The 30 best movies to stream on Prime Video UK

Director: Jonathan Glazer

Cast: Christian Friedel, Sandra Hüller, Johann Karthaus

Jonathan Glazer reinvents the Holocaust drama in startling fashion, dispassionately observing the home life of Auschwitz camp commander Rudolph Höss (Friedel) and his family. Within the walls of their dreamhouse, which conveniently abuts the father’s place of work, genocide is merely a career path, the din of screams and gunshots from next door forming a background noise no different than the sounds of big-city traffic. In showing the true banality of evil, Glazer dispels the notion of Nazism as a historical aberration — the Hösses could be you, me, anyone, and exist at any time, even now. 

Director: Robert Eggers

Cast: Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Anya Taylor-Joy

Robert Eggers scales up his fanatical attention to detail in this Viking epic that makes Nicolas Winding Refn’s Valhalla Rising look like a LARP in the park. Alexander Skarsgård is a He Man-esque prince tearing through 9th century Scandinavia in search of the uncle who killed his father and made off with his mother (Kidman). It’s bigger, nastier and more fantastical than anything Eggers has attempted before, yet still immersive and hypnotic — it’s so awesome, it even convinced Björk to act again.

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Albert Brooks, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston

Before he was Just Ken, Ryan Gosling was just the Driver, an anonymous, nearly mute Hollywood stuntman-turned-criminal getaway driver trying to break free of the gangster he’s fallen in with. Nicolas Winding Refn’s icy-cool action-noir is, as the kids might say, the vibiest movie of the 2010s, with a retro-synth soundtrack, sudden outbursts of ultraviolence and the most badass satin jacket in movie history. Adding to the vibes is Albert Brooks, playing a villain for the first time in his career and absolutely crushing it. 

Director: Cord Jefferson

Cast: Jeffrey Wright, Sterling K Brown, Tracee Ellis Ross

A high-minded African-American writer (Wright), fed up with his stalled career, gives the public what he assumes they want: a fake ‘hood memoir’, first titled ‘My Pafology’, then simply ‘Fuck’. When it becomes a runaway hit, he can either debunk it or run with it. Guess which he chooses? Wright anchors this smart, scathing satire as it whiplashes between farce and family drama, abetted by Sterling K Brown as his divorced, bisexual, philandering, drug-abusing, plastic surgeon brother.

Director: Regina King

Cast: Leslie Odom Jr, Eli Goree, Aldis Hodge, Kingsley Ben-Adir

Oscar-winner Regina King's strong directorial debut feature is an instant classic of the "what if" genre in which Cassius Clay (Goree), Jim Brown (Hodge), Malcolm X (Ben-Adir) and Sam Cooke (Oscar nominee Odom) spend an electric night together amid the backdrop of the Civil Rights movement they each impacted in a very different way. 

Director: Justine Triet

Cast: Sandra Hüller, Swann Arlaud, Milo Machado-Graner

A courtroom drama with more on its mind than questions of guilt or innocence, this Oscar-nominated legal thriller stars a captivatingly unreadable Sandra Hüller as a writer charged in the mysterious falling death of her husband. It’s structured as a procedural, but as her trial goes on, it evolves into a sort of posthumous relationship study, examining issues of parental guilt and professional resentment. In the end, there’s a verdict, but no straightforward answers, leaving you to ponder the implications – probably with a calypso 50 Cent cover looping in your head.

Director: Michael Showalter

Cast: Kumail Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan, Holly Hunter, Ray Romano

Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani, the real-life couple who penned this film, give us a Pakistani-American culture-shock romance that isn’t awash with clichés. We meet Emily (Zoe Kazan plays Gordon’s on-screen surrogate) and Kumail (Nanjiani plays a version of himself) just before Emily falls into a coma. Suddenly for Kumail, there’s heartache, hospitals and parents to deal with.

Director: Michael Winterbottom

Cast: Steve Coogan, Lennie James, John Thomson

Michael Winterbottom’s document of the Manchester punk scene of the late ’70s and ’80s plays as fast and loose with the facts as the bands did with their music, which is really the only accurate way to depict an era in which everybody was either perpetually soused, pilled-up or prone to grandiose mythmaking. And then there’s Steve Coogan, reliably hilarious as Tony Wilson, the TV presenter who became the scene’s unlikely benefactor, bringing Joy Division to the world then overseeing the dawn of rave culture. All in all, it’s the only music biopic that matters.

Director: Na Hong-jin

Cast: Jun Kunimura, Jung-min Hwang, Kwak Do-won

A police officer (Do-won) scrambles to find a cure for a mysterious illness ravaging a small Korean town before it can claim his daughter. At nearly three hours, The Wailing scans as a formidable watch, and it moves slowly enough that it will cause the impatient to fidget. But give yourself over to its trancelike pace, and you’ll realise why the film has been hailed as a masterpiece of atmospheric horror.

Director: David Lowery

Cast: Dev Patel, Alicia Vikander, Joel Edgerton

Although it was snubbed during award season, this artful retelling of the Arthurian legend was one of the standout films of 2021. It’s the sort of imaginative, large-scale cinematic adventure that plays equally well for literature nerds and mass audiences. (Too bad it came out when the theatres were still closed due to Covid.) Patel is excellent as Sir Gawain, impetuous nephew of King Arthur, who decides to test his mettle against a formidable knight with supernatural powers. 

Director: George A Romero

Cast: David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott H Reiniger

George A Romero invented the modern zombie movie with Night of the Living Dead, then reinvented it ten years later. Where the first film used the undead as an allegory for the American racial strife of the late 1960s, its sequel, set in a Philadelphia shopping mall, tackles consumer culture, with more (ahem) biting humour and advanced levels of gore courtesy of splatter master Tom Savini. 

Director: Emerald Fennell

Castr: Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike

Whatever you think of Emerald Fennell’s so-far polarising filmography, you certainly think something. In her ambitious follow-up to 2020’s Promising Young Woman, a broke Oxford student (Keoghan) ingratiates himself to an uber-wealthy classmate (Elordi), getting invited to spend the summer with his weirdo family at their sprawling estate. Admittedly, the wheels fall off the plot in the third act. Luckily, there’s much more to latch onto, from the lush cinematography to the idiosyncratic performances to Keoghan’s buns-out dance routine set to Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s ‘Murder on the Dancefloor’.

Director: Jason Woliner

Cast: Sacha Baron Cohen, Maria Bakalova

What’s that saying? ‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice? Very nice!’ How Sacha Baron Cohen, in the guise of bumbling Kazakh reporter Borat Sagdiyev, could prank America again, after his first mockumentary was one of the biggest comedy films of the aughts, is hard to fathom. But then, no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the Proud Boys and Rudy Giuliani. Special commendation goes to Maria Bakalova, as Borat’s teenage daughter, whose commitment to going all the way for a joke rivals Coen’s own.

Director: Max Barbakow

Cast: Andy Samberg, Christin Milioti, JK Simmons

This hipster take on Groundhog Day arrived at the exact moment most of us felt trapped in an infinite, inescapable time loop. Turns out its delirious, inventive and endearing tale of disaffected thirtysomethings forced to relive a destination wedding over and over was exactly what we all needed. 

Director: Michael Showalter

Cast: Anne Hathaway, Nicholas Galitzine, Ella Rubin

A movie was bound to feature a Coachella meet-cute eventually, but who would have guessed it’d involve a pop star and an attendee’s mother? And who thought the film itself would turn out to be so tender, thoughtful and funny? Michael Showalter, director of The Big Sick, has a way of finding genuine humanity within improbable romcom setups, and this viral hit, starring Nicholas Galitzine as a Harry Styles avatar and Anne Hathaway as the single mother who enraptures him, is another winner.

Director: Guy Ritchie

Cast: Jason Flemyng, Dexter Fletcher, Jason Statham

An argument can be made that Guy Ritchie’s directorial debut is the second-most influential crime comedy of the ’90s. The plot, set in motion by a gangster’s rigged poker game, is as incomprehensible as the cockney slang. But it scarcely matters – what endures is the amphetamine-rush energy, macho confidence and manic inspiration. What other director, in his very first film, would think to cast footballer Vinnie Jones, Sting and some ex-pro-diver named Jason Statham? 

Director: J Blakeson

Cast: Rosamund Pike, Peter Dinklage, Diane Wiest

For the first time since Gone Girl, Rosamund Pike breaks bad — really, really bad — in this hyper-stylized black comedy with ice coursing through its veins. Pike stars as a lioness of a con-woman who oversees court-appointed conservatorships (sound familiar?), only to bilk the elderly for all they're worth. Unfortunately for her — and fortunately for us — her latest mark has ties to a particularly violent gangster, pitting the rotten-to-the-core Pike in a game of cunning against all manner of sharks. 

Director: Dario Argento

Cast: Jessica Harper, Stefania Casini

Giallo master Argento's best-known work remains a marvel, taking a incomprehensible story about a ballet school lorded over by a murderous witch and turning it into the most vivid fever dream of its era. Guided by an iconic score by Italian prog rock outfit Goblin, the film is delirious and unforgettable, packed with bold colors and boundary-pushing kills that liven up its acid-trip fairytale intensity. Amazon's Luca Guadagnino-directed 2018 reimagining is worth a look too, but Argento's vision remains essential viewing. 

Director: Chad Stahelski

Cast: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, George Georgiou

Does anyone know what’s going on at this point in the John Wick saga? Does it matter? No and no. All you ever need is Keanu Reeves, in a well-tailored suit, mowing down hordes of assassins in various international locales. In the fourth instalment, that includes fights in a Osaka hotel, a Berlin nightclub and in the streets surrounding the Arc de Triomphe. A fifth film is coming in 2025, and they should keep coming at least until Reeves is dispatching hitmen on the moon.

Director: Federico Fellini

Cast: Marcello Mastroianni, Anouk Aimée, Claudia Cardinale

The quality critics describe as ‘Fellini-esque’ is truly encapsulated in this, the Italian legend’s pseudo-biopic. Marcello Mastroianni stars as a self-doubting director who reacts to the stress of a big-time production retreating into his own interior dream world, which Fellini renders in some of the most spectacularly surreal images ever in cinema. Anyone who truly loves movies needs to see it once – but chances are it won’t be your only viewing.

Director: Darius Marder

Cast: Riz Ahmed, Olivia Cooke, Paul Raci

The great Riz Ahmed gives a revelatory, career-best performance in this somber, touching drama about a heavy-metal drummer coming to terms with the fact that his hearing is deteriorating at a rapid pace. With its landmark sound design and stunning central performances, the film is an absolute stunner, at once heartbreaking and uplifting. 

Director: Ben Affleck

Cast: Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Jason Bateman

If Jerry Seinfeld’s Pop-Tart movie is the nadir of the ‘consumer-product origin story’ trend, then its height was this dramatisation of Nike’s pursuit of Michael Jordan and the creation of the most iconic sneaker of all-time. Ben Affleck, as director and in the role of company founder Phil Knight, infuses this ’80s-set corporate underdog tale with the appropriate amount of energy, humour and garish tracksuits. Sure, you can argue it’s still a crass monument to capitalist idolatry, but who doesn’t think Air Jordans are one of mankind’s greatest inventions?

Director: Emma Seligman

Cast: Rachel Sennott, Ayo Edebiri, Marshawn Lynch

With her first movie, 2020’s Shiva Baby, Emma Seligman effectively made a queer, Jewish, sex-positive version of The Graduate. For her follow-up, she mashes together Heathers and Fight Club, with a lesbian twist. Rising stars Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri are unpopular teenagers who start a ‘female self-defence club’ as a scheme to hook up with the hot girls at their school – a plan that goes off the rails with wildly unintended consequences. The film is a tad uneven, but it’s audacious and over-the-top in a way few teen movies are nowadays.

Director: David Cronenberg

Cast: Jennifer O’Neill, Stephen Lack, Patrick McGoohan, Michael Ironside

Otherwise known as the source of the exploding-head gif, this sci-fi chiller is something like David Cronenberg presents The X-Men. The ‘scanners’ of the title are humans imbued with vast telekinetic powers. When a military contractor looks to harness those abilities, it sets up a duel between a rogue scanner (Ironside) and the corporation’s hired gun (Lack). Despite the slight political edge, it’s still plenty Cronenbergian. May we remind you this is a movie where a dude’s head pops like a shotgunned watermelon? 

Director: Kenneth Lonergan

Cast: Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams

American director and playwright Kenneth Lonergan's film isn't about rebounding as much as coping. That’s what makes it so dark and courageous; it says that, for some people, there won’t be any moving on from grief. Moveover, Casey Affleck burns the screen in the early scenes, building up a portrait of a solitary existence. It's a film of almost unbearable honesty.

Director: Tina Satter

Cast: Sydney Sweeney, Josh Hamilton, Marchant Davis

Sydney Sweeney, in her first real chance to prove herself away from the teensploitation soap opera of Euphoria, impresses as Reality Winner, the NSA translator convicted of leaking classified government documents related to Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election. Based on Tina Satter’s own stage play, itself a verbatim transcript of Winner’s FBI interrogation, the film plays out as a tense verbal tête-à-tête, with a few touches of surrealism. Otherwise, all eyes are on Sweeney, and she’s never less than riveting. 

Director: JC Chandor

Cast: Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto

You don’t need a finance degree or a subscription to The Economist to be gripped by this recession thriller. Documenting the sudden implosion of an investment bank over the course of 24 hours, it’s an impressively smart corporate procedural that refuses to talk down to the audience, but also never goes over its head, and the all-star cast ensures everyone gets the message.    

Director: Felix van Groeningen

Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Steve Carell

Timothée Chalamet does major things in this new movie – things that no other actor of his generation is attempting – in this film about a college-bound kid derailed by drugs based on the dual father-son memoirs of David and Nic Sheff. 

Director: Doug Liman

Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Daniela Melchior, Conor McGregor

Did the world need a remake of Road House, the stupid-awesome ’80s classic where Patrick Swayze works as a bouncer at the most violent bar in America? Not really. But if you’re going to do it, it’s best to retain the original’s meatheaded, pain-don’t-hurt spirit — no pseudo-intellectualising, no ‘gritty reimagining’. In that regard, Doug Liman’s MMA-infused reboot, with Jake Gyllenhaal assuming the Swayze role, does right by its predecessor, and the results aren’t half bad. Pity no one got paid for it.

Director: Paul Downs Colaizzo

Cast: Jillian Bell, Jennifer Dundas

Jillian Bell shines as the titular character in this enearing and earnest film about self-acceptance and body positivty that, thanks to some complex comedy about health, fat-shaming and the relentless forward momentum of being a New Yorker, sidesteps any cheesy pitfalls.