Any time you open Amazon Prime Video, you’re probably looking for a good way to spend a few hours. You might notice that Prime Video has some excellent options but also has a tendency to promote the same content continuously.
If you’re looking for new movies or titles that you would never have guessed were worth your time, we’ve got you covered. These are three underrated movies that you should check out this weekend.
We also have guides to the best new movies to stream, the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Hulu, and the best movies on Amazon Prime Video.
American Fiction (2023)
A satire that somehow manages to also be deeply moving, American Fiction is based on the 2001 novel Erasure and tells the story of a Black author who doesn’t want to be pigeon-holed into writing Black fiction. When he jokingly pitches a cartoonishly stereotypical novel, he finds himself engaging with a new audience, even as he deals with a crumbling situation in his home life.
Jeffrey Wright rarely gets opportunities to shine the way he does here, and he’s supported by one of the best performances of Sterling K. Brown’s career. Incisive, funny, and sentimental, American Fiction deserved more hype than it received.
You can watch American Fiction on Amazon Prime Video.
A Most Violent Year (2014)
A throwback, low-key thriller featuring a pair of exceptional actors, A Most Violent Year is set in New York City in 1981 and stars Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain as a married couple trying to protect their family business. 1981 was one of the most violent years on record in New York, and the movie is explicitly set at a time when corruption and crime were rampant.
The movie is hugely stylish and a reminder that Isaac and Chastain are two of the best actors working today, even if neither of them gets the material they deserve on a regular basis.
You can watch A Most Violent Year on Amazon Prime Video.
Le Samourai (1967)
One of the most influential films of the French New Wave, Le Samouraï is remarkable in that it is a story about a hit man told with a remarkable degree of sparseness. Starring Alain Renais, the film follows an assassin with an elaborate set of rituals who conducts a hit and then realizes that he was spotted.
As his life unravels around him, he’s forced to go on the run and avoid capture from both the police and the men who hired him. Although Le Samourai has its moments of violence, the most remarkable thing about the movie is all the ways it avoids the thrills you might expect from this type of movie. Instead, it’s just a little bit more mundane than you might expect.
You can watch Le Samourai on Amazon Prime Video.
