The 75 best movies on Amazon Prime Video (June 2022)

In this four-time Oscar-nominated adventure drama from writer/director Benh Zeitlin and co-writer Lucy Alibar, adapted from Alibar’s one-act play Juicy and Delicious, a six-year-old girl named Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) struggles to survive in the flood-ravaged Louisiana bayou region known as The Bathtub. Her father Wink’s (Dwight Henry) health is ailing and he must teach Hushpuppy how to take care of herself as her overactive imagination leads her to believe that the universe is coming apart and that mythical creatures called aurochs are coming to terrorize them. As a vicious storm approaches and the levees are threatened, Hushpuppy tries to restore the balance between nature and the universe, as well as save her father and her home. Wallis is a wunderkind in the role, and it earned her a Best Actress Academy Award nomination, making her the youngest to do so in history.

Documentary filmmaking’s power as an agent of awareness and societal change is undeniable, and those making them with passion and determination should be applauded. Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s unsettling but eye-opening documentary, Blackfish, shines a light on the controversial practice of holding killer whales in captivity, highlighting the story of one animal in particular, Tilikum, a performing Orca at SeaWorld Orland, who was responsible for the deaths of three humans between 1991 and 2010. Cowperthwaite’s documentary tracks Tilikum’s life from his capture in the wilds of Iceland (which is recalled with poignant emotion and regret by one of its participants) and advocates that Orcas are intelligent, sentient beings that should not be living in tanks and used for human entertainment. 

Amy Poehler’s stunning love letter to legendary television power couple Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz digs deep with Poehler gaining access to some never-before-seen footage of the pair to help tell the incredible story of their rise to entertainment royalty. Poehler’s documentary feels as though it’s being narrated by Lucy and Desi themselves, with the help of rare home movies and cassette audiotapes the couple made over the years, and insightful and touching interviews with, among others, their daughter Lucie Arnaz Luckinbill, Desi Arnaz Jr., Norman Lear, Carol Burnett, Charo, and Bette Midler. Lucy and Desi is a timeline of a remarkable legacy that spans from their early days in show business and their marriage, through the transition from radio to TV, the creation and explosive success of I Love Lucy and their production company, Desilu, to their eventual divorce. It even touches on the difficult period in Lucy’s life where she was accused of being a member of the Communist party. And if Poehler’s superb film isn’t enough Lucy and Desi for you, Amazon is also home to Aaron Sorkin’s excellent dramatized film Being the Ricardos, starring Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem.

Sometimes a good romantic comedy is just the kind of light fare you need for a chill weekend evening. I Want You Back is a new Amazon Original that checks all the rom-com boxes. Peter (Charlie Day) and Emma (Jenny Slate) are heartbroken strangers who meet when they’ve both just been dumped by their respective partners who have moved on. Down in the dumps, Peter and Emma become friends and commiserate over drinks, which, in pure rom-com fashion, hatches into a scheme to infiltrate and break up their exes’ new relationships and win them back. I Want You Back is a fun, edgy-at-times rom-com of “the love you’re looking for is right in front of your face” variety, but Day and Slate have great on-screen chemistry, and the film’s supporting cast, including Gina Rodriguez, Scott Eastwood, and Pete Davidson, make for a fun ride.    

In this Coen Brother’s masterpiece that spawned a whole franchise of critically-acclaimed TV seasons, Jerry Lundergaard (William H. Macy) is a sad and miserable car salesman in rural Minnesota who gets the not-so-bright idea of having his wife kidnapped so he can collect the ransom from his wealthy father-in-law. Jerry learns all-too-quickly that the henchmen he enlists — the scheming Carl (Steve Buscemi) and sociopathic Gaear (Peter Stormare) — are complete idiots, and when the plan takes a disastrous turn, Jerry spirals out of control as the sharp-as-a-tack (and pregnant) local police chief Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) zeroes in.

A film with one of the most compelling twists of all time, director Bryan Singer’s The Usual Suspects is the story of a group of hardened criminals, Hungarian mobsters, and a ghostly mastermind known as Keyser Soze, who may or may not exist. After a docked ship mysteriously explodes in San Pedro Bay killing 27 bad people, one of only two survivors, con artist Roger “Verbal” Kint (Kevin Spacey), recounts the entire story to U.S. Customs agent Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) in an LA police station. Told in flashbacks, Verbal’s story is tall, involves drugs and jewels, and includes his crew of five, including Keaton (Gabriel Byrne), McManus (Stephen Baldwin), Fenster (Benicio Del Toro), and Hockney (Kevin Pollak). “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist,” Verbal tells Kujan. But who is Keyser Soze? Is he the Devil? The Usual Suspects will have you asking the same questions.

Based on the true story of turn-of-the-century English artist Louis Wain, whose paintings and illustrations of cats depicted our feline friends with psychedelic colors and imagery that no one had ever seen in the early 1900s, prompting many to believe that Wain suffered from schizophrenia. Benedict Cumberbatch depicts the eccentric artist with power and control, but by his side as Wain descends slowly into madness is the equally-powerful Claire Foy (The Crown) as Wain’s wife Emily. It’s their deep love for one another that helps keep Wain above water during a dark time in Wain’s, and the country’s, life. “How you’ve managed to conjure images of such delight in such a dark time, I don’t know,” Wain’s boss (Toby Jones) at the Illustrated London News tells him. While not a critical darling, The Electrical Life of Louis Wain will definitely add some color to your movie night.