an all-star cast – Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, and Gwyneth Paltrow as patient zero – Steven Soderbergh unerringly turns a pandemic thriller into an apocalyptic procedural that mutates like its deadly fictional virus.
The Dark Knight (2008)
The second, and the best, of Christopher Nolan’s superhero trilogy gave the comic book movie a tactile heft and a pair of flawed, magnetically attracted protagonists – Christian Bale’s driven vigilante Batman and Heath Ledger’s jeering, nihilistic Joker.
Disobedience (2017)
A showcase for Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams, this is a barbed romantic drama that draws its leads to choices they can’t even say aloud. The pair play former best friends from an Orthodox Jewish community, reunited when Weisz’s exiled outsider returns.
District 9 (2009)
Set in a Johannesburg where alien refugees have become a new underclass, this science-fiction pulse-raiser combines immaculate digital effects, bureaucrat satire, and body horror crises as a meek everyman (Sharlto Copley) starts to transform.
A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
As he did with Fawlty Towers, John Cleese distils his comic genius into a delightfully condensed form. A heist comedy with the Brits (Cleese, Michael Palin) versus the Yanks (Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline), the film is finely honed farce.
Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
One of the great romantic comedies, as Hugh Grant’s awkward Englishman pursues Andie MacDowell’s doubtful American expat. The film can be sly, silly, or sentimental, but the yearning for shared happiness that underpins it is undeniable.
Ghost in the Shell (1995)
The Citizen Kane of anime. Japanese director Mamoru Oshii’s striking animation, which follows a police cyborg hunting a hacker digitally targeting human minds, is all exhilarating edges, existential philosophy, and atmospheric world-building.
Goodfellas (1990)
So potent that it feels like you’re a co-defendant, Martin Scorsese’s driven organised crime epic follows the highs and (many) lows of a Brooklyn gangster (Ray Liotta) whose pals (Robert De Niro, a terrifying Joe Pesci) know no limits.
Heathers (1988)
Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise – the teen movie reached its satirical nirvana almost four decades ago with this pitch-black tale of an unsatisfied popular girl (Winona Ryder) and the new-to-school rebel (Christian Slater) whose cause is murder.
His Girl Friday (1940)
The ideal screwball comedy, with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell as divorced newshounds who get distracted from saying goodbye by a death-row story that goes bananas. Every scene fizzes with smart lines and even better retorts.
Hot Fuzz (2007)
A witty, overloaded collision of the macho American action comedy and a sleepy British town, Edgar Wright’s full-tilt homage has Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as the uniformed officers who uncover wrongdoing.
House of Games (1987)
Playwright David Mamet had already written Hollywood blockbusters, but his first film as director is a lean psychological thriller where deception simmers as a psychiatrist (Lindsay Crouse) asks a favour of a sharp con artist (Joe Mantegna).
In the Line of Fire (1993)
A bracing thriller that finds corrosive chemistry between Clint Eastwood’s ageing Secret Service agent and John Malkovich as the dedicated assassin taunting him even as he stalks the US president. Precision-cut entertainment.
It Follows (2014)
A hazy, suspenseful summer nightmare, this inexplicable pursuit taps into folk mythology and sexual menace as a young woman (Maika Monroe) discovers that her boyfriend has made her the target of a relentless shape-shifting entity.
The Madness of King George (1994)
The 18th-century subject is actually Nigel Hawthorne’s King George III – the title was shortened so as not to confuse Americans – whose deteriorating mental health results in a bittersweet, empathetic comic-drama about power’s cruelty.
Moneyball (2011)
Brad Pitt reached a new tier as an actor in this real-life sports drama where he plays a pro-baseball team boss who upends convention by embracing statistical analysis. It’s a sharply written study of regret and self-value.
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
A southern Gothic thriller so convincing that its carnal rage and duplicitous faith still feel contemporary, this black-and-white masterpiece tracks a pious criminal (an indelible Robert Mitchum) chasing two children with valuable information.
The Other Guys (2010)
Played straight so that the sustained silliness acquires an absurdly hilarious logic, this comedy about mismatched cops has Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg as opposites whose big case brings ribald riffs and loopy side-missions.
Paths of Glory (1957)
A young Stanley Kubrick delivered a coolly furious anti-war critique with this World War I drama about a trio of randomly court-martialled French soldiers. With Kirk Douglas as the officer defending them, the hypocrisy of the generals is bilious.
Possession (1981)
A film so unsettling that its star reportedly took years to recover from the demands of making it, this 1981 relationship horror turns the break-up of Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill’s couple into a motherlode of emotional distress and untenable subtext.
Project Hail Mary (2026)
Faith in our best instincts and Ryan Gosling’s self-deprecating charisma are a winning combination in this optimistic deep-space epic where a school teacher finds himself collaborating with an alien to save Earth.
Romper Stomper (1992)
Russell Crowe’s breakthrough was inhabiting the role of a Melbourne neo-Nazi gang’s leader in this uncompromising portrait of self-destructive extremism and thwarted desire. A brutal, careening movie, divisive upon release, but telling now.
A Room with a View (1985)
The creative partnership of director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant spanned five decades, with this 1985 period romance about a young Edwardian woman (Helena Bonham Carter) seeking satisfaction an enduring highlight.
The Sheep Detectives (2026)
A smashing family film that is inventively droll, smartly plotted, and sweetly satisfying, this mystery follows a flock of sheep (voiced by many famous actors) trying to discover what happened to the shepherd (Hugh Jackman) who read them murder mystery novels.
Wolf Creek (2005)
The horror potential in Australia’s vast outback was reignited by this gory desert slasher B-movie, expertly directed by Greg McLean, about a trio of backpackers tricked and tormented by a hearty psychopath (John Jarratt).
All information correct at July 2026. *Stan is owned by Nine, the publisher of this masthead.
Want more TV? We’ve got you.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
