From Oscar-winning dramas to hidden gem indies
If you’re looking for something new to watch on Amazon this summer, you’ve come to the right place. June marks the arrival of several fantastic films on the Prime Video streaming service, including a buzzy documentary, a delightful comedy new release from earlier this year and an Oscar juggernaut. We’ve assembled a curated list of the best of the best – the new movies streaming this month that you need to watch. There’s a little something for everyone as these movies range from underseen indies to blockbusters, but rest assured they’re all worth watching.
Check out our picks for the best new movies on Amazon Prime Video in June 2024 below.
Much has been made in recent years about the health battles plaguing Celine Dion, and the documentary “I Am: Celine Dion” — debuting June 25 — offers the songstress a chance to tell her story in her own words. The film celebrates Dion’s life while also chronicling her battle with a rare disorder called stiff-person syndrome, which threatens to take her off the stage. If the trailer is any indication, this one’s gonna be a tearjerker.
The new “Mean Girls” is pretty good! The 2024 release is an adaptation of the Broadway musical, which itself was an adaptation of the 2004 film, and all three were written by Tina Fey. The update is extremely similar to the first film, this time with Renee Rapp as Regina George, Angourie Rice as Cady Heron and Auli’I Cravalho as Janis. There are a few tweaks to make this a big more Gen Z-focused vs. the Millennial target of the original, but overall it works – largely thanks to some standout musical numbers and Cravalho’s incredible voice. Fey and Tim Meadows reprise their roles from the original and yes, Lindsay Lohan shows up.
Francis Ford Coppola is making headlines for his self-financed epic “Megalopolis,” but it’s not the first time he’s gone out on a limb with a hefty budget. The Oscar-winning filmmaker’s 1992 adaptation of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” is a sumptuous horror drama as Coppola insisted on shooting much of the film using the kinds of special effects that were used in the early days of cinema. The result is something unlike anything else we’d seen at the time, which offered an operatic touch to the story. Gary Oldman is Dracula, Winona Ryder is Mina Harker and Keanu Reeves is Jonathan Harker, while Anthony Hopkins waltzes in as Professor Abraham Van Helsing. This one’s a horror delight.
Before Rian Johnson made the “Knives Out” movies or “Poker Face” or “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” he burst onto the scene with an indie noir that turned heads. 2005’s “Brick” is a hardboiled detective story, except it’s all set in a California suburb and the lead “detective” is a high school student. The dialogue is straight out of 1940s noir, but the setting and characters are all contemporary, resulting in a wonderfully idiosyncratic twist on a well-worn genre. Joseph Gordon-Levitt leads the film, which marked Johnson’s directorial debut. The two would go on to work together many more times.
If you’re looking for a more traditional horror movie to watch, Zack Snyder’s 2004 remake of “Dawn of the Dead” remains one of the filmmaker’s best movies. Written by “Guardians of the Galaxy” filmmaker James Gunn, this update of the George A. Romero classic follows the plot of the original pretty closely – a group of strangers barricade themselves inside a mall for an extended period of time during a zombie apocalypse. But Snyder’s knack for striking visuals and Gunn’s darkly funny dialogue make this stand out. Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Mekhi Phifer, Ty Burrell and Michael Kelly star.
Before “The Florida Project” or “Red Rocket,” filmmaker Sean Baker burst onto the scene with his 2015 comedy “Tangerine” – shot entirely on an iPhone. Kitana Kiki Rodriguez stars as a trans sex worker living in Los Angeles who finds out that her boyfriend and pimp has been cheating on her. While it looks like an indie and tackles some heavy material at times, the film has the tone and pacing of a raucous comedy, and is all the better for it. Even better to brush up on Baker’s breakout film ahead of the release of his new film “Anora,” which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes this year.
On June 18, Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” comes to Prime Video. So if you somehow missed it in theaters and don’t have Peacock, now is finally your chance. The film won seven Oscars including Best Picture, Best Actor for Cillian Murphy, Best Supporting Actor for Robert Downey Jr. and marked Nolan’s first ever Best Director Academy Award. And all deservedly so as this epic biopic chronicles the making of the atomic bomb through the eyes of J. Robert Oppenheimer, tackling the moral dilemma at the heart of pushing science forward to create a weapon of mass destruction. The ensemble cast is one of the best ever assembled, and Ludwig Goransson’s Oscar-winning score is entrancing.
Super excited for all of these choices!
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