Recommended Movies Streaming on Amazon Prime
by AltonMann | created - 06 Jun 2020 | updated - 08 Jun 2020 | PublicAmazon Prime offers relatively few recommended films included with only a Prime membership. Most require either a payment for viewing or a trial subscription to some other streaming service. Hence the relatively brief list. I made two exceptions for The Visitor and Syriana which cost $1.99 each to watch - a bargain. The films recommended are a very diverse selection from a variety of genres.
By using the "Refine" pulldown you can select to view films from a specific genre, but keep in mind some films resist any simple categorization - many films here are mixed genre. There is also a format selection button beside the sort button, labelled “view” To select a print friendly format, choose the stack of horizontal lines.
You can also use “sort” to view list in an order of your choice
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1. The Visitor (I) (2007)
PG-13 | 104 min | Drama
A college professor travels to New York City to attend a conference and finds a young couple living in his apartment.
Director: Tom McCarthy | Stars: Richard Jenkins, Haaz Sleiman, Danai Gurira, Hiam Abbass
Votes: 44,522 | Gross: $9.42M
2. Cold War (2018)
R | 89 min | Drama, Music, Romance
In the 1950s, a music director falls in love with a singer and tries to persuade her to flee communist Poland for France.
Director: Pawel Pawlikowski | Stars: Joanna Kulig, Tomasz Kot, Borys Szyc, Agata Kulesza
Votes: 61,905 | Gross: $4.57M
3. Leave No Trace (2018)
PG | 109 min | Adventure, Drama
A father and his seventeen-year-old daughter are living an ideal existence in a vast urban park in Portland, Oregon when a small mistake derails their lives forever.
Director: Debra Granik | Stars: Thomasin McKenzie, Ben Foster, Jeffery Rifflard, Derek John Drescher
Votes: 65,263 | Gross: $6.05M
4. City of Hope (1991)
R | 129 min | Crime, Drama
An intersecting tale with a multitude of characters living lives which, in one way or another, revolve around an old apartment block scheduled to be demolished.
Director: John Sayles | Stars: Vincent Spano, Tony Lo Bianco, Stephen Mendillo, Chris Cooper
Votes: 2,722 | Gross: $1.26M
5. Paterson (2016)
R | 118 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A quiet observation of the triumphs and defeats of daily life, along with the poetry evident in its smallest details.
Director: Jim Jarmusch | Stars: Adam Driver, Golshifteh Farahani, Nellie, Rizwan Manji
Votes: 88,914 | Gross: $2.14M
6. Big Night (1996)
R | 109 min | Drama, Romance
New Jersey, 1950s. Two brothers run an Italian restaurant. Business is not going well as a rival Italian restaurant is out-competing them. In a final effort to save the restaurant, the brothers plan to put on an evening of incredible food.
Directors: Campbell Scott, Stanley Tucci | Stars: Tony Shalhoub, Stanley Tucci, Marc Anthony, Larry Block
Votes: 22,819 | Gross: $11.88M
7. Witness (1985)
R | 112 min | Drama, Romance, Thriller
While protecting an Amish boy - who is the sole witness to a brutal murder - and his mother, a detective is forced to seek refuge within their community when his own life is threatened.
Director: Peter Weir | Stars: Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis, Lukas Haas, Josef Sommer
Votes: 104,607 | Gross: $68.71M
8. You Can Count on Me (2000)
R | 111 min | Drama
A single mother's life is thrown into turmoil after her struggling, rarely seen younger brother returns to town.
Director: Kenneth Lonergan | Stars: Laura Linney, Matthew Broderick, Amy Ryan, Michael Countryman
Votes: 31,412 | Gross: $9.18M
9. Still Mine (2012)
PG-13 | 102 min | Drama
An elderly couple fight against local authorities in rural New Brunswick to build their final home.
Director: Michael McGowan | Stars: James Cromwell, Ronan Rees, Geneviève Bujold, Campbell Scott
Votes: 4,630 | Gross: $1.15M
10. Munich (2005)
R | 164 min | Action, Drama, History
After the Black September capture and massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics, five men are chosen to eliminate the people responsible for that fateful day.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Eric Bana, Daniel Craig, Marie-Josée Croze, Ciarán Hinds
Votes: 238,233 | Gross: $47.40M
11. The Pianist (2002)
R | 150 min | Biography, Drama, Music
During WWII, acclaimed Polish musician Wladyslaw faces various struggles as he loses contact with his family. As the situation worsens, he hides in the ruins of Warsaw in order to survive.
Director: Roman Polanski | Stars: Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmann, Frank Finlay, Emilia Fox
Votes: 911,782 | Gross: $32.57M
12. Syriana (2005)
R | 128 min | Drama, Thriller
A politically charged epic about the state of the oil industry in the hands of those personally involved in and affected by it.
Director: Stephen Gaghan | Stars: George Clooney, Matt Damon, Amanda Peet, Kayvan Novak
Votes: 134,253 | Gross: $50.82M
13. Shun Li and the Poet (2011)
Not Rated | 98 min | Drama
A study of the friendship between a Chinese woman and a fisherman who came to Italy from Yugoslavia many years ago, who live in a small city-island in the Veneto lagoon.
Director: Andrea Segre | Stars: Tao Zhao, Rade Serbedzija, Marco Paolini, Roberto Citran
Votes: 1,957
14. Passion Fish (1992)
R | 135 min | Drama
After an accident leaves her a paraplegic, a former soap opera star struggles to recover both emotionally and mentally, until she meets her newest nurse, who has struggles of her own.
Director: John Sayles | Stars: Mary McDonnell, Alfre Woodard, Angela Bassett, Lenore Banks
Votes: 6,084 | Gross: $5.41M
15. Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (2005)
PG | 107 min | Drama
A Japanese father travels to China's Yunnan province in the place of his ailing son to film a folk-opera singer.
Director: Yimou Zhang | Stars: Ken Takakura, Kiichi Nakai, Shinobu Terajima, Ken Nakamoto
Votes: 5,626 | Gross: $0.25M
16. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
PG-13 | 166 min | Western
A mysterious stranger with a harmonica joins forces with a notorious desperado to protect a beautiful widow from a ruthless assassin working for the railroad.
Director: Sergio Leone | Stars: Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards
Votes: 349,009 | Gross: $5.32M
17. Coming Home (2014)
PG-13 | 109 min | Drama, Romance
Lu and Feng are a devoted couple forced to separate when Lu is arrested and sent to a labor camp as a political prisoner during the Cultural Revolution. He finally returns home only to find that his beloved wife no longer recognizes him.
Director: Yimou Zhang | Stars: Gong Li, Daoming Chen, Huiwen Zhang, Tao Guo
Votes: 6,687 | Gross: $0.38M
18. Cutter's Way (1981)
R | 109 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Richard spots a man dumping a body, and decides to expose the man he thinks is the culprit with his friend Alex Cutter.
Director: Ivan Passer | Stars: Jeff Bridges, John Heard, Lisa Eichhorn, Ann Dusenberry
Votes: 7,632 | Gross: $1.73M
19. Stop Making Sense (1984)
PG | 88 min | Documentary, Music
Considered by critics as the greatest concert film of all time, the live performance was shot over the course of three nights at Hollywood's Pantages Theater in December of 1983 and features Talking Heads' most memorable songs.
Director: Jonathan Demme | Stars: David Byrne, Bernie Worrell, Alex Weir, Steven Scales
Votes: 19,983 | Gross: $5.02M
20. Richard III (1995)
R | 110 min | Drama, Sci-Fi, War
The classic Shakespearean play about the murderously scheming 15th-century king is reimagined in an alternative setting of 1930s England as clouds of fascism gather.
Director: Richard Loncraine | Stars: Ian McKellen, Annette Bening, Christopher Bowen, Edward Jewesbury
Votes: 15,565 | Gross: $2.60M
21. Warrior (2011)
PG-13 | 140 min | Action, Drama, Sport
The youngest son of an alcoholic former boxer returns home, where he's trained by his father for competition in a mixed martial arts tournament - a path that puts the fighter on a collision course with his estranged, older brother.
Director: Gavin O'Connor | Stars: Tom Hardy, Nick Nolte, Joel Edgerton, Jennifer Morrison
Votes: 497,782 | Gross: $13.66M
22. Fair Game (I) (2010)
PG-13 | 108 min | Biography, Drama, Thriller
CIA operative Valerie Plame discovers her identity is allegedly leaked by the government as payback for an op-ed article her husband wrote criticizing the Bush administration.
Director: Doug Liman | Stars: Naomi Watts, Sean Penn, Sonya Davison, Vanessa Chong
Votes: 51,047 | Gross: $9.53M
23. A Most Wanted Man (2014)
R | 122 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A Chechen Muslim illegally immigrates to Hamburg, where he gets caught in the international war on terror.
Director: Anton Corbijn | Stars: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rachel McAdams, Daniel Brühl, Robin Wright
Votes: 80,149 | Gross: $17.24M
24. Zodiac (2007)
R | 157 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Between 1968 and 1983, a San Francisco cartoonist becomes an amateur detective obsessed with tracking down the Zodiac Killer, an unidentified individual who terrorizes Northern California with a killing spree.
Director: David Fincher | Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Edwards
Votes: 598,112 | Gross: $33.08M
25. The Merry Gentleman (2008)
R | 110 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A woman leaves an abusive husband to start a new life in Chicago, where she befriends a man undergoing an emotional crisis, who she does not know is a professional killer, and a detective, who is investigating the hit man.
Director: Michael Keaton | Stars: Michael Keaton, Kelly Macdonald, Bobby Cannavale, Kareem Bandealy
Votes: 3,425 | Gross: $0.35M
26. Hard Eight (1996)
R | 101 min | Crime, Drama
Professional gambler Sydney teaches John the tricks of the trade. John does well until he falls for cocktail waitress Clementine.
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson | Stars: Philip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly, Gwyneth Paltrow, Samuel L. Jackson
Votes: 54,874 | Gross: $0.22M
27. The Long Goodbye (1973)
R | 112 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
Private investigator Philip Marlowe helps a friend out of a jam, but in doing so gets implicated in his wife's murder.
Director: Robert Altman | Stars: Elliott Gould, Nina van Pallandt, Sterling Hayden, Mark Rydell
Votes: 37,219 | Gross: $0.96M
28. A Simple Favor (2018)
R | 117 min | Comedy, Crime, Mystery
Stephanie is a single mother with a parenting vlog who befriends Emily, a secretive upper-class woman who has a child at the same elementary school. When Emily goes missing, Stephanie takes it upon herself to investigate.
Director: Paul Feig | Stars: Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively, Henry Golding, Andrew Rannells
Votes: 162,557 | Gross: $53.55M
29. East Side Sushi (2014)
PG | 106 min | Comedy, Drama, Family
An immigrant single mother disenfranchised by her regular life decides to take a chance working at a Japanese restaurant and realises her dreams to become a sushi chef to provide a better future to her family.
Director: Anthony Lucero | Stars: Diana Elizabeth Torres, Yutaka Takeuchi, Rodrigo Duarte Clark, Kaya Jade Aguirre
Votes: 4,585 | Gross: $3.50M
30. The Band's Visit (2007)
PG-13 | 87 min | Comedy, Drama, Music
A band comprised of members of the Egyptian police force head to Israel to play at the inaugural ceremony of an Arab arts center, only to find themselves lost in the wrong town.
Director: Eran Kolirin | Stars: Sasson Gabay, Ronit Elkabetz, Saleh Bakri, Khalifa Natour
Votes: 14,148 | Gross: $3.05M
31. Nobody's Fool (1994)
R | 110 min | Comedy, Drama
A stubborn man past his prime reflects on his life of strict independence and seeks more from himself.
Director: Robert Benton | Stars: Paul Newman, Bruce Willis, Jessica Tandy, Melanie Griffith
Votes: 22,521 | Gross: $39.49M
32. Atlantic City (1980)
R | 104 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
In a corrupt city, a small-time gangster and the estranged wife of a pot dealer find themselves thrown together in an escapade of love, money, drugs and danger.
Director: Louis Malle | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Susan Sarandon, Kate Reid, Michel Piccoli
Votes: 18,288
33. Eight Men Out (1988)
PG | 119 min | Drama, History, Sport
A dramatization of the Black Sox scandal when the underpaid Chicago White Sox accepted bribes to deliberately lose the 1919 World Series.
Director: John Sayles | Stars: John Cusack, Clifton James, Jace Alexander, Gordon Clapp
Votes: 22,081 | Gross: $5.68M
34. Apocalypse Now (1979)
R | 147 min | Drama, Mystery, War
A U.S. Army officer serving in Vietnam is tasked with assassinating a renegade Special Forces Colonel who sees himself as a god.
Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Frederic Forrest
Votes: 709,915 | Gross: $83.47M
35. Sorcerer (1977)
PG | 121 min | Adventure, Drama, Thriller
Four unfortunate men from different parts of the globe agree to risk their lives transporting gallons of nitroglycerin across dangerous Latin American jungle.
Director: William Friedkin | Stars: Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, Francisco Rabal, Amidou
Votes: 27,592 | Gross: $12.00M
36. Bad Company (1972)
PG | 93 min | Adventure, Drama, Western
A God-fearing Ohio boy dodging the Civil War draft arrives in St. Joseph, MO where he joins up with a hardscrabble group of like runaways heading west
Director: Robert Benton | Stars: Jeff Bridges, Barry Brown, Jim Davis, David Huddleston
Votes: 4,603
37. Seven Psychopaths (2012)
R | 110 min | Comedy, Crime
A struggling screenwriter inadvertently becomes entangled in the Los Angeles criminal underworld after his oddball friends kidnap a gangster's beloved Shih Tzu.
Director: Martin McDonagh | Stars: Colin Farrell, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, Christopher Walken
Votes: 273,870 | Gross: $15.02M
38. What Maisie Knew (2012)
R | 99 min | Drama
In New York City, a young girl is caught in the middle of her parents' bitter custody battle.
Directors: Scott McGehee, David Siegel | Stars: Julianne Moore, Alexander Skarsgård, Steve Coogan, Joanna Vanderham
Votes: 28,608 | Gross: $1.07M
39. Off the Black (2006)
R | 90 min | Drama
An aging, disillusioned alcoholic (Nolte) gets a younger friend (Morgan) and wants him to pose as his son at a school reunion.
Director: James Ponsoldt | Stars: Nick Nolte, Trevor Morgan, Timothy Hutton, Rosemarie DeWitt
Votes: 1,504 | Gross: $0.02M
40. Stop-Loss (2008)
R | 112 min | Drama, War
A veteran soldier returns from his completed tour of duty in Iraq, only to find his life turned upside down when he is arbitrarily ordered to return to field duty by the Army.
Director: Kimberly Peirce | Stars: Ryan Phillippe, Abbie Cornish, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Rob Brown
Votes: 20,888 | Gross: $10.91M
41. Knives Out (2019)
PG-13 | 130 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
A detective investigates the death of the patriarch of an eccentric, combative family.
Director: Rian Johnson | Stars: Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis
Votes: 773,412 | Gross: $165.36M
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