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 skcapew 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, we’re here (having watched, as Telegraph critics, more films than anyone should be allowed to see in a lifetime) to help you find the pearls amid the muck.
Skip to:
- Drama
- Thriller
- Science fiction
- Comedy
- Family
Drama
Manchester by the Sea (2016)
In Kenneth Lonergan’s bruising study of guilt and grief, Casey Affleck’s janitor, Lee Chandler, carries the burden of an appalling tragedy. We don’t know the details until a midway flashback that mustn’t be spoiled, which explains Lee’s estrangement from his ex-wife (a sterling Michelle Williams) and the gloom that lies heavy on his shoulders from the first minute of the film. Long after those events, he is named the legal guardian of his late brother’s son (Lucas Hedges) and they stumble towards a connection. All three actors were Oscar-nominated, and the never-better Affleck won Best Actor.
Read our review
Pride and Prejudice (2005)
There’s a stately glow to this adaptation, neither too reverent nor insolently modern, which won over many, many people who might have been deeply sceptical beforehand. The reason for that? Keira Knightley (fresh off Pirates of the Caribbean’s Black Pearl) as Elizabeth Bennet. It was casting that may have made purists hiss at the time, but worked out swimmingly, and got her nominated for a Best Actress Oscar. Much else in Joe Wright’s film is a repeatable delight, from the heart-swelling score to a very special ensemble (Rosamund Pike, Judi Dench, Carey Mulligan, Donald Sutherland, Matthew Macfadyen, Tom Hollander) he managed immaculately.
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.
Read our review
Lady Bird (2017)
What a thorough delight Greta Gerwig’s film is. The struggles of a Catholic high-schooler, played with a disarming lack of vanity or affect by Saoirse Ronan, extend to boy trouble and falling out with her best friend (Beanie Feldstein). Gerwig’s tender eye for detail, witty writing, soundtrack choices and care with her cast lift every aspect of the story. It’s a small film with perfect contours, not least in every beat of Lady Bird’s relationship with her mother, played with crackerjack precision by Laurie Metcalf. They are best frenemies, bound together in eternity by their family’s modest means.
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.
Read our review
Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
“Match me, Sidney.” No one matches spiteful New York columnist JJ Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster), certainly not craven press agent Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis), as JJ ruthlessly plans to sabotage the love life of his younger sister by planting smear stories. The vicious complicity of this pair, in a brilliantly biting script by Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman, rivals that in Ben Jonson’s money-grubbing Jacobean comedy Volpone. As directed to the noirish hilt by Alexander Mackendrick, it holds up as the ultimate inky-fingered film about media sleaze.
Sound of Metal (2020)
Darius Marder’s film, which got six specifically justified Oscar nominations and won for sound and editing, begins with a cacophony and ends in silence. Over two intimate and frightening hours, Riz Ahmed’s character loses his hearing almost totally. At the same time, he starts to attend to internal voices he’d been ignoring. This excellent film is just as much the story of an awakening – a man’s learning to listen, and to value a certain kind of stillness – as it is about the surface-level crisis of being suddenly struck deaf.
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.
The Dark Knight (2008)
The second and best of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, for many reasons besides the obvious – Heath Ledger’s Joker, instantly iconic and posthumously Oscared. Everything clicks in this one: the grimy urban vision, the civic politics, the thunderous set-pieces, the thrilling score. When Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne is framed as Gotham’s villain by two unlikely allies – Ledger’s Joker and Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent – the stage is set for one of the most satisfying showdowns in the entire superhero canon. Nolan posed his audience a well-weighted conundrum at the end here and shouldn’t have cheapened it with a third one.
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.
Read our review
Pulp Fiction (1994)
The dazzling showmanship of Quentin Tarantino’s second film – subject to so many pale imitations for the rest of the 1990s and beyond – is precociously assured. John Travolta and Bruce Willis received defibrillator shots to their careers here, while others (Samuel L. Jackson, Ving Rhames) got the leg-ups they richly deserved. It’s all in service of a majestic narrative card trick, the deck shuffled and dealt with Tarantino himself holding all the aces. High time to make another date with it.
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 Thomas Crown Affair (1999)
John McTiernan’s spin on the 1968 Steve McQueen/Faye Dunaway/Norman Jewison art-burglary caper is a rare remake that brings something genuinely new to the table. Specifically, it boasts the best role Rene Russo ever had, as the amused cop who thinks she has the number of Pierce Brosnan’s playboy thief. It’s really swish entertainment, with a special climax scored to Nina Simone’s Sinnerman and involving multiple Magritte-style bowler hats. The leads’ ‘situationship’ is electric precisely because we don’t know if it’s fated to last.
The Untouchables (1987)
Brian De Palma got out of his mid-career slump when he took on this luxurious period gangster epic for Paramount. The secret was keeping a deadly hold on pace, even as the story sprawls; it was the first film to establish Kevin Costner as a bankable leading man, too. He’s Eliot Ness, the federal agent tasked with bringing down Al Capone (a bald-capped, sneering Robert De Niro) during Chicago’s Prohibition: easier said than done, given the chilling reach of Capone’s network and the corruption propping it up. Sean Connery won an Oscar as fictional Irish cop Jimmy Malone, and Ennio Morricone’s addictively strumming score was rightly nominated.
Fargo (1996)
Unforgettable stuff from the Coen brothers, with Frances McDormand on Oscar-winning form as the pregnant North Dakota police chief traipsing after the most bungled kidnapping in movie history. With her persistent good humour and squawking unflappability; her instinct for sniffing out lies; her precious cargo under that police coat; and her pesky morning sickness, McDormand’s Marge Gunderson is the film’s beacon of everyday goodness amid so much twisted chicanery.
Jackie Brown (1997)
Quentin Tarantino turned to Elmore Leonard in his third film and only ever adaptation – from Leonard’s 1992 book Rum Punch, about a flight attendant (Pam Grier, fabulous) who turns smuggler to make ends meet. Her clash with Samuel L Jackson’s murderous gun-runner powers up the plot, but it’s the incipient romance with a bail bondsman (a wonderful Robert Forster) which gives the film heart and soul. We’ve come to miss this Tarantino – the one who seems to be grinding no axe, cuing up no bloodbath, but weaving a twisty tale with warmth and a laid-back maturity.
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.
Read our original review
The Long Goodbye (1973)
Raymond Chandler never envisioned a Philip Marlowe quite this dissolute, that’s for sure – or quite so overtly anti-heroic. Elliott Gould’s mumbling, slovenly private dick spends the first reel of Robert Altman’s marvellous contempo-noir unsuccessfully trying to feed his cat. For the rest of the time, he’s an abrasive malcontent, bristling at authority, dropping sotto voce musings on the plot, and the dopey mantra “it’s OK with me” as an answer to more or less everything.
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.
Read our original review
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
Back to the Future (1985)
Strap into the DeLorean, get up to 88mph, and experience time travel the Robert Zemeckis way – as a kind of gonzo science-fair attraction, unlocking a giant payload of emotion. Michael J Fox has to ensure his own existence goes to plan, when he nearly messes it up by stumbling from the 1980s into the 1950s, and meeting the younger version of his mother (Lea Thompson), who takes a troublingly incestuous shine to him. This is the most bonkers plot hook of its day; but we also get Christopher Lloyd’s durable comic vim as Doc Brown, the bug-eyed inventor with the permanently electrified hair. Giddy and imperishable.
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.
Read our original review
Comedy
Beetlejuice (1988)
Tim Burton stepped up to mainstream success (after Pee-wee’s Big Adventure) with this zany masterwork – a comedy about what happens after we die, in which the living characters are far scarier than the dead ones (even Michael Keaton’s titular ghost, more guest visitor than protagonist). The belated (iffy) sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, tried to recapture what’s special about this by concentrating on practical effects, rather than throwing CGI at the afterlife. The primitive joy of the movie lies precisely in noticing its seams – admiring the outré showmanship of it – rather than pretending for a moment that what’s happening is real.
Bridesmaids (2011)
The female ensemble comedy of its decade, and a whopping hit, about the chaos, competition and weaponising power of wedding rituals to drive friends apart. The nuptials of Maya Rudolph’s Lillian are a social minefield because of her mismatched friends – the perfect one (Rose Byrne), the foul-mouthed liability (Melissa McCarthy, who scored an Oscar nom) and above all Kristen Wiig’s Annie, who is broke, depressed, envious and neurotic. Food poisoning at a high-end bridal boutique is just one of the uproarious treats in store.
Family
Wonka (2023)
The creative team behind the Paddington films were making a musical about Willy Wonka’s early life, some speculated that we were just going to get Paddington again. Wonka is far closer to the recent big-screen adventures of Michael Bond’s beloved bear than it is to Dahl’s original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory novel – and, frankly, is all the better for it. As the youthful Willy Wonka, Timothée Chalamet is mainly required to be bright and charming, sell some amusingly silly lines, and hold a tune.
Read the full review
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.
Rango (2011)
Back in 2011, there weren’t many stars other than Johnny Depp who could get a family animation as blissfully weird as Rango green-lit, let alone injected with the acid-trip spirit of gonzo legend Hunter S Thompson. It’s essentially “Fear, Loathing, and Being a Lizard in the Nevada Desert”. Voiced by Depp, Rango, a pet chameleon with a crooked neck, has his world turned upside down by a highway collision. His tank goes flying, the screen spins, and your jaw fairly drops, thanks to the off-kilter directing ideas of Gore Verbinski.
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