What’s a good movie to watch? That question is hard to answer, but an easy way to find what’s worth your time is by using Rotten Tomatoes.
The site aggregates critic scores from around the world and assigns a percentage. Anything above 80 percent is considered good, so Watch With Us has curated a list of the best Amazon Prime Video movies, ranked by RT scores of 80 percent or higher.
July’s list includes a classic Robin Williams comedy, a recent Oscar-winning drama and a ’90s crime thriller starring Kim Basinger.
‘L.A. Confidential’ (1997)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 99 percent
In 1950s Los Angeles, crime is kept under control by a police department that is as efficient as it is corrupt. Rookie detective Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) is eager to move up in the ranks and turns a blind eye to some of his colleagues’ amoral actions. But when a shootout at a diner leaves several people dead, Exley, along with brutish veteran cop Bud White (Russell Crowe), is determined to find out who is behind it and why it involves the mafia and an illicit prostitution ring. But will Ed’s quest for justice put him and Bud in danger?
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L.A. Confidential is a terrific crime movie that plays like a thematic sequel to the 1974 classic, Chinatown. Both involve detectives uncovering massive corruption in the city’s institutions of power, but L.A. Confidential’s cast of characters is bigger and sleazier, encompassing tabloid reporters like Danny De Vito’s opportunistic Sid Hudgens and Kim Basinger’s sex worker Lynn Bracken, who has plastic surgery to look like the Hollywood star she always wanted to be. It’s the rare studio movie that is as intelligent as it is entertaining.
‘Knives Out’ (2019)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 97 percent
Harlan Thrombrey (Christopher Plummer) is a massively successful mystery novelist who has a sprawling family eager to get their hands on his fortune. When he dies of an apparent suicide, it looks like they’ll get their wish. But famous detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) thinks Harlan was murdered, and that his caretaker, Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas), was involved. But is Marta guilty? Or is she just the perfect stooge so that the real culprit can get away with murder — as well as Harlan’s millions.
Released in the fall of 2019, Knives Out was a surprise success and birthed an unexpected franchise that continued with a sequel, 2022’s Glass Onion, with a third film, Wake Up Dead Man, set to release this year. As Blanc, Craig has a role that really shows his comedic skills and dry delivery. His Benoit is as observant as he is funny, and he’s already an iconic character that stands toe-to-toe with other famous sleuths like Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot.
‘Conclave’ (2024)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 93 percent
The Pope is dead. That’s bad enough, but now, a successor needs to be named, and that’s no easy task. Conclave dramatizes a very real process the world just witnessed earlier this year when Pope Leo XIV was chosen by a secret assortment of cardinals from around the world. In the film, Cardinal Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) is the middleman between warring factions of a divided conclave. As he listens to gossip from and about other candidates, he must choose between using that knowledge to sway the vote or keeping it to himself and watching a potentially unworthy contender take the coveted position.
Nominated for eight Oscars and winning for Best Adapted Screenplay, Conclave is the world’s unlikeliest thriller. There’s genuine suspense in seeing Lawrence talking to other priests, as well as a nun (Isabella Rossellini) who knows more than she lets on, to determine who is ahead in the conclave’s voting, who is behind and who has a shady past that might bring them all down. The ending is a shocker — you won’t see it coming, but when it does, it makes perfect sense.
‘The Birdcage’ (1996)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 85 percent
College student Val Goldman (Dan Futterman) wants to marry his classmate Barbara Keeley (Calista Flockhart), but they come from wildly different families. Val’s parents are drag performer Starina/Albert (Nathan Lane) and nightclub owner Armand (Robin Williams), while Barbara’s father is conservative senator Kevin Keeley (Gene Hackman).
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Embroiled in a scandal, Keeley wants to meet Val’s parents at their home in Miami to drum up good publicity. With his future marriage on the line, Val convinces his dads to pose as straight to temporarily appease Keely. Can Val, Albert and Armand keep up the illusion long enough for Val to marry Barbara?
The Birdcage has a lot of plot, but it also has a lot of laughs — and heart. The director, Mike Nichols, keeps things moving along at a brisk pace and deftly balances his comedy-of-errors plot with several tender moments between Armand and Albert. The result is a very funny movie that is also a moving depiction of family in all of its shapes and sizes.
‘The Ghost Writer’ (2010)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 84 percent
When a British ghostwriter (Ewan McGregor), who is only known as “the Ghost,” is offered to write the memoirs of a controversial former English prime minister, Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), he has no choice but to accept. But all the advantages of taking the assignment — the money, the prestige and a possible illicit relationship with Lang’s wife, Ruth (Olivia Williams) — melt away when he discovers Lang’s previous ghostwriter, Mike McAra, died under mysterious circumstances. Someone doesn’t want what Lang knows out there for the public to find out, and now they want the Ghost to disappear for good.
The Ghost Writer is a terrific political thriller with a twisty plot that constantly surprises you. McGregor is good as an author who quickly realizes he’s in over his head, but Brosnan steals the show as a charismatic politician who may or may not be a monster. You can never tell, and that’s what makes Brosnan’s performance so brilliant — and effective. The Ghost Writer is one of director Roman Polanski’s better late-career efforts, with an ending straight out of Chinatown.
