While Amazon doesn’t release as many new movies as some of its competitors, the service has a pretty extensive library of titles that are worth exploring. These titles range from excellent foreign films that might have flown under the radar to underrated movies from some of the best directors to ever sit behind a camera.
If you’re looking for something less expected as you scroll through Amazon Prime Video, then you’re in the right place. We’ve picked out three underrated movies that are definitely worth checking out on the service and are perfect weekend watches.
A Hero (2021)
Director Asghar Farhadi is a master of telling the stories about small-scale moral dilemmas that feel like they have very weighty implications. In A Hero, a debtor is released from prison in the hopes that he will be able to settle his debts. When he is released, though, he inadvertently becomes a local hero because he commits a good deed (sort of), and the media picks up on his story.
The way the story twists and bends from there is worth discovering for yourself, as A Hero paints a complex portrait of people who are just trying their best to keep their heads above water.
You can watch A Hero on Amazon Prime Video.
Love & Friendship (2016)
A brilliant and devious comedy of manners from one of the masters of the genre, Jane Austen, Love & Friendship stars Kate Beckinsale as Lady Susan Vernon, a woman who has come up with an elaborate plan to marry off her oldest daughter. While the machinations of Love & Friendship are fun to track, what really makes the movie sing is its willingness to lean into the sheer absurdity of the era in which its set.
Love & Friendship may seem like a very serious, important movie, but if you dig beneath the top layer, you’ll find that it’s one of the silliest movies of the past decade.
You can watch Love & Friendship on Amazon Prime Video.
Bad Lieutenant (1992)
You wouldn’t necessarily think that we need another story about a crooked cop, but Bad Lieutenant is really the epitome of the form. Following a New York City police officer who keeps putting himself in worse and worse positions, the movie is really about just how much a badge allows you to get away with.
Harvey Keitel delivers one of the best performances of his storied career in the central role, and the movie itself is an important reexamination of rogue cops. It seems to say that there may be far more bad lieutenants out there than there are avenging angels.
You can watch Bad Lieutenant on Amazon Prime Video.
