Last updated: December 2022
If you’re looking for new movies on Amazon Prime to watch but don’t feel like wasting a couple of hours deciding what and combing through hundreds of trailers, we got you. These are our recommendations for the best movies to stream on Prime Video right now, but keep checking out this page for updates when new movies drop.
And if you’re looking for shows, here’s the list of Best Shows to Watch on Amazon Prime Canada.
Sugar (2022)
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Director: Vic Sarin
Starring: Katherine McNamara, Jasmine Sky Sarin, Eric Bruneau
Six years ago, two Quebec influencers were arrested for attempting to smuggle $30 million of cocaine into Australia. Now they’re at the centre of Sugar, a fictionalized tale about how they went from tourist party girls to drug mules. Even though this movie takes some liberties with the real story, it does capture the feeling of a luxury cruise gone horribly wrong.
Something From Tiffany's (2022)
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Director: Daryl Wein
Starring: Zoey Deutch, Shay Mitchell, Kendrick Sampson
Your classic rom-com mix-up, only with a Christmas twist. One couple is on track to getting engaged while another isn’t until a switched bag scenario at the jewelry store sends everyone into a comedy caper full of meet-cutes and misunderstanding. Toronto’s own Shay Mitchell (Pretty Little Liars) stars in this wholesome holiday romp in the Big Apple. An easy watch if you’re looking for one this time of year.
My Fake Boyfriend (2022)
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Director: Rose Troche
Starring: Keiynan Lonsdale, Dylan Sprouse, Sarah Hyland
Rose Troche’s romcom My Fake Boyfriend stars Keiynan Lonsdale as a young man who can’t seem to get over his ex. To help him move on, his friends (Dylan Sprouse and Sarah Hyland) make up a fake new man on the internet to win him over and get him thinking about someone new. But when the fake man goes viral, their catfishing scheme threatens to blow up in their face, and they need to find a way to smoothly get out of it.
Good Luck To You, Leo Grande (2022)
Race (2016)
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Director: Stephen Hopkins
Starring: Stephan James, Jason Sudekis, Jeremy Irons
A biographical drama about Jesse Owens, Stephen Hopkins’s Race was actually a Canadian co-production, shot largely on location in Montreal. The biopic focuses on the legendary runner’s appearance at the highly contentious 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, including his victory in the 100 metre dash and his run-in with Adolf Hitler and the rest of the top Nazi brass.
Hanover Street (1979)
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Director: Peter Hyams
Starring: Harrison Ford
This unheralded war-time romantic drama from director Peter Hymas, starring a young Harrison Ford coming off the high of his Star Wars debut, doesn’t have much of a reputation, owing to its somewhat corny romance and war movie cliches. But the exhilarating air combat sequences, staged and shot with a flair, make this under-seen flick well-worth watching, especially for aviation fans.
The Edge of Seventeen (2016)
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Director: Kelly Fremon Craig
Starring: Hailee Steinfeld, Woody Harrelson
This delightful coming-of-age movie, like Eighth Grade a few years after it, really hit the nail on the head as far as endearing modern comedies that actually manage to capture the contemporary teenage experience, starring the great Hailee Steinfeld as a high school student navigating the hard realities of family and friendship at a time when hormones are raging and nothing seems to make any sense.
The Kids in the Hall: Comedy Punks (2022)
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Director: Reg Harkema
Starring: Lorne Michaels, Mike Myers, Fred Armisen
After premiering to critical acclaim at the SXSW film festival earlier this year, Reg Harkema’s feature length documentary about the most legendary comedy troupe in Canadian history arrives on Prime Video just in time for the long-awaited revival of the troupe’s sketch comedy series. This biographical doc tells the story of how the Kids met and flourished together in the Toronto comedy scene of the 1980s before they became prime time TV stars and bona fide national treasures.
The Weeknd x The Dawn FM Experience (2022)
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Director: Micah Bickham
Starring: The Weeknd
The Weeknd x The Dawn FM Experience showcases The Weeknd, Canada’s beloved record-breaking artist, at his 103.5 Dawn FM livestream event. Based on the critically acclaimed album, Dawn FM, the music event is an artistic piece for all fans of Abel Tesfaye to enjoy, featuring an immersive, visual performance allowing the audiences to experience the album’s world.
Kick Like Tayla (2022)
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Director: Andrew Garrick
Starring: Tayla Harris
Professional footballer and pro AFL women’s boxer Tayla Harris is one of the best-known female athletes in her native Australia, but she’s probably most famous internationally for a viral photo of her performing a gravity-defying kick that became an internet sensation in 2019. This hour-long documentary chronicles Harris’s life and career as well as the fallout of her viral infamy, exploring her resilience in the face of widespread trolling and sexual harassment online.
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021)
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Director: Johannes Roberts
Starring: Kaya Scodelario, Hannah John-Kamen, Robbie Amell
Paul W.S. Anderson made a half-dozen live-action Resident Evil movies over the course of nearly two decades, but Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, the first made since the series wrapped with The Final Chapter in 2016, is the only one to faithfully adapt the original video games—this time covering the events of the first two titles in the series, as the zombie apocalypse kicks off in Raccoon City.
Volcano (1997)
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Director: Mick Jackson
Starring: Don Cheadle, Keith David, Tommy Lee Jones
Released during the minor heyday of blockbuster disaster epics in the 1990s, Mick Jackson’s lava-filled action film Volcano stars Tommy Lee Jones as the head of a commission to hastily divert a lava flow after a volcanic eruption threatens to engulf heavily populated swaths of Los Angeles. Just remember that it is not the same movie as Dante’s Peak — that’s the volcano blockbuster starring Pierce Brosnon, released just two months earlier.
Clifford the Big Red Dog (2021)
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Director: Walt Becker
Starring: Jack Whitehall, Darby Camp, John Cleese
Paramount’s splashy big-screen adaptation of the series of popular children’s novels by Norman Bridwell, about the oversized red pooch, never received as much attention as it ought to have — the arrival of the omicron variant disrupted Paramount’s plans to have the movie premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last September and ultimately sidelined its theatrical release. Still, the family film is worth catching up with, and it’s happily available now to stream on Prime.
Zeroes and Ones (2021)
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Director: Abel Ferrara
Starring: Ethan Hawke
Don’t be mislead by the film’s poster, which makes this diffuse, self-consciously abstract drama look like a conventional direct-to-video action flick. Instead, prepare for something stranger and more meditative—another late-career coup from Abel Ferrara, director of such classics as Ms. 45, Bad Lieutenant, and King of New York, here working under 2020 pandemic restrictions to beautiful, haunting, if somewhat abrasive effect.
The Big Chill (1983)
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Director: Lawrence Kasdan
Starring: Tom Berenger, Kevin Kline, Glenn Close
The classic ensemble drama from Lawrence Kasdan tells the story of a group of high school friends thrust back into one another’s lives after the death by suicide of one of their classmates. Capturing the ennui of a generation of Baby Boomers who at the time were entering middle-age, it’s now its own classic time capsule of a bygone time.
A Hero (2021)
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Director: Asghar Farhadi
Starring: Amir Jadidi, Mohsen Tanabandeh
Iranian director Asghar Farhadi is one of his country’s most esteemed filmmakers. His latest film, following the Oscar-winning international hit A Separation, is another high-stakes moral drama about a complex decision gone awry—in this case, a convicted debtor’s attempt to seek forgiveness from his creditor, owing to a Persian law that stipulates an accuser has the right to acquit the accused.
Arctic Drift (2022)
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Director: Ashley Morris
Starring: Rhashan Stone
Fremantle’s feature-length nature doc Arctic Drift follows the world’s largest arctic expedition—an unprecedented effort led by Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute on board a 12,000-ton ice-breaker. The film depicts the team of 300 scientists as they remain frozen in drifting ice flow for a year, conducting important research in wildly hostile conditions.
The Tender Bar (2022)
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Director: George Clooney
Starring: Ben Affleck, Lily Rabe
Based on the acclaimed memoir by William Monahan, The Tender Bar tells the true story of a young man in Long Island, New York, who falls under the spell of his charismatic uncle Charlie, a self-educated bartender who runs his own public house. This warm and inviting drama, directed by George Clooney, goes down like a nice refreshing pint on a stifling day.
Hotel Transylvania: Transformania (2022)
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Directors: Derek Drymon and Jennifer Kluska
Starring: Brian Hull, Jim Gaffigan, Andy Samberg
The fourth film in the continuing franchise of vampiric family comedies by Sony’s in-house animation studio, the new animated flick Hotel Transylvania: Transformania switches Adam Sandler out for Brian Hull, but is otherwise more of the same. The latest sequel was originally supposed to be released theatrically last October before it was sold directly to Amazon for a streaming debut thanks to the pandemic.
Vince Carter: Legacy (2022)
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Director: Justin C. Polk
Starring: Vince Carter, Charles Barkley, Allen Iverson
If you grew up a basketball fan in Canada, chances are you grew up a fan of Vince Carter. The Raptors legend is spotlighted in this new feature-length documentary on Prime Video, covering both the highs and lows of a career that spanned two decades and brought worldwide attention to the city of Toronto. From the unforgettable dunk contest that made him a superstar to his retirement in 2020, relive it all.
Time Is Up (2021)
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Director: Elisa Amoruso
Starring: Bella Thorne, Ben Mascolo
A scenic romantic drama set in picturesque Italy, Elisa Amoruso’s Time is Up stars Bella Thorne and her fiance, the musician Benjamin Mascolo, in what was surely an attempt to capture some of the real-life romantic chemistry shared by the young, attractive couple at its center.
Day Zero (2021)
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Director: David Wallerstein
Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor
The new climate change documentary, three years in the making, looks at the various ways in which impending fresh-water shortages have already had a catastrophic impact on the world, from the Cape Town water crisis of 2018 to the Australian wildfires of 2019 and beyond. Oscar-nominated actor Chiwetel Ejiofor narrates.
Carlos Ghosn: The Last Flight (2021)
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Director: Nick Green
Starring: Carlos Ghosn
This acclaimed documentary from documentarian Nick Green tells the true but unbelievable story of Carlos Ghosn, the former CEO of the Renault-Nissan car brand, who, after being accused of high-level fraud and other crimes in December 2019, suddenly fled the country by hiding himself in a shipping container meant to contain a priceless cello
Queenpins (2021)
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Director: Aron Gaudet, Gita Pullapilly
Starring: Kristen Bell, Paul Walter Hauser
The new farce Queenpins tells, in over the top fashion, the surprisingly true story of two bored, middle-class suburban housewives who initiated the world’s largest and most lucrative counterfeit coupon scam, ripping companies off to the tune of nearly half a billion dollars.
Burning (2021)
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Director: Eva Orner
Starring: Greg Mullins, Daisy Jeffrey
In the summer of 2019, Australia’s bushfires became the center of the world’s attention, as the “Black Summer” saw the ferocious and unstoppable burning of nearly 60 million acres of land, taking thousands of buildings, species of wildlife, and more with it. Burning is a documentary about that terrible event, composed of jaw-dropping footage of these extraordinary, and extraordinarily destructive, flames.
Pharma Bro (2021)
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Director: Brent Hodge
Starring: Martin Shkreli
Pretty much everyone on the planet knows Martin Shkreli, the titular “pharma bro,” and pretty much everyone on earth despises him, too. This documentary by director Brent Hodge tells the story of how Shkreli came to be one of the most widely disliked men in America, raising drug prices and buying rare Wu Tang albums in a bid to be the country’s most infamous supervillain.
Minari (2020)
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Director: Lee Isaac Chung
Starring: Steven Yeun, Alan S. Kim
Another major festival favourite throughout 2020, director Lee Isaac Chung’s domestic drama Minari was one of the most acclaimed and award-winning films of the year. For good reason: the moving, observant movie about an immigrant family making it in America is, as the critics like to say, one of those stories that feels like exactly what the world needs right now.
Justin Bieber: Our World (2021)
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Director: Michael D Ratner
Starring: Justin Bieber
Much smaller in scope than Never Say Never, the blockbuster biographical documentary about Bieber that John Chu directed a decade ago, Michael D. Ratner’s concert doc Justin Bieber: Our World hones in on the Canadian pop sensation as he prepares to perform for a small, highly exclusive crowd on the rooftop of the Hilton Hotel on New Years Eve 2020.
The Manor (2021)
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Director: Axelle Carolyn
Starring: Barbara Hershey, Jill Larson, Bruce Davison
In the third installment of the four-part Welcome to Blumhouse anthology series, Axelle Carolyn’s The Manor, a woman in her early 70s suffers a stroke and is forced to move into a long-term care home for assisted living. But when the woman begins to suspect that the home is haunted, she finds it next to impossible to persuade anyone, including her caretakers and family, that she isn’t simply suffering a delusion — leaving her to face the evil threat herself.
Bingo Hell (2021)
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Director: Gigi Saul Guerrero
Starring: Richard Brake, Adriana Barraza
Producer Jason Blum is one of the top names in the world of modern horror, having shepherded into cinemas some of the biggest horror movies of the last decade-plus, including Sinister, The Purge, and Paranormal Activity, among many, many others. His latest work is a multi-part anthology broken up into four unique, standalone feature films. The first, Bingo Hell, is a horror-comedy about a group of tenacious senior citizens who find themselves in a fight for their lives against a force of evil.
Annette (2021)
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Director: Leos Carax
Starring: Adam Driver, Marion Cotillard
Leos Carax, the great French filmmaker, doesn’t work often—his last feature, the irrepressibly inventive Holy Motors, came out nearly a decade ago, and the gap before that was even longer. As always, however, the results are well worth the wait: Annette is a colourful, theatrical musical brimming with energy and ideas, a movie that swings for the fences and looks and feels like nothing else before it.
Val (2021)
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Director: Ting Poo, Leo Scott
Starring: Val Kilmer
Val Kilmer was a singular screen presence during his time as one of Hollywood’s top stars, and behind the scenes he was no less unique. This unconventional documentary about the legendary actor is composed of troves of home movies and archival footage Kilmer recorded himself throughout his entire life, recently unearthed and assembled into this striking portrait.
King of New York (1990)
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Director: Abel Ferrara
Starring: Christopher Walken, Laurence Fishbourne
Abel Ferrara, director of such gritty American classics as Bad Lieutenant and Ms 45, made perhaps his most beloved masterpiece with 1990’s King of New York, a cult crime picture that, like Scarface, has been widely embraced by the hip hop community in particular. Its tough attitude and stylish direction make it one of the finest movies of its era.
The Tomorrow War (2021)
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Director: Chris McKay
Starring: Chris Pratt
One of the strangest cases of the COVID-19 pandemic interfering with the best laid plans of Hollywood studios, The Tomorrow War was produced by Paramount as a high-profile action tentpole meant to be released theatrically last summer—but when the coronavirus hit, they sold it off to Amazon to be sent straight to streaming, making it, with its $200 million budget, by far the biggest and most lavishly expensive movie on the streaming landscape.
Monster Hunter (2020)
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Director: Paul WS Anderson
Starring: Milla Jovovich, Tony Jaa, Ron Perlman
Vaunted vulgar auteur Paul W.S. Anderson, fresh off the sixth and final installment of his hugely successful Resident Evil franchise, returns to the action blockbuster with another video game adaptation, this time of the hit Japanese RPG Monster Hunter. His wife and muse Milla Jovovich once again stars, alongside Thai action superstar Tony Jaa, and there are as many huge special effects and spectacular stunt sequences as you’d expect from the master of the video game movie.
