The best movies on Amazon Prime Video (December 2024)

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story director Gareth Edwards broke his long hiatus between films to return to cinemas with The Creator. In this vision of the future, the world is divided over A.I. beings, which are embraced by the East and despised by Western nations. Sergeant Joshua Taylor (John David Washington) has lost a lot to this conflict, including family members, body parts, and his wife, Maya (Gemma Chan).

Taylor is drawn back into the war when he learns Nirmata, the inventor behind A.I.’s greatest achievements, has created a weapon that could lead to a decisive victory for the machines. Instead of a weapon, Taylor discovers that it resembles a young child, Alphie (Madeleine Yuna Voyles), which forces him to make a decision that will affect humanity’s entire future on Earth.

Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) looks like a man who was born to karate kick a shark. Unfortunately for Jonas, the title creature in The Meg is just a little bit too big for him to beat up. As a rescue diver, Jonas had an unexplained encounter with the previously thought-to-be-extinct megalodon shark when it murdered two members of his team.

Half a decade later, Jonas’ ex-wife, Lori (Jessica McNamee), embarks on a mission to explore a deeper part of the Mariana Trench. Unfortunately, Lori and her team are trapped in the trench after an attack by the Meg. Jonas is recruited to rescue Lori. However, his team has much bigger problems on their hands in the trench when the Meg goes on the attack. Once the Meg finishes decimating their ranks, it will hunt for more humans.

Snack Shack is a coming-of-age comedy set in 1991. A.J. Carter (Conor Sherry) and his friend, Moose Miller (Gabriel LaBelle), are 14-year-olds whose schemes to get money almost always backfire on them. At least until they hit upon the idea of running the local Snack Shack for the summer.

Their bond of friendship is tested when A.J. meets Brooke, his attractive new neighbor. Because Moose makes the first move on Brooke, this creates tension between him and A.J., who isn’t willing to simply back off. As Brooke begins to reciprocate A.J.’s feelings, his friendship and lucrative partnership with Moose may come crashing down.

Bob Marley: One Love is a music biopic that takes place late in the life of reggae superstar Bob Marley (Kingsley Ben-Adir). After Bob and his wife, Rita Marley (The Marvels actress Lashana Lynch), narrowly survive an assassination attempt in his native Jamaica, it sends him into a creative tailspin that threatens to derail his dreams.

Before Bob can resume his message of peace, he has to face his own inner demons and work out his issues with Rita. Bob Marley didn’t have a lot of time in this world, but the film shows that he made the most of what he had and left a lasting legacy of music behind.

If you’re looking for a movie with Oscar buzz, The Beekeeper isn’t one of those films. But it is a Jason Statham action flick that lives up to everything you may expect to see from it. Statham plays Adam Clay, a former member of a secretive organization called the Beekeepers and an actual beekeeper.

Adam is content in his retirement until his friend and landlady, Eloise Parker (Phylicia Rashad), is taken for everything she has by scammers. Eloise commits suicide rather than live with the shame of having allowed her charity foundation to be robbed of millions. Adam vows revenge, and his bloody path of retribution puts him on opposite sides of the CIA and his former colleagues in the Beekeepers.

The best movie of 2023 is now the best movie on Prime Video. Director and screenwriter Christopher Nolan will have a hard time topping the flick that finally won two Oscars for him. Because Oppenheimer not only lived up to the hype, it’s the kind of film that will likely endure for decades to come.

Cillian Murphy gives an Oscar-winning performance as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the man who was instrumental in putting together the team that built the atomic bomb. Nolan’s narrative jumps back and forth to different years in Oppenheimer’s life, including an attempt by Rear Admiral Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) to destroy his reputation. Yet nothing will hit Oppenheimer harder than the full weight of the atomic destruction that he unleashed upon the world.

The irony of the premise of The Idea of You is that the romantic entanglement of Solène Marchand (Eileen‘s Anne Hathaway) with boy band lead singer Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitzine) would probably be more of a fantasy for Solène’s daughter, Izzy (Ella Rubin), than for Solène herself. But one unplanned encounter between Solène and Hayes soon leads to several others.

There is an age gap between Solène and Hayes that does come up in the film, but the bigger issue between them is the celebrity gap. As long as Hayes is a world-famous musician, he and Solène may never be able to enjoy a normal romance without being hounded by the press.

Minions: The Rise of Gru is the origin story of Despicable Me’s main character, Gru (Steve Carell), but probably not in the way that you expect. In the 1970s, Kevin, Stuart, Bob, and the rest of the Minions (Pierre Coffin) have all latched on to Gru as their new master. Gru himself has ambitions of being the biggest supervillain in the world so he can join the Vicious 6.

Unfortunately for Gru, his attempts to join the most notorious gang of bad guys spectacularly backfires, which turns his idols in the Vicious 6 into his deadliest enemies. To defeat them, Gru and the Minions will have to turn to the Vicious 6’s former leader, Wild Knuckles (Alan Arkin).