Amazon Prime Video is adding a wide array of crowd-pleasing recent and not-so-recent classics to its film library this April. The month’s streaming additions include several justifiably beloved 21st century hits, as well as a few blockbusters that have the power to sweep viewers away and make their hearts race. Near the end of the month, one acclaimed 2024 film that deserves a far larger audience than the one it received last year is finally coming to the service as well.
Here are TheWrap’s picks for the best new movies streaming on Amazon Prime Video in April.
“Ford v Ferrari” (2019)
A handsomely crafted sports drama, director James Mangold’s “Ford v Ferrari” throws viewers into the world of midcentury European racing with heaping helpings of humor and heart. Starring Matt Damon as real-life American racer and automotive designer Carroll Shelby and Christian Bale as legendary British racing driver Ken Miles, the film follows its two heroes as they undertake a mission handed to them by then-Ford CEO Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts) to dethrone Ferrari as the world’s greatest race car manufacturer.
A crowd-pleaser that knows when to make you laugh and when to make you cry, “Ford v Ferrari” is the kind of four-quadrant Hollywood drama that prompts one to say something cliché like, “They just don’t make them like this anymore.” That is definitely true of “Ford v Ferrari,” but it only makes the film itself all the more special and worth celebrating.
“Lost in Translation” (2003)
Writer-director Sofia Coppola’s “Lost in Translation” is a drama overflowing with melancholy, romance and longing. Influenced heavily by the Hong Kong dramas of filmmaker Wong Kar-Wai (Coppola even thanked him in her Oscar acceptance speech for Best Original Screenplay), the film follows an aging movie star (Bill Murray) who finds himself growing close in his loneliness to a young, neglected American newlywed (Scarlett Johansson) staying at the same Tokyo hotel as him.
Anchored by Johansson’s sensitive breakthrough performance and Murray’s career-best turn as her unlikely match, “Lost in Translation” is a romance that aches and yearns, a quiet mood piece about feeling adrift and finding new hope and grounding in even the most unexpected of human connections. And, yes, its oft-referenced, pitch-perfect ending is guaranteed to blow you away.
“Fargo” (1996)
The Coen Brothers’ blackly comic 1996 thriller, “Fargo,” is a frequently imitated, rarely matched masterpiece. Set in North Dakota and the Coens’ home state of Minnesota, the snow-covered dramedy follows Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy), an overambitious car dealership owner whose scheme to extort his wealthy father-in-law goes awry when his wife’s planned kidnapping takes increasingly violent, horrifying turns.
Along the way, he catches the attention of good-hearted police chief Marge Gunderson (a titanic Frances McDormand), whose investigation into a series of roadside murders leads her straight to Jerry. Able to effortlessly flip the switch between darkly funny and deadly serious, “Fargo” is a tonal high-wire act and a masterclass in a certain, screwball style of crime storytelling that cemented the Coens as two of the greatest American filmmakers of their generation.
“Dunkirk” (2017)
Christopher Nolan’s time-hopping, adrenaline-pumping “Dunkirk” is a war movie unlike any other. A three-pronged dramatization of the Dunkirk rescue of World War II, the film splits its focus between the land, sea and air. In doing so, it captures the desperation of not only its central British soldiers, who are trapped on a beach that is being bombed by Nazi planes, but also the English pilots and civilian boatmen who are trying against all odds to rescue them.
Nolan’s decision to make a war thriller about an evacuation is bold in and of itself, but that says nothing of his structural approach to the film, which divides it into three timelines that he truncates, elongates and relentlessly overlaps. The result is a blockbuster that captures the terror and paranoia of war better than almost any other of its size and scale, all while insisting that survival often requires courage, cooperation and, above all else, hope.
“Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” (2011)
The “Mission: Impossible” film franchise may have begun in 1996, but it was 2011’s “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” that helped rejuvenate Tom Cruise’s then-floundering star profile and cemented the series as a dependable vessel for awe-inspiring practical stunts. Its sequels (especially 2018’s “Mission: Impossible – Fallout”) have delivered on the promises of “Ghost Protocol” with even more gusto and fearlessness.
That does not mean “Ghost Protocol,” which follows Cruise’s Ethan Hunt as he is forced to go on the run following a bombing in Russia, fails to meet the standards of its successors. On the contrary, it is just as fun and thrilling as any other “M:I” film, and its centerpiece stunt — Cruise’s scaling of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai — may still be the best action sequence in the franchise’s history. “Ghost Protocol” also features a visual playfulness that no other “M:I” installment has truly matched, courtesy of the film’s director, longtime Pixar and animation filmmaker Brad Bird.
“Out of Sight” (1998)
Penned by “Queen’s Gambit” creator Scott Frank and directed by “Ocean’s Eleven” filmmaker Steven Soderbergh, “Out of Sight” is one of the cleverest and most likable crime comedies of the past 30 years. Based on a novel by crime fiction legend Elmore Leonard, the film follows Jack Foley (George Clooney), a career bank robber, as his efforts to escape prison and make an illegal living put him in the crosshairs of U.S. Marshal Karen Sisco (Jennifer Lopez). Karen’s responsibility to put Jack away for his crimes is not enough to stop either from quickly falling for the other, paving the way for a crime romance that is as smart and funny as it is unpredictable and sexy.
Anyone who believes all sex scenes are gratuitous should see Karen and Jack’s hotel hookup in the second half of “Out of Sight,” which Soderbergh constructs in such a way that makes the race feel just as exciting as the finish line, the chase just as satisfying as the capture. That is a fitting theme for “Out of Sight,” a film about two people who are desperate to overcome their conflicting circumstances. Clooney has never been better, and neither have Lopez, Soderbergh or Frank, for that matter.
“Nickel Boys” (2024)
“Nickel Boys,” director RaMell Ross’ adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, is one of the boldest and best films released last year. Despite its quality, it also ranks as one of the most tragically underseen films of 2024. Set largely in the 1960s, it follows a pair of young African-American boys (Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson) who bond at a corrupt reform school in Florida while being subjected to horrifying racism and abuse.
The film is shot in an entirely POV style — Ross’ camera becomes the eyes of Herisse’s Elwood and Wilson’s Turner — which allows it to achieve a kind of subjective, expressionistic grace that not only feels unique to “Nickel Boys” but also makes watching it an astonishingly immersive experience. As a film, it is absorbing and overwhelming — thematically, visually and emotionally. As a piece of art, it demands to be seen by as many people as possible.
