The 29 best films on Amazon Prime to watch now

Watching films on Amazon has always been a case of hunting for freebies, while mostly resigning oneself to coughing up the price of a coffee: thousands of movies can be rented, by anyone, for £3.49 (or less).

Yet, for subscribers to Amazon Prime, a much more limited, ever-changing selection comes free. You just have to look out for the “Included with Prime” blue tick beside a film’s title – then catch it before it disappears.

The free catalogue tends to skew heavily towards well-known, relatively recent US studio titles, with scant room for golden oldies or subtitled gems. But if you plan your viewing based on availability, I’m here (having watched, as a Telegraph critic, more films than anyone should be allowed to see in a lifetime) to help you find the pearls amid the muck.

Skip to:

Drama

Goodfellas (1990)

Martin Scorsese’s gangster masterpiece has us from hello – with that astonishing swoop into Ray Liotta’s face, in the glow of red tail-lights, as he slams the trunk shut on a re-killed corpse and the bombastic horn blasts of Tony Bennett’s Rags to Riches seal the prologue. So many crackerjack scenes, performances, and moments litter the film – Joe Pesci’s “funny how?” takes the biscuit – that it plays like a Mafia-themed rollercoaster ride, plunging us right inside the belly of the beast. Dubious, unserious, too adrenaline-fuelled by the high life and the rising body count? Well, it gets away with murder, time and again. That’s rather the point.

Requiem for a Dream (2000)

Addiction is hell, but each character occupies an isolated abyss of their own, in Darren Aronofsky’s excoriating portrait of four lost souls on Coney Island. Oscar nominee Ellen Burstyn is the widowed Sara Goldfarb, who becomes hooked on prescription amphetamines; Jared Leto is her son Harry, a heroin addict; Marlon Wayans is his friend Tyrone, who gets arrested after a shoot-out; and Jennifer Connelly is Harry’s girlfriend Marion, whom he presses into prostitution. Adapting Hubert Selby Jr’s 1978 novel with the author’s help, Aronofsky socked viewers with a virtuoso downer, shunted along by the driving rhythms of Clint Mansell’s inspired music.

Phantom Thread (2017)

Paul Thomas Anderson regained his discipline with this brilliantly slithery Beauty-and-the-Beast chamber piece. A creepily commanding Daniel Day-Lewis plays Reynolds Woolcock, the exacting head of a London fashion house in the 1950s, whose latest choice of a live-in model and muse is Alma (Vicky Krieps), an Eastern European waitress. Figuring out the underlying deal between these two is the film’s most teasing mystery – it sometimes resembles an Yves Saint-Laurent concept show based on Hitchcock’s Rebecca, complete with splendid Mrs Danvers-ing from Lesley Manville as Woolcock’s all-knowing sister. There are jaw-dropping surprises in store.

Small Things Like These (2024)

This tight-lipped Irish drama is suffused with sadness, and shouldered with hypnotic grace by Cillian Murphy in his first post-Oppenheimer role. He plays a father of five in a small County Wexford town, who pits himself against the local convent – and calculating head nun Emily Watson – for their incarceration of pregnant girls in 1985. Claire Keegan’s source novel chose a man of few words to make this stand, and Murphy steps up to play him with a heroic understatement that could move mountains. The result is one of the best “small” films in recent memory.

JFK (1991)

Who killed JFK? Was it Lee Harvey Oswald, from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository? Or an unknown shooter from the grassy knoll? Was there more than one assassin? Were the CIA somehow involved in a cover-up? All the conspiracy theories that Oliver Stone saw fit to air appear in his virtuoso – if factually contentious – three-hour political thriller, which tackles the investigation of New Orleans DA Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) into the shady underworld ties of Oswald and his confederates. In a stacked supporting cast (Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Bacon, John Candy, Sissy Spacek), Donald Sutherland takes the cake in one long scene as a high-ranking spook who seems to know everything.

Zodiac (2007)

David Fincher’s real-life serial killer procedural is an excitingly mature study of obsession and epic burnout. What it is not is Se7en, which gave it muted appeal at the box office – but in the era of shows such as True Detective and Mare of Easttown, it’s very streamable indeed. Fincher follows the oft-thwarted efforts of many people, including a San Francisco police inspector (Mark Ruffalo), a true-crime writer (Jake Gyllenhaal) and an investigative reporter (Robert Downey Jr) to puzzle out the identity of the Zodiac Killer, who claimed to have murdered 37 people in Southern California in the late 1960s. The precision-tooled script and density of detail are remarkable.

Heat (1995)

Heat was snubbed by the Academy Awards in 1996 but looks better by the year: Michael Mann’s bluesiest (and bluest) treatment of lone wolves doing what they do best. Al Pacino and Robert De Niro play a cop and a robber in Los Angeles who circle each other with wary admiration, as the body count among their confederates keeps on rising. Dante Spinotti’s cinematography and the entire soundscape astonish. It’s Mann’s magnum opus on all fronts, with about 70 speaking roles, and some of the best actors in the business (Tom Noonan, Diane Venora, Ted Levine, to name but three) chipping in. Val Kilmer (as De Niro’s right-hand man) and Ashley Judd occupy a whole nested film of their own.

The Immigrant (2014)

One of the most neglected efforts from writer-director James Gray (The Yards, Two Lovers, Ad Astra), The Immigrant fell foul of measly distribution after Harvey Weinstein tried, and failed, to meddle with Gray’s final cut. Marion Cotillard, in one of her greatest performances, plays Ewa, a Polish refugee who arrives on Ellis Island in 1921, and is exploited by a shyster (Joaquin Phoenix) who simultaneously prostitutes and romantically pursues her. Darius Khondji’s photography is stunning, with a rich flavour for the period.

Warfare (2025)

Alex Garland’s vision of dystopian strife in Civil War (2024) was too science-fictional in its disconnect to say any pertinent things about America. This much stronger film hunkers down in Iraq to depict a 2006 skirmish in real time, embroiling a platoon of Navy SEALs in excruciating hide-and-seek: IEDs rip them to shreds, leaving body parts strewn while they take emergency shelter in a family home. Co-director Ray Mendoza lived through the original ordeal to tell this tale, which is assembled for maximum hellish impact. Between the lines, we can intuit US military priorities as nothing grander than a street-level survival game, inhumanly disengaged from any question of the greater good.

Blue Valentine (2010)

Michelle Williams got a well-deserved Best Actress Oscar nomination for her role here as one half of a married couple who splinter apart. It was the bummer of that awards season that Ryan Gosling didn’t join her, since his performance is debatably a career-best – tender, bruised and devastating. Director Derek Cianfrance – who has just brought out his latest film, Roofman – interweaves the early, hopeful years of this pair’s love story with the harsh, disillusioning phase when it disintegrates, for all the desperate efforts by Gosling’s Dean to get their spark back. A risky choice for a date movie, if only because it could make you wonder if it’s even worth bothering.

A Passage to India (1984)

David Lean’s last film is sumptuous and mysterious: the work of a master with impeccable taste, not least in source material. EM Forster’s novel about a colonial scandal – the false rape accusation of repressed schoolmistress Adela Quested (Judy Davis) against the Indian physician Dr Aziz (Victor Banerjee) – gets a scrupulously intelligent workout without scrimping on the scenery. We could surely have lived without Alec Guinness in cringey brownface as Professor Godbole, but there’s ample compensation from his co-stars – especially an Oscar-winning Peggy Ashcroft as Mrs Moore, the budding mystic who sinks into gloom when a cave visit dismantles her entire belief system.

Loveless (2017)

With his earlier films, Andrei Zvyagintsev established himself as the most important Russian director of his generation, a formal wizard assembling a ferocious critique of his nation’s values. This dagger to the heart of mother Russia starts with a scenario so bleak you feel winded: a nouveau riche couple are in the throes of a divorce so bitter that each, far from squabbling over custody of their young boy, are fighting to be rid of him. He promptly disappears, and a dragnet search begins, while we shudder at everyone’s choices in their cocoon of luxury.

Thriller

Conclave (2024)

Pick a pope? Tread carefully. Derived from Robert Harris’s potboiler about the hushed, cloistered and backstabby process of casting ballots in the Sistine Chapel, Conclave got eight Oscar nominations, and won for Peter Straughan’s acidic script. The fictional election Harris cooked up, which director Edward Berger reheats at full blast, leads us through a dank labyrinth of intrigue – with one man, Ralph Fiennes’s Thomas Lawrence, peering through the murk to discern an outcome that won’t set Catholicism back decades. Declaring “certainty the enemy”, he really seems to mean it – like present-day Rome’s pained, grey answer to Thomas Cromwell in Wolf Hall.

Knives Out (2019)

Far superior to its sequel – the smirking and sloppy Glass Onion (2022) – this is the rare murder mystery that holds up a second time. Beyond its waspish wit, a dastardly roll-call of suspects and Daniel Craig’s dapper (if faintly annoying) efforts as our presiding sleuth Benoit Blanc, Rian Johnson’s film gives nothing away until the bitter end, thanks to a head-spinning tricksiness of plotting that even Agatha Christie might have conceded was ingenious. On the occasion of his 85th birthday, with grasping family members gathered all around, world-famous crime writer Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) is found in his mansion’s attic snug with his throat slit. The layering, feints, and decoys fox you exactly as Johnson’s hoping.

Point Break (1991)

No one packs more testosterone into an action ride than Kathryn Bigelow, who scored one of her few bona fide box office hits here. Keanu Reeves is the rookie fed who goes undercover as a surfer to infiltrate a gang of bank robbers, headed by Patrick Swayze’s charismatic, perma-tanned free spirit. Waves crash, bullets fly and men cement their brotherly love by jumping out of planes together in the famous skydiving scenes. Don’t bother with the useless 2015 remake: the purest highs by far are to be found right here.

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1983)

There are more famous film versions of the Conan Doyle chiller – the 1939 Fox one with Basil Rathbone as Holmes; the 1959 Hammer one with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. But this relatively little-known ITV adaptation, one of a pair starring Ian Richardson as the detective, is the most spine-tingling and creative. It starts with the prowling of the titular beast outside the Baskerville mansion, which is striking because of hound’s-eye-view photography that sets the terrified tone. The green fog on the Grimpen mire has a livid radiance, while an expert supporting cast includes Denholm Elliott, Martin Shaw, Connie Booth and Eleanor Bron.

The 39 Steps (1935)

We have John Buchan’s novel to thank for the spy-movie trappings of this story, with a hero accused of murderous counter-espionage. The kicker is that this evergreen Hitchcock chase thriller manages to be a great romantic comedy into the bargain. The influence of Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night (1934) is hard to miss in the leads’ bickering relationship as they’re flung hither and thither across the Highlands, when Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) goes after the vicious foreign spy ring who have framed him, and finds himself handcuffed to Madeleine Carroll’s suspicious stranger.

Carnival of Souls (1962)

Dreamlike terror on a tiny budget, the masterstroke from neglected filmmaker Herk Harvey was deploying the derelict Mormon amusement park in Utah as a halfway-house between life and death. It’s a place with so many ghosts of its own. Wide-eyed Candace Hilligoss plays a young woman named Mary, who stumbles away from a horrific car accident completely unharmed, only to find herself stalked by ghouls (including Harvey himself, in chilling make-up) and drawn inexorably to the park’s abandoned pavilion. It’s a poetic classic with a deft twist.

Pusher (1996)

This Danish gangland yarn started a franchise while launching several careers: that of director/co-writer Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive, The Neon Demon), lead actor Kim Bodnia (The Bridge, Killing Eve) and the fellow playing his cheery sidekick, one Mads Mikkelsen in his film debut, a decade before Casino Royale. Bodnia plays Frank, a low-level heroin dealer in Copenhagen, who manages to get into no end of trouble when he evades a police bust by falling into a lake, in the process destroying an eye-watering amount of product. The definition of gritty, the whole film goes hard and gained a cult following.

The Long Good Friday (1980)

Don’t mess with Bob Hoskins. Michael Caine once claimed there were three truly great British gangster films: one Caine did (Get Carter), one he co-starred in with Hoskins (Mona Lisa) and one Hoskins made alone, which is this. His character, Harold Shand, is a fireball of raging ambition, stopping at nothing to consolidate his London empire. His aim is to get into legitimate business with a casino in the Docklands, but he finds his position eroded by IRA bombings, despite the smart, practical influence of his moll Victoria, commandingly played by Helen Mirren. It’s also notable for featuring Pierce Brosnan’s debut as an IRA enforcer.

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007)

Quite a swansong for the venerable Sidney Lumet, who at 83 delivered a rivetingly gloomy, non-linear crime thriller about a tragically botched heist on a jewellery shop. Hard-up brothers Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Hank (Ethan Hawke) choose their own parents’ establishment, knowing it’s insured, but the accomplice Hank enlists brings in more than a toy gun, and everything goes hideously wrong. Their father (a devastated Albert Finney) and Andy’s wife (Marisa Tomei, terrific) are dragged into the fallout, and it’s unhappily-ever-after for all involved.

Science fiction

Metropolis (1927)

Perhaps the most seminal work of science fiction ever put on film, Fritz Lang’s silent Expressionist epic was a cautionary response to the rapid industrialisation and social divisions of Weimar Germany. The future society it depicts is marked by a chasm between rich and poor, which the idealistic hero (Gustav Fröhlich) and heroine (Brigitte Helm) aim to bridge. Helm also plays her character’s double, the Maschinenmensch (“machine-human”), a robot created by a vengeful inventor (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) to incite the working classes to rebellion. The art direction, photography and effects make it a towering visual achievement, which would influence everything from Batman to Star Wars.

Horror

Drag Me to Hell (2009)

Sam Raimi’s comeback as a horror auteur is jangling, outrageous, and hard to shake off. It’s right on the knife-edge of black, festering comedy, as Alison Lohman’s loan officer tries to combat the implacable hex that will consign her to hellfire in three days. Refusing to grant a mortgage extension is the biggest mistake of her life, when a humiliated Romani woman (Lorna Raver) inflicts her with the curse of the Lamia or “black goat”, promising torment and theatrics until her time runs out. It’s Raimi doing everything he does best, with a hideous twist.

Comedy

The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

To many, this will need no introduction – much as fashion magazine editor-in-chief Miranda Priestly (a delectable, Oscar-nominated Meryl Streep) assumes everyone must know her name. The recipient of her most withering scorn is Anne Hathaway’s Andy, a newbie who becomes Priestly’s overworked, underpaid PA. It’s a Cinderella story in the tradition of Working Girl, but given juice by the real-life origins of the tale: the experience of the novel’s author, Lauren Weisberger, working for dauntingly spiky style queen Anna Wintour. A 20th anniversary sequel is due on May Day 2026, the very weekend of the Met Gala.

Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)

Still one of the best romantic comedies, and a peerless use of Hugh Grant, whom it transformed into a megastar overnight. We all know Charles: he’s the twittering, floppy-haired bachelor whose life is transformed over one wedding-packed season. True, Andie MacDowell’s Carrie doesn’t feel like the right person to steal his heart. But Richard Curtis’s sparkling script makes us fall in love with absolutely everyone else, including Kristin Scott Thomas as a smitten bestie. The wit, pacing and sparkle of it are all irresistible.

Mean Girls (2004)

Some high-school cliques, like the infamous “Plastics” headed here by Rachel McAdams’s queen bee, are all-but-unjoinable. If you somehow think you’ve been granted admittance, there’s a horrible likelihood of getting burned and publicly humiliated. Such is the fate awaiting Lindsay Lohan’s bright-eyed newcomer, in one of the seminal teen comedies of its era. The script delivers quotable zingers by the bucketload – even if no one will ever make “fetch” (Lacey Chabert’s pet neologism, a doomed synonym for “cute”) happen.

Family

Shrek 2 (2004)

Never fear, Shrek is also on Prime – but here’s raising a glass to the first sequel, still caustic, still hugely funny, but a much more chilled-out, warmly sophisticated affair. Made by the upstart studio DreamWorks, the original barged in attacking Disney’s legacy and wallowing in fart jokes. Enough of all that: by now, our titular ogre (Mike Myers) and his bride Fiona (Cameron Diaz) are married, but the whole notion of a happy-ever-after feels unstable, because they don’t fully know each other’s foibles yet. Waiting in the wings is a malign Fairy Godmother (Jennifer Saunders) determined to split them up and give her son Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) the nuptials he considers his birthright.

Paddington (2014)

Everyone’s favourite furry Peruvian immigrant made his new London home here, and in the process bedded in for the cuddliest film franchise of the last decade. A huge share of the credit has to go to writer-director Paul King, who brought a very particular comic sensibility to the enterprise, fastidiously parked right on the edge of chaos. Take the passing sight gag on a TFL escalator – “Dogs must be carried” – and our puzzled bear’s response. Ben Whishaw’s gentle timbre was perfect for the part, and Nicole Kidman has a ball here as the guest villain, an icy taxidermist named Millicent Clyde. Paddington 2 – and Hugh Grant’s turn to be a priceless rotter – is also on Prime, and every bit as irresistible.

Corpse Bride (2005)

Tim Burton’s live-action features went through a mid-career wobbly patch, with his barren remake of Planet of the Apes (2001) and the rather mawkish Big Fish (2003). Redemption came from this wittily macabre stop-motion animation, co-directed with Mike Johnson. It’s a tight, 77-minute treat that’s a little too death-focused for the under-10s, but should delight everyone else. Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter not only voice the main characters – a peculiar young man named Victor, and the reanimated cadaver to whom he accidentally gets betrothed – but clearly gave some facial cues to the puppeteers, too.

Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.