17 Must-Watch Movies on Amazon Prime Video Right Now (June 2025)

Barley Blair (Sean Connery) is the head of a British book publisher who travels to Moscow for work. He gets more than he bargained for when Katya (Michelle Pfeiffer) gives him a manuscript that turns out to be a top-secret document detailing Russia’s nuclear war plans. Barley is then pulled into an international conspiracy involving MI6, the CIA and the KGB, who all want the document for their own purposes. He also falls in love with Katya, who risked her life to give him a document that could land him in jail — or worse. Can Barley find a way out of this mess without losing his life?

The Russia House is a fascinating snapshot of Cold War culture when the Iron Curtain still existed and spies were seemingly everywhere. (Well, at least in the movies.) The film has a complicated plot, but it’s a pleasure to follow when you have Connery and Pfeiffer to look at. They make an odd yet pleasing romantic couple, and their love story gives the movie’s thrilling spy story its beating heart.

Alex Claremont-Diaz (Taylor Zakhar Perez) hates Henry (Nicholas Galitzine). That’s a big problem, since Alex is the son of the U.S. president (Uma Thurman) and Henry is heir to the British throne. They need to get along so Alex’s mom can finish a trade deal with Britain that’s key to her re-election campaign, but what no one expected was for them to fall in love with each other. Now they have an even bigger problem to solve, and it’s not clear there’s any solution.

Based on a popular YA novel by Casey McQuiston, Red, White & Royal Blue is better than you might think. While it never strays too far from its opposites-attract rom-com formula, it executes it just about perfectly. Perez and Galitzine have genuine chemistry with one another, which helps sell the dramatic stakes toward the end. You actually want their ridiculously gorgeous and obscenely wealthy characters to get everything they want, and you can’t help but smile when they do.

Every day is Rex Manning Day when you watch Empire Records. For the uninitiated, Rex Manning (Max Caulfield) is a fictional has-been ‘80s pop star visiting the titular business, which is staffed largely by teenagers and young adults who seem to do everything but their jobs. When irresponsible employee Lucas (Rory Cochrane) gambles away $10,000 of the store’s money, it’s up to his coworkers and exasperated manager Joe (Anthony LaPaglia) to raise the cash in time or else the store closes forever.

There’s not much of a plot in Empire Records; instead, it’s pretty much all vibes, grunge-era tunes and jokey humor that doesn’t rise above the high school level. Somehow, it all works, and the movie’s stacked before-they-were-stars cast, which includes Renee Zellweger and Liv Tyler, lends it considerable charm. Empire Records is endlessly rewatchable because as soon as it’s over, you pretty much forget all about it. In this case, that’s a good thing.

It’s hard to believe it’s been almost 30 years since the original Mission: Impossible exploded into theaters. The original movie hasn’t aged a bit, though, and that’s due to its international cast that includes Vanessa Redgrave, Kristin Scott Thomas, Jon Voight and Ving Rhames, still-impressive special effects that ask you to believe a helicopter can fly through a tunnel while tied to a speeding train and a fun story that really doesn’t make any sense. 

After he’s blamed for the death of his team on a mission that goes awry in Prague, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) goes into hiding and recruits other disreputable spies to help him clear his tarnished name. That’s easier said than done, as whoever engineered the plot to frame Ethan also wants him dead. Ethan’s rogue IMF team must find the culprit and restore his reputation before it’s too late.

It’s been five years since Stephanie (Anna Kendrick) last saw her former BFF Emily (Blake Lively), who went to prison for her crimes. So it’s a bit of a shock for her to see Emily waltz into her book reading and ask her to be her maid of honor at her upcoming wedding in Capri. How can Stephanie resist a free vacation and more material for a future bestseller?  But is Emily truly reformed, or is she just plotting revenge on the woman who took everything away from her?

Another Simple Favor has just enough of the same off-kilter humor that made the original such a treat back in 2018. Lively and Kendrick are a good comedic duo, and the movie’s twisty story is entertaining enough to keep you glued to the screen. 

It’s not often a sequel outshines its predecessor, but Babe: Pig in the City did just that when it was released in late 1998. Audiences rejected it, but it has since become a cult classic due to its incredible visuals and stylized direction from Mad Max auteur George Miller (Furiosa).

When the talking pig Babe travels with his owner Esme (Magda Szubanski) to Metropolis, he’s so overwhelmed by the experience that he gets separated from her. Lost and all alone, Babe must find his way back to Esme to leave the city, and the only way to do that is to team up with other animals, including a trio of chimpanzees and a disabled Jack Russell Terrier. Will Babe ever find his way back home?

Evelyn (Kathy Bates) is a lonely housewife who meets Ninny (Jessica Tandy) while visiting a family member at a nursing home. They hit it off immediately, and the two women bond over Ninny’s tall tale about two Southern women, Idgie (Mary Stuart Masterson) and Ruth (Mary-Louise Parker), in 1930s Alabama. Evelyn soon gains inspiration from Ninny’s stories, but she realizes that her elderly friend may be telling her more about her own life than a fictional story with made-up characters.

Based on Fannie Flagg’s bestselling book Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, this 1991 movie is a surprisingly moving portrait of female friendship in two very different time periods. The four female leads all give terrific performances, and the movie has a terrific sense of time and place — you can almost feel the heat and sweat of its Deep South setting. The movie’s excellent supporting cast includes a young Chris O’Donnell as Idgie’s doomed brother and veteran actress Cicely Tyson as a woman you wouldn’t want to mess with.

“Are you not entertained?” Russell Crowe memorably asked in the first Gladiator all those years ago. That question pops up again in the sequel, and the answer is a muted “kinda.” Gladiator II isn’t perfect, and it fails to match the raw muscular power of its predecessor, but it’s still mostly entertaining and has one of Denzel Washington’s most enjoyable performances ever.

Decades after Maximus Meridius’ death, his exiled son Lucius (Paul Mescal) follows in his father’s footsteps and seeks revenge on the powerful people who killed his wife. But his need for vengeance will bring him back to a home he has never known and a mother (Connie Nielsen) who abandoned him to protect him. Can Lucius fulfil his destiny while also satisfying his need to honor the family he lost?

Pope Francis died on Easter Monday and the whole world is in mourning. But what happens after a pope passes and a new successor must be chosen? That’s the central theme behind Conclave, a critically acclaimed 2024 movie that won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.   

Cardinal Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) oversees a conclave of the world’s best priests to determine who will be the next pope. But surprising revelations and intense political campaigning threaten to derail the process, and Thomas must decide who is telling the truth and who just wants to be chosen to fulfil their personal ambitions.

Conclave is an intense drama, an amusing black comedy and a surprise thriller, too. Selecting the next pope doesn’t sound particularly suspenseful, but director Edward Berger milks enough thrills from the material to make it an absorbing and fun movie to watch. The cast is superb, with Fiennes and Isabella Rossellini both terrific as quiet members of the church who hold more power and influence than most of their peers realize.

Rachel Flax (Cher) is one of those mothers all the other wives disapprove of and every husband lusts after. At least, that’s what her daughter Charlotte (Winona Ryder) thinks, especially when they move to a small town in Massachusetts and the spotlight is on them. Rachel and Charlotte don’t get along, but they’ll need each other as both women encounter unexpected romance and heartbreak in early 1960s America.

Mermaids is a low-key charmer, a “small” movie that prefers to concentrate on its central mother/daughter relationship rather than a plot. When the climax of a movie involves someone slapping another person hard in the face, you know you’re watching a good melodrama. Cher won an Oscar three years earlier for Moonstruck, but she’s even better as the always loving, slightly irresponsible Rachel. Look for a young Christina Ricci as Charlotte’s swimming-obsessed little sister and Bob Hoskins as Rachel’s ardent suitor.

Tashi (Zendaya) is a former tennis player who is the wife and coach of Art (Mike Faist), a Grand Slam champion who has one last shot at glory. He enters a minor league challenger tournament to regain his mojo, and the couple quickly realizes that Art’s former friend and rival and Tashi’s ex-lover, Patrick (Josh O’Connor), is competing as well. Will Art and Patrick renew their rivalry during the tournament? And does Tashi still have feelings for the man she once loved?

Challengers is impressive on many levels: it features a great trio of performances by its three lead stars, the score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is a genuine banger, and it makes minor league tennis somehow interesting to watch. But its greatest achievement is being one of the horniest movies ever made while not having any explicit sex scenes at all. But what else would you expect from Luca Guadagnino, a director who is always concerned with how desire plays out in the body and the mind?

In this superb prequel to the first two A Quiet Place movies, we finally find out how the initial invasion of Earth by those noise-sensitive aliens began. Lupita Nyong’o is Sam, a cynical woman with terminal cancer who travels to New York City with her pet cat, Frodo. Once there, aliens begin to destroy downtown Manhattan, forcing Sam to team up with others, including Joseph Quinn’s law student Eric, to survive the onslaught. Can they leave the island and seek sanctuary from their otherworldly invaders before it’s too late?

A Quiet Place: Day One is the rare prequel that’s actually better than its sister movies. There’s plenty of action, with a sequence set in the subway that ranks as an all-timer, but it’s the quieter moments that make the movie truly special. Director Michael Sarnoski previously helmed the character study Pig with Nicolas Cage, and his sensitive touch is evident even when his characters are fleeing from slimy CGI creatures.

Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling) is the best there is at what he does: getting beaten up. As one of Hollywood’s best stuntmen, he’s been crashing cars and falling off buildings for years. Yet lately, the jobs have dried up, and he’s desperate for work. When his ex-girlfriend, film director Gail Meyer (Emily Blunt), hires him for her new action movie, Colt thinks his fortunes have changed. But when the film’s lead star, Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), mysteriously disappears one day, it’s up to Colt to find out what happened to him.

Based on a long-forgotten 1980s TV series, The Fall Guy is a breezy, lightweight action-comedy that recalls Romancing the Stone and Bird on a Wire. Gosling and Blunt have indelible chemistry together, and the stunts are appropriately impressive. It’s the rare movie that will please both rom-com purists and action movie bros.

There’s a moment early on in The Bikeriders when Kathy (Jodie Comer), the film’s lead female character, gazes at Austin Butler’s impossibly handsome, cool guy Benny across a pool hall and is rendered speechless. Cathy is all of us in that moment. The Bikeriders tells the story of the Vandals Motorcycle Club, a gang of men and women in too-tight T-shirts and shiny black leather who roam the American Midwest on their bikes.

Their leader is Johnny (Tom Hardy), but Kathy only has eyes for Benny (you can’t blame her), and soon the two engage in a love affair. Over the years, the gang grows in size but also becomes more violent, and Benny and Kathy’s relationship is tested by Benny’s loyalty to his chopper crew.

The Bikeriders doesn’t have much of a plot, but its chief pleasure lies in watching cool dudes ride around in sweet rides across a picturesque 1960s America. Hardy is right at home as a sweet tough guy, but it’s Butler who impresses the most. As the elusive Benny, he’s got charisma to burn, and you understand why Kathy is drawn to him even though he’s bad news. Rebellion never looked so good.

Elliott (Maisy Stella) is at a crossroads. She’s about to leave for college and is in a casual relationship with another girl, Chelsea (Alexandria Rivera). One night, she takes some psychedelic mushrooms with her friends and hallucinates a future version of herself, Older Elliott (Aubrey Plaza). Proving she’s the real thing, Older Elliott cryptically tells her younger self three things: spend more time with your family, appreciate the farm that you grew up in and avoid a boy named Chad. She disappears, but leaves her number in younger Elliott’s phone.

That’s the far-out premise of My Old Ass, a comedy that isn’t ashamed to be sentimental. Elliott doesn’t exactly believe anything her future self says at first, but gradually, she finds herself growing closer to her family. Chad eventually appears, and it’s in this development that My Old Ass reveals itself as an effective tearjerker in disguise. Plaza is great as always; if everyone grew up to be like Older Elliott, we’d all be OK.

Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is a world-famous detective, but he may have found the one case that’s stumped even him. Famous mystery author Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) is found dead one morning with his throat cleanly slit but no other signs of foul play. Ruled a suicide by the police, Harlan’s death is suspicious enough for Blanc to investigate.

As he interviews members of the Thrombey household, which includes ne’er-do-well grandson Hugh (Chris Evans), sleazy son-in-law Richard (Don Johnson), dotty daughter-in-law Joni (Toni Collette) and kind-hearted nurse Marta (Ana de Armas), Blanc soon realizes this mystery runs deeper than he thought. Can he catch Harlan’s killer in time to prevent another murder?

A big hit when it was released in 2019, Knives Out has already spawned a sequel, Glass Onion, in 2022, and a third one, Wake Up Dead Man, is due for release in 2025. Nothing can touch the original, though, with writer/director Rian Johnson clearly having a ball weaving a mystery yarn worthy of Agatha Christie. Everyone in the cast has their moment to shine, and the ending is just about perfect.

Bridget Gregory (Linda Fiorentino) is a New Yorker you don’t want to cross. A con woman who makes her living selling fake coins to unsuspecting people over the phone, Bridget steals her crooked dentist husband’s drug money and hides away in a small town upstate. Bridget’s not one to rest on her laurels, and soon, she seduces local dumb hunk Mike (Peter Berg) in an elaborate insurance scam that will pad her pockets and allow Mike to leave his hometown forever. But Bridget’s past catches up with her fast, and Mike soon finds himself in over his head in a way he never imagined.

One of the greatest neo-noirs ever made, The Last Seduction hasn’t aged a bit, even though it’s three decades old and was initially released as a cable movie on HBO. The movie is tough and unsentimental, and it features one of the best female performances ever from Fiorentino. As the calculating Bridget, she’s always one step ahead of everyone, and that includes the audience. You keep expecting her to let up, to show some kind of humanity, and she never does. Bridget’s rotten to the core, and it’s fun watching her be so very bad.