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Nicole Kidman, James May and Saoirse Ronan – they all take a starring role in our pick of Amazon Prime shows available to watch now. 

Saltburn

Emerald Fennell’s darkly hilarious, class-conscious thriller

Year: 2023

Certificate: 18

Watch now on Prime Video

Emerald Fennell became widely known when she took over as head writer on Killing Eve from Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Also an actress (she was Emmy-nominated as Camilla on The Crown), Fennell has since blazed a trail into Hollywood, winning an Oscar for her screenplay for 2020’s Promising Young Woman. The boldly twisty, darkly comedic thriller Saltburn is her sensational follow-up to that.

It’s the class-conscious story of Oliver, a dedicated, up-by-the-bootstraps student at Oxford who’s invited back to the estate of his laid-back, posh friend for summer. The estate is called Saltburn and it’s the kind of place you dress for dinner, and the occupants – including riveting characters played by Rosamund Pike and Richard E. Grant – are fascinated by him. We won’t say more about what comes next because this is the kind of movie you want to go into knowing as little as possible, but be prepared for the odd horrific moment among it all – and to not like anyone on screen. (131 minutes)

Expats

Nicole Kidman stars in a finely woven Hong Kong drama

Year: 2024

Certificate: 15

Watch now on Prime Video

Living in another country can be a strange and even alienating experience, especially if you’re not really allowed to have your own life. That’s the human core of this series based on the novel by Janice YK Lee, which stars Nicole Kidman as a mother and wife of a corporate high flier, trying to hold onto her identity in Hong Kong.

There’s another dimension to this. Margaret (Kidman) has lost a child and her grief about that, and the stories of the people around her (locals, friends, her husband) fill out the rest of a perspective-shifting series that jumps around a little in time, too, to build up a rounded picture of everyone’s lives, lies and motivations. Kidman’s performance is mesmerising and understated, and the show itself has the feel of an Oscar-worthy movie, but widened and deepened into a six-part series – it was adapted by Lulu Wang, the writer-director of The Farewell. (Six episodes)

 

Role Play

Kaley Cuoco and David Oyelowo star in a hitman action comedy

Year: 2024

Certificate: 15

Watch now on Prime Video

When suburban parents Emma and Dave (Kaley Cuoco and David Oyelowo) wangle a night away from their kids in the big city, they decide to indulge in a little role play. Trouble is, Emma already has a secret life – as a globetrotting international assassin – and tonight her undercover identity is about to come home to roost.

Cuoco is clearly having a ball slipping in and out of disguises as she moves from one action sequence to another, while Oyelowo makes a great befuddled foil as he realises that there’s much more to his mild-mannered missus than meets the eye. Throw in Bill Nighy as one of Emma’s fellow killers and you’ve a top-notch slice of action comedy. (100 minutes)

 

Ronnie O’Sullivan: The Edge Of Everything

Feature-length documentary charting the snooker player’s turbulent life and career

Year: 2023

Watch now on Prime Video

 Few sportspeople have quite as difficult a relationship with their chosen sport as Ronnie ‘The Rocket’ O’Sullivan. A maverick showman in a game that rewards obsession and precision, he’s struggled with depression and addiction, yet has still become one of the most successful figures in the game’s history.

This up-close-and-personal documentary not only looks back over his time in the sport since swaggering onto the scene as a cocky teenager but also tracks the star, now 47, as he contemplates both the ever-closer end of his time at the table and his 2022 quest to win a record-equalling seventh world title. It’s genuinely gripping stuff, especially as the realisation dawns that the only person capable of beating O’Sullivan might just be O’Sullivan himself. (113 minutes)

 

Australian family drama about an orphaned girl starring Sigourney Weaver

Year: 2023

Certificate: 15

Watch now on Prime Video

After her parents die in a fire, a young girl named Alice is sent off to live with her grandmother June (Sigourney Weaver) on a remote flower farm. As Alice grows into a young woman, the ladies who run the farm all try to protect her from life’s harsh realities, but those attempts come to nothing when she falls in love with a charismatic and dangerous man.

Intensely atmospheric and passionate, this seven-part drama comes to life as questions about Alice’s past and the fire that killed her parents bubble to the surface. (Seven episodes)

The Great

Outrageous historical comedy drama starring Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult

Year: 2020

Certificate: 18

Watch now on Prime Video

Paying a glorious minimum of attention to historical fact, this darkly funny and frequently outrageous comedy drama charts the rise of Catherine the Great (Elle Fanning) from reluctant bride of the barking and dangerous Peter III (Nicholas Hoult) to sole ruler of Russia.

Full of plots, schemes and raunchy comedy, it’s a fantastic Blackadder-esque confection of beautiful period costumes, slapstick and very black humour. The first two series saw Fanning and Hoult nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress/Actor in a Comedy Series at the Emmys and this third shows no dip in quality as the chirpy Catherine continues to plot to remove Peter from power and drag Russia kicking and screaming into the light of the 18th century. The Great is based on a play by Tony McNamara, who was also behind the similar 2018 movie The Favourite – and the very dissimilar Aussie medical romcom series The Heart Guy. (Three series, Lionsgate+ via Amazon Prime Video)

James May: Our Man In India

Former Top Gear host’s jolly 3,000-mile South Asian odyssey

Year: 2024

Certificate: 12

Watch now on Prime Video

He toured Japan and Italy in the first two series of his intrepid travelogue for Amazon, but India is a much larger proposition than those two nations. This time, May will be going from west to east on a 3,000-mile odyssey across India, from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal. He’s been to the country before but still requires a bit of help making his way around, and that initially comes in the form of stand-up comedian Aditi Mittal, who serves as his ‘cultural bodyguard’ – which, in this case, means taking him to a comedy club in Mumbai and getting all of her fellow comics to pick on him.

That sets the jovial tone for a enjoyably chaotic show that manages to inform as it entertains you. Some moments are just funny, though, mostly those in which James is dropped in way over his head and left to make his way politely through the fallout. If the ex-Top Gear man ever decided to turn his hand to sketch comedy, he’d make a great straight man. (Three episodes)

Bottoms

Raucous high-school comedy about a female fight club

Year: 2023

Certificate: 15

Watch now on Prime Video

Fed up with being at the bottom of their school’s pecking order, lonely lesbians PJ and Josie (Shiva Baby’s Rachel Sennott and The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri) accidentally hit on the idea of starting up a female self-defence class to both improve their standing and give them a chance to spend time with some of the school’s hot cheerleaders. Soon, though, they find themselves at the heart of a punchy female revolution that threatens to turn the established teen order on its head once and for all.

Saucy, silly and crunchingly funny, this is a thoroughly enjoyable grown-up comedy about teenage life that mocks and homages classic movies such as Revenge Of The Nerds and The Breakfast Club in equal measure. (91 minutes)

 

Graham Norton hosts as 10 Irish comedians battle to bag a fortune for charity

Year: 2024

Certificate: 15

Watch now on Prime Video

Dreamt up in Japan, the Last One Laughing format is genius: a group of comedians are put together in a Big Brother-style living-room set, crammed with cameras. They’re then challenged to make each other laugh. The comic who manages to stifle his or her guffaws the longest takes home €50,000 for their charity of choice. With typical sarcastic brilliance, Graham Norton hosts this six-episode Irish version, with star names such as Aisling Bea, Catherine Bohart, Deirdre O’Kane and Jason Byrne among the stand-ups trying to crack the stony-faced resolve of their foes by whatever means necessary. (Six episodes)

The Wheel Of Time

Epic fantasy series starring Rosamund Pike

Year: 2021

Certificate: 15

Watch now on Prime Video

Amazon built its own studio in Prague to accommodate the vast production needs of this ambitious fantasy series. Based on a series of bestselling novels by Robert Jordan, it is set in a world in which magic is used only by women, and the powerful Moiraine (Rosamund Pike) must undertake a dangerous journey with five youngsters, one of whom may be a powerful sorcerer called the Dragon Reborn. The critics weren’t entirely convinced but fans of the books got behind it and the first run of episodes became Amazon’s most-watched original series of 2021.

The show’s enticing sense of scale continues into this even more epic second series, which sees the mysterious Moiraine continue her quest to defeat the looming threat of the Dark One. Despite its huge scope, the first series was, in many ways, just a scene-setting exercise. Now that the show’s got most of its exposition out of the way it gets to sink its claws even further into fans of Game Of Thrones and The Lord Of The Rings by properly exploring the world it’s created. The second, eight-episode run is where the fun really starts, especially as it has an even bigger budget to play with than series one. A third is in production. (Two series)

Good Omens

Terry Pratchett’s apocalypse comedy starring David Tennant and Michael Sheen

Year: 2019

Certificate: 12

Watch now on Prime Video

It was Terry Pratchett’s dying wish for his vibrant apocalypse comedy to be adapted for the screen, and Neil Gaiman did a terrific job of doing just that – with no expense spared. Aside from the budget required to bring this comical account of the rise of the Antichrist to the screen, though, there’s one great casting decision that makes it really work at the centre.

Michael Sheen and David Tennant deliver a great double act as Aziraphale and Crowley, the bantering angel and demon who are trying to stop that apocalypse. The ethereal duo have become quite attached to their easy life on Earth over the centuries, thank you very much, and don’t want it to end just yet.

The first series of Good Omens was made before Staged sent Sheen and Tennant’s double act stratospheric, and they’re just two of many familiar faces on the cast – look out for Mad Men’s Jon Hamm as the angel Gabriel, Motherland’s Anna Maxwell Martin as Beelzebub and Miranda Richardson as a medium, to name but three. It’s really all about Sheen and Tennant, though, and series two digs even further into their characters’ unusual friendship. (Two series)

I’m A Virgo

Comedy series about a 13ft-tall man’s adventures in modern America

Year: 2023

Certificate: 15

Watch now on Prime Video

Part fairy tale, part superhero series, part absurdist comedy, I’m A Virgo follows the escapades of Cootie (Jharrel Jerome, of Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse), a 13ft-tall black teenager. After being hidden away by his aunt and uncle at their house in Oakland, he heads off to experience the outside world in all its messy glory.

The resulting series follows Cootie as he’s embraced by some sections of society and shunned by others on his journey to discover what place a giant can fill in the world. Writer-director Boots Riley (Sorry To Bother You) isn’t afraid to shine a light on society’s flaws here, but he does it while crafting a beautifully warm and huggable modern fairy tale. (Seven episodes)

Palm Springs

Time-loop comedy set at a wedding, starring Andy Samberg

Year: 2020

Certificate: 15

Watch now on Prime Video

Imagine Groundhog Day but set at a wedding, and with two people stuck in the loop instead of one, and you’ve got the gist of this perfectly formed American comedy. Palm Springs is a blast of sunshine set in the California desert city, with Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti (Fargo) as the bantering pair reliving a day they can’t escape, and steadily falling for each other in the process.

Don’t mistake this for a simple romcom, though. It has strong, well-earned philosophical and bittersweet streaks that ground both the rom and the com and make them hit deeper, while the increasingly surreal nature of the desert setting suits the time loop premise very well. How insanity-inducing must it actually be to relive the same day over and over again, after all? All told, this is a movie that, while it may look a little daft to start with, will hit you harder than you expect by the end. (90 minutes)

Los Farad

Sultry Spanish crime drama set in 1980s Marbella

Year: 2023

Watch now on Prime Video

When young aerobics instructor Oskar (Money Heist’s Miguel Herrán) strikes up a business – and intimately personal – relationship with the glamorous Sara (Susana Abaitua), his eyes light up at the chance to set up a gym of his own. But when he arrives in glamorous Marbella he discovers that the offer has serious strings attached as he’s introduced to Sara’s rich and powerful family of arms dealers, the Farad clan.

Set in the 1980s and shot through with the music and fashion of that era, this is a lush, sexy and exciting eight-part Spanish crime drama with an engaging performance from the wide-eyed Herrán that pulls you in right from the start. And just wait until you meet Sara’s wolfish father… (Eight episodes)

Shining Vale

Courteney Cox stars in a sharp horror comedy written by Sharon Horgan

Year: 2022

Certificate: 18

Watch now on Prime Video

Looking for distance from a bout of middle-aged infidelity, Pat and Terry Phelps (Courteney Cox and Greg Kinnear) take their teenage kids and up sticks to a picture-postcard home in a Connecticut town. It should be a fresh start for them all, but things quickly go rotten when writer and recovering addict Pat seems to begin seeing ghosts (including Mira Sorvino as an unnerving 1950s housewife).

Sharp, strange and darkly funny, the eight episodes of series two pick up with Pat – freshly released from a mental health treatment centre and with a new book to promote – ready to put all the bizarre events of the first series behind her. Turns out that’s much, much easier said than done. (Two series, via Lionsgate+)

Desperately Seeking Soulmate: Escaping Twin Flames Universe

Documentary series investigating a disturbing new breed of online cult

Year: 2023

Watch now on Prime Video 

At first glance, the Twin Flames Universe sounds like any other matchmaking app, offering to connect members with their soulmates. But is there more going on than just that? The makers of this eye-opening three-part documentary series certainly believe so.

Their investigations into Twin Flames (founded and run by Michigan-based YouTube influencers Jeff and Shaleia Divine) uncover tales of members being pressured to pursue ex-lovers as well as to alter their sexual orientation and gender identity in order to find romance. It paints a picture of a disturbingly cult-like online organisation that aggressively attempts to control its vulnerable users. (Three episodes)

The Continental: From The World Of John Wick

Three-part 1970s-set prequel to the John Wick movie franchise

Year: 2023

Certificate: 15

Watch now on Prime Video  

Keanu Reeves may be the headline star in the four John Wick films, but Ian McShane’s suave hotel boss Winston was a bright spot. But just how did his character get to rule New York’s favourite hangout for assassins with a code, The Continental hotel?

We find that out in this three-part series that travels back to the 1970s when a cravat-wearing young Winston (The Flight Attendant’s Colin Woodell) arrives in the Big Apple looking to get his brother out of trouble. With the flair of the era’s Blaxploitation pics and all the pistol-packing, martial arts action you desire (not to mention Mel Gibson as the previous boss of the hotel) this is a must-see for John Wick fans. (Three episodes)

Wilderness

Jenna Coleman stars in an exhilarating revenge thriller

Year: 2023

Certificate: 15

Watch now on Prime Video

How many dramas have you watched that start with a couple who seem to have it all, but don’t? Quite a few, we’d wager, but don’t let the familiarity of the set-up put you off this exhilarating tale of revenge between husband and wife Will (The Haunting Of Hill House’s Oliver Jackson-Cohen) and Liv (Jenna Coleman), a woman who has sacrificed her independence to join his high-flying life in New York.

Needless to say, he has an affair – and the way Coleman conveys Liv’s rage, hurt and determination through the twists of what follows is something very special, and deserves awards recognition. There’s more here that defies expectation and keeps you guessing, but we won’t go into that for obvious reasons. What we will say is that this drama also looks the absolute business, from its plush indoor locations to some stunning outdoor filming (the Grand Canyon is one stop on the couple’s road trip) and, in possibly its most expensive move, the opening credits boast a re-recorded version of Taylor Swift’s Look What You Made Me Do.

So, what exactly did he make her do? You’ll have to watch to find out. (Six episodes)

Foe

Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal star as a couple living in a ruined future

Year: 2023

Certificate: 15

Watch now on Prime Video

Our planet is headed for Mad Max territory in this haunting film, set in a time in which the harsh climate has pushed people to flee the inhospitable surface for outer space. The story it tells is very human and contained though, and revolves entirely around one couple living in a farmhouse in the American Midwest in 2065. Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal play the couple and we’re told, just before we meet them, that this is a world in which artificial humans have started living and working in these harsh environments.

As a result, you spend much of the rest of the movie wondering whether either of them is a robot. We won’t reveal what happens, but the film feels more like a play at times as we steadily head toward the Twilight Zone-style finale and, despite the sci-fi ideas, this is ultimately a deep dissection of one relationship. It’s a little long for that story, perhaps, but it’s also one of those films you’d be tempted to watch twice once you know how it ends. (110 mins)

007: Road To A Million

Brian Cox fronts a James Bond-themed globetrotting gameshow contest

Year: 2023

Certificate: 15

Watch now on Prime Video

Ever fancied yourself as a superspy? You know, someone able to handle the most death-defying challenges imaginable, all while remaining resolutely neither shaken nor stirred? The nine pairs of contestants in this new game show all reckon they have the ability to handle whatever mission controller Brian Cox (the one from Succession, not the scientist) throws at them. The hopefuls travel from exotic location to exotic location to face a range of tests that will push them to their physical and mental limits with a £1 million prize up for grabs.

It’s a really neat extension of the Bond franchise, presented with cinematic panache by the brilliant Cox, who brings delightful drawling sarcasm to his turn. If the films ever need a new M, they know where to look… (One series)

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Post sourceDaily mail

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