Mike Cheslik and Olivia Graves star in the 2022 comedy/action film ‘Hundreds of Beavers.’
Amazon
Whenever I write an article like this, highlighting the most critically acclaimed movies on streaming platforms, I’m struck by the eclecticism of the selections. I usually focus on Netflix, but this time around I went with Amazon Prime Video, and my amazement was no different. Yes, there are recent award winners and modern box-office hits, but sprinkled among them you’ll find low-budget indies, long-forgotten classics, and festival gems that critics adored but largely missed by audiences. That’s the beauty of these lists: they remind us how much great cinema slips through the cracks—and how Amazon Prime’s lineup offers cinephiles the chance to discover movies that critics nearly unanimously agreed belong in the “best of the best” category.
Below you’ll find ten films now streaming on Amazon Prime that came close to achieving a perfect 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes, with every movie owning at least 85 reviews (and often much more than that). Each section offers a spoiler-free plot summary along with a trailer, some context on its stars and creators, and a look at why critics were so impressed.
The Most Critically Acclaimed Movies On Amazon Prime
Let the Right One In (2008)
192 reviews — 98% approval rating
It doesn’t always work out when a novel writer tries his hand at the adapted screenplay—Cormac McCarthy (for The Counselor), Stephen King (Maximum Overdrive) and Norman Mailer (Tough Guys Don’t Dance) were all lambasted by critics. But then again, people like Gillian Flynn (for Gone Girl), Emma Donoghue (Room) and John Irving (The Cider House Rules) help us believe it can be done—oh, and let us not forget about John Ajvide Lindqvist, who wrote the screenplay for the critically adored Let the Right One In. The story follows 12-year-old Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) in Stockholm, where he lives in a bleak suburban apartment complex, where he is bullied at school, where he’s emotionally neglected at home. But everything changes one winter night when he meets a pale and peculiar girl next door named Eli (Lina Leandersson). As their friendship grows, so does Oskar’s suspicion that something is up—and he’s right. Eli is a vampire, and she’s spreading panic throughout town. The film’s slow-burn structure, its emotional minimalism, its still camerawork and composed framing and bleak color palette—everything about Let the Right One In rewards those who are patient with its quiet soundscape, subtextual direction and lived-in sadness. Ultimately, this critically adored movie uses its vampiric hunger to mirror emotional hunger: the need for understanding, companionship and acceptance.
Blow the Man Down (2019)
123 reviews — 99% approval rating
So much about Blow the Man Down reminds me of A24’s stellar lineup: genre-bending with a female perspective (The VVitch, Lady Bird, Zola); using isolation as atmosphere (The Lighthouse, The Green Knight, It Comes at Night); matriarchal power and hidden systems (Hereditary, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Pearl)—the list goes on. This criminally overlooked thriller won critics over, but, seemingly lost in a sea of Amazon Prime releases, it never quite gripped the cinematic zeitgeist. So if you haven’t seen it, now’s your chance. The plot revolves around sisters Mary Beth (Morgan Saylor) and Priscilla Connolly (Sophie Lowe), who find themselves struggling to keep their family fishing business afloat in Easter Cove, Maine, after their mother suddenly passes. And things only get worse when Mary Beth’s violent encounter with a stranger ends in murder. The sisters try to dispose of the body and erase the evidence, but their journey reveals some deeper, darker secrets about their community. From there, they are forced to deal with an aging group of matriarchs (June Squibb, Annette O’Toole and Marceline Hugot) who covertly run the town—not to mention the cold and calculating brothel manager Enid (Margo Martindale). Written and directed by Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy, this modern noir with a feminine twist features atmospheric camerawork and framing, as well as an enrapturing score by Jordan Dykstra and Brian McOmber, blending eerie strings with maritime folk. The grounded but stylized performances from Lowe and Saylor are great, but Martindale, whose menacing power anchors the town’s moral rot, steals the show.
Short Term 12 (2013)
174 reviews — 98% approval rating
The conception and production of Short Term 12 should give inspiration to any and all aspiring independent filmmakers: originally a short film by director Destin Daniel Cretton, who adapted the script by drawing on real-life experience working in a group home for troubled youth, this small project went on to win a Jury Prize at Sundance in 2008 and eventually became a small-budget feature film shot in just 20 days. The result is one of the highest rated movies on Rotten Tomatoes, a film that starred someone who would eventually go on to win an Oscar for Best Actress. The film follows Grace (Brie Larson), a compassionate but emotionally guarded supervisor who works at a shelter for at-risk teens alongside her boyfriend and co-worker Mason (John Gallagher Jr.). As she tries to maintain order, a recent arrival named Jayden (Kaitlyn Dever) suddenly forces Grace to confront unresolved trauma from her own past. At the same time, resident Marcus (LaKeith Stanfield) approaches his 18th birthday, and grapples with the fear of aging out of the system. This collage of humanity doesn’t rely on plot twists or melodrama but thrives on its hard-boiled aesthetic, its episodic structure, its intimate approach. Shot with a documentary-style handheld camera by cinematographer Brett Pawlak, Short Term 12 embraces subtle shakiness and natural movement to immerse the viewer in the everyday rhythms of the group home. The result is a universal film about the cyclicality of trauma and healing, about how people who’ve experienced trauma often choose to help others rather than confront their own pain—and the toll that can take.
Hundreds of Beavers (2024)
108 reviews — 97% approval rating
It is a seemingly impossible task to describe the ridiculous plot and bouncing-off-the-walls energy of Hundreds of Beavers without sounding like I’m making it up—but here we go: it’s a black-and-white film, a nearly dialogue-free, slapstick epic about a fur trapper battling a literal army of cartoonishly homicidal beavers in some snowy wilderness. And yet, somehow, just about every critic on Rotten Tomatoes agrees…it’s brilliant, unlike anything we’ve ever seen before—like Looney Tunes collided with a silent Buster Keaton-esque film, then got filtered through the brain of someone who’s watched Evil Dead II a hundred times. Which means you cannot miss it if you’re an Amazon Prime subscriber. The guy (some call him a comedic genius) at the center of such an extravaganza—Ryland Brickson Cole Tews, who co-wrote the film alongside director Mike Cheslik—absolutely throws his entire body (literally) into every scene, getting slammed by logs, flung across trees, buried in snow, chased by animals that are clearly people in beaver suits. And, no, it never gets old. What’s wild is that beneath the chaos, such a wild experiment is tightly crafted—the physical gags escalate like clockwork; there’s structure, rhythm, actual build; and it’s “dumb” in the smartest possible way. Above all else the commitment is next level. There’s no winking, no irony. Everyone involved is fully bought in, and that’s what makes it work. I don’t know how a movie as absurd as Hundreds of Beavers ends up feeling kind of beautiful, but it does. It’s handmade chaos, and it absolutely rules.
The Wailing (2016)
85 reviews — 99% approval rating
Few South Korean movies have sparked the sort of discussion we see surrounding The Wailing, a film whose sprawling structure and tonal shifts constantly keep you on your feet, guessing all the way up to its absolutely eye-popping ending; it’s the kind of film that seemingly sparks more questions than provides answers, leading people to watch it over and over again hoping to decipher its murky, complicated depths. This horror film from director Na Hong-jin is set in a quiet rural village in South Korea, where bumbling police officer Jong-goo (Kwak Do-won) goes about his everyday work in a humdrum manner. But everything changes when a string of gruesome killings—which grow increasingly bizarre, with victims covered in rashes and found in deranged, violent states—involves his young daughter Hyo-jin (Kim Hwan-hee). Before long, Jong-goo finds himself caught in a chaotic, demonic web that involves a mysterious Japanese man (Jun Kunimura), a ghostly woman dressed in white (Chun Woo-Hee) and a shaman hired to protect the village (Hwang Jung-min). The Wailing’s barrage of technically fantastic work—from cinematographer Hong Kyung-pyo’s (who also shot Parasite) naturalistic lighting with sudden eruptions of surreal imagery, to composer Jang Young-gyu’s ritualistic percussion and eerie ambient textures, to Do-won’s performance—part heroic, part insecure and volatile—turn this film into a classic modern horror flick that stands above the rest.
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
97 reviews — 98% approval rating
As somebody who’s seen thousands of movies, who considers themselves a cinephile who’s seen all the “important” movies of our time, I quietly (and shamefully) went about my movie-loving life carrying a dark secret: I had never seen The Best Years of Our Lives. I will be honest, I was turned off by an overly long (nearly 180 minutes), old-school prestige drama—important, sure, but likely a bit stiff—that was only remembered because of all the Academy Awards it won (seven in total, including Best Picture). But boy did I feel like a fool afterwards, as I ended up getting hit with something way more intimate and emotionally raw than I expected. This examination of the human condition from director William Wyler (who won Best Director for the film) follows three World War II veterans who return to Boone City and try to adjust to civilian life in totally different ways. There’s Fred Derry (Dana Andrews), a bombardier who comes home to a crumbling marriage and a dead-end job, only to discover a new love via Peggy Stephenson (Theresa Wright); there’s Peggy’s father, Al Stephenson (Fredric March, who won Best Actor), an Army sergeant who comes back to his family (his wife, Milly, is played by the great Myrna Loy) and drowns himself in alcohol; and finally there’s Homer Parrish (Harold Russell, who won Best Supporting Actor), a Navy man who lost both hands in the war and struggles to accept the love and empathy of his fiancée Wilma (Cathy O’Donnell). The Best Years of Our Lives doesn’t try to dramatize their pain with big speeches—it just sits with them, watches them navigate birthday parties, job interviews, bar conversations and all the little moments where you realize the world moved on without you.
The Big Sick (2017)
306 reviews — 98% approval rating
If we’re going to call The Big Sick a “romantic comedy,” then we need to include some qualifiers—because it’s so much more than that. Yes it stars very funny people (from newcomers like Kumail Nanjiani and Zoe Kazan, to established veterans like Ray Romano and Holly Hunter), and yes it has a situational, almost absurd scenario involving love, and yes its pacing and structure draws out such a love story in familiar fashion. But, if anything, it’s more of a “coma drama” (à la While You Were Sleeping) that lays into a very relatable existential dilemma about how weird and fragile people are when love gets complicated. As somebody who lived out a less stylized version of this movie’s plot, Kumail Nanjiani (who wrote the movie alongside his wife, Emily V. Gordon, about their romance) plays himself, a stand-up comic in Chicago who falls for Emily (Kazan, subbing for Gordon). And they’re great together—until they very much aren’t. Kumail is hiding her from his Pakistani family, who keep inviting women over like it is speed dating night, until Emily finds out and understandably bails. Then she gets sick—like, very sick—and suddenly he’s caught in a bizarre limbo where he’s technically her ex but also the guy sitting by her hospital bed, bonding with her parents (Hunter and Romano). A knee-jerk reaction might force us to believe an entire movie where the love interest is unconscious can’t work—but it does. It’s honest, it’s awkward, and it hits this rhythm where it’s funny even when it really shouldn’t be. It’s not flashy, just incredibly revealing and personal. And that makes it feel real. Like someone actually lived this—which, of course, they did.
L.A. Confidential (1997)
166 reviews — 99% approval rating
As a lover of film noir, which I think is the most revealing genre Hollywood ever produced, L.A. Confidential is the sort of neo-noir that makes me believe in the power of modern film. It’s one of those movies that starts like it’s just gonna be a slick, stylish noir throwback—and then, about halfway through, you realize it’s actually doing something way heavier. Set in 1950s Los Angeles, this classic from Curtis Hanson (who also directed 8 Mile and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle) follows three cops working the same case for totally different reasons: you’ve got Ed Exley (Guy Pearce), the by-the-book golden boy who wants to rise through the ranks without getting his hands dirty; then there’s the all-muscle, barely-contained Bud White (Russell Crowe) who rages against men who hurt women; and finally we’ve got Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey), a man more interested in fame and celebrity than actual police work. They all end up circling a diner massacre that, as it turns out, is way more than a botched robbery. There’s corruption, cover-ups, a tabloid journalist (Danny DeVito) whispering in people’s ears, and a Veronica Lake lookalike named Lynn (Kim Basinger, who won an Oscar for her performance) who’s caught in the middle of everything. It’s twisty, but never confusing. And every time you think you know who the good guy is? The movie shifts. Honestly, L.A. Confidential could’ve gone full cartoon with all the noir tropes, but it doesn’t. It keeps digging. Everyone’s compromised. Everyone bleeds. And once the dust clears, the mystery is overshadowed by all the broken people left in its wake.
Knives Out (2019)
472 reviews — 97% approval rating
Knives Out ranks among movies like Mad Max: Fury Road (which sports a 97% rating from 439 reviews) as one of the most critically revered movies on Rotten Tomatoes–period. Of all movies ever, few have maintained such a high score from so many reviews. It’s one of those movies where you think you understand it all, that you’re keeping three paces ahead of the proceedings, only for everything to be flipped on its head, forcing you to catch up (hint: you never do). This whodunnit opens like an old-school murder mystery, with a rich family, a big creepy house and a dead patriarch. But then Rian Johnson (a renowned director who started with small projects like Brick before catapulting to big-budget projects like Star Wars: The Last Jedi) immediately throws in a twist, and suddenly the question isn’t “who did it?” but instead “how the heck could this enigma possibly unravel?” Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc—complete with a Foghorn Leghorn accent—is a total delight, wandering around like he’s in a different movie, and somehow still always aware of everything going on around him. But the real heart of the film is Ana de Armas as Marta, the nurse who’s caught in the middle of all this chaos, who tries not to vomit (literally) every time she lies (yes, that’s a plot point, and yes, it totally works). The family members are cartoons in the best way, as dynamite stars like Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Toni Collette and Chris Evans chew scenery like it’s a buffet. Knives Out could’ve been a smug, disingenuous movie, but instead it’s sharp and generous, and much more interested in justice than just clever reveals.
The Sound of Metal (2020)
287 reviews — 97% approval rating
The production story behind Sound of Metal makes you believe in the power of movies, fills your heart with affection—that is, until you actually watch it, which is when your heart is thoroughly abused by such a heart-wrenching story. Alongside his brother Abraham Marder, Darius Marder co-wrote Sound of Metal, a film that was kept in development for years as Darius Marder insisted on casting a Muslim actor for the central character and using real members of the deaf community in key roles. Ultimately, now bona fide superstar Riz Ahmed (who earned an Oscar nomination for his performance) learned to play drums and studied ASL for months in preparation for the role. Ruben is an intense metal drummer who lives on the road with his girlfriend Lou. But before long his hearing begins to disappear, leading him down a panicked trail of denial, anger and desperation. And the film drops you right into his head. Like, you literally hear what he hears—and doesn’t hear. It’s disorienting and claustrophobic and, as its six Oscar nominations (including Best Picture) signal, totally brilliant. He ends up in a sober living community for deaf recovering addicts. It is run by Joe (Paul Raci, the soul of this movie), and it’s where Ruben starts to slow down and learn to live with his condition. But the whole time he’s still clinging to this idea of fixing it, of getting back to “before,” which is ultimately the tension of the entire movie. Told almost entirely from Ruben’s perspective, with no flashbacks or subplots, we are tethered to his ever-evolving psychological state. By the time the credits roll, Sound of Metal avoids all of the tired clichés that typically come from this sort of low-budget undertaking, and achieves something more introspective and, much like the hardest and most profound journeys in life, unresolved.