88 Best Drama Releases on Amazon Prime Video (Page 2)
Good Omens
SimilarAgatha Christie's Poirot Akashic Records of Bastard Magic Instructor, American Horror Story, Animated Classics of Japanese Literature, Dexter, Fate/Apocrypha, Fearless, Game of Thrones, Gossip Girl,
Hilda Furacão HIStory In the Land of Leadale, Jewels,
Little Women Madan Senki Ryukendo, Mr. Mercedes, Ninja Sentai Kakuranger,
Planet of the Apes Pride and Prejudice Sherlock Holmes Star and Sky: Star in My Mind,
Tales from the Neverending Story The Lost World, The Moon Embracing the Sun, The Shining, Wycliffe,
StarringJon Hamm,
The 2019 adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s 1990 novel Good Omens was a charming show that succeeded in translating the book’s strengths and weaknesses to the small screen. It was clever like the book, with an ingenious plot (what if there had been a mix-up at the hospital and the Antichrist went home with the wrong family) that parodied The Omen while conjuring an apocalyptic tale all its about an angel and demon whose millennials-long rivalry grew from mutual antagonism, to grudging respect, and finally admiration and even a kind of love. But it also carried over the book’s weaker elements, its wonky pacing, plurality of uninteresting characters, and the fact that the first two thirds of the story is essentially table setting for the final third. Continue Reading →
The Horror of Dolores Roach
SimilarAmerican Horror Story, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Florida Man, From, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, Lupin, Tales from the Crypt, The Strain, The Twilight Zone,
Watch afterFoundation, Invincible,
On a fundamental level, The Horror of Dolores Roach confirms that old chestnut, “You can never go home again.” The titular Dolores Roach (Justina Machado) tries it twice over the course of the limited series—adapted from a Gimlet podcast which, itself, was adapted from an off-Broadway play—and each time finds an increasingly hostile environment has overtaken the “home” she knew. Continue Reading →
Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan
Generally speaking, we avoid personalizing our reviews at The Spool. This isn’t the early 2000s. No one needs to know about my journey to my couch to watch Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan Season 4. That said, please allow me a brief personal indulgence that I promise will prove illustrious. In an effort to get ahead of deadlines, I watched the season’s six episodes in a day with a plan to write the review the next day. However, by the time I sat down to write that review about 26 hours later, I realized I had to watch the whole thing again. In a day’s time, I had forgotten too much to write a review in good faith. Continue Reading →
Asteroid City
SimilarStalker (1979),
Watch afterIndiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023),
Oppenheimer (2023) The Flash (2023),
StarringFisher Stevens, Willem Dafoe,
About twenty miles or so outside of Marfa, Texas, there’s a mural dedicated to the production of George Stevens’ Giant. Big wooden standees display James Dean with his arms draped over a rifle, framing him in the iconic Christ pose which would be the last image to represent Dean in the public consciousness before he died. Giant is about a great number of things, though, fittingly, what resonates all these years later is its ideas about the passing of time. Continue Reading →
シン・仮面ライダー
SimilarBatman Begins (2005), Batman Forever (1995), Batman Returns (1992), Catwoman (2004), La Haine (1995),
StudioToei Company,
Shin Kamen Rider became my favorite movie of the year when it ripped my heart out with a one-sided conversation. Continue Reading →
A Infância de Romeu e Julieta
If you’re a Shakespeare purist, Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 rendition of Romeo and Juliet might make your skin itch. Luhrmann’s signature frenetic style would seem ill-suited to the most famous romantic tragedy of all time, and, indeed, the traditional text recited in a hyper-contemporary setting, where even the Priest has a giant Celtic cross tattooed on his back, is often jarring. But it turned out to be a perfect fit to illustrate the noisy melodrama of first love and was one of the most successful films in the 90s trend of stylish, modernized adaptations of the Bard. Despite its detractors, it became, for Millennials and Gen Z, the most beloved, familiar rendition of it, even used as a supplement in schools. Continue Reading →
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
When a show enters its final season, it has an opportunity to decide what it really wants to say. And what The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel wants to say is this: For all her tenacity, Susie (Alex Borstein) genuinely cares about the people in her orbit, especially her first client. For all that he's been a presumptuous prick, Joel (Michael Zegen) has become a better man. For all his professorial condescension, Abe (Tony Shalhoub) realizes how wrong he's been about so many things. And for all her immense talent and unflappable air, Midge (Rachel Brosnahan) must and will scratch and claw to get the chances denied her because of her gender and prove that this isn't just a phase; it's who she was meant to be. Continue Reading →
On a Wing and a Prayer
Watch afterAnt-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), The Whale (2022),
StudioMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer,
It’s 2009: Owl City changed the way people looked at fireflies, America was gripped by the reality TV exploits of a couple with eight kids. Oh, and an ordinary man with little flying experience named Doug White had to land a private plane with his family onboard after the pilot fell unconscious. The year of Balloon Boy was a wild one. Continue Reading →
Air
SimilarAnna and the King (1999), Brubaker (1980), Freedom Writers (2007), I Stand Alone (1998), Mississippi Burning (1988), Raging Bull (1980), The Pursuit of Happyness (2006),
Watch afterThe Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023),
What makes an object meaningful? The plans its creators had for it? The image that its consumers build into it? The purpose it serves? The one who wields it? Continue Reading →
Swarm
Every episode of Amazon’s Swarm begins with a title card that reads, “This is not a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is intentional.” Continue Reading →
Creed III
SimilarDie Hard 2 (1990), Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995), Godzilla Raids Again (1955), Live Free or Die Hard (2007), Raging Bull (1980),
Watch afterThe Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023),
StudioMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer,
Round three of twelve. Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan)—the fresh-out-of-retirement undisputed heavyweight champion of the world—faces Damian "Diamond Dame" Anderson (Jonathan Majors)—the ruthless-came-from-eighteen-years-in-prison reigning champ. Growing up in a group home, Adonis and Damian were brothers—united by care for one another in a callous system and a shared love of the sweet science. Continue Reading →
Daisy Jones & the Six
The story of Daisy Jones & The Six begins, fittingly, at its dramatic end. The show opens with the members of the titular band taking their seats for a series of talking-head interviews before a title card that reads, “On October 4, 1977, Daisy Jones and the Six performed to a sold-out crowd at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois.” Despite being one of the biggest bands in the world at that time, “It would be their final performance.” From there, we jump back in time to learn exactly how Daisy and the five members of the Six (yes, five) became a band. Continue Reading →
The Consultant
When Christoph Waltz is at his best playing a villain in films like Inglorious Basterds, he presents as gentle and almost naively sweet before revealing an endless capacity for cruelty. At his worst, as with his Blofeld, he presents as all menace and violence and ends up with the effectiveness of a kitten. The former is delightful to behold; the latter can crash an entire film. Unfortunately, The Consultant forces Waltz to be the menacing kitten. Continue Reading →
Carnival Row
One of the biggest downsides of making such gorgeous, sprawling fantasy television epics is the agonizing wait between seasons. This is acutely felt at Amazon, in particular, as they seem to have cornered the fantasy television market. Fans are already gnashing for a new season of big-budget offerings like The Wheel of Time, and Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Of course, no show has suffered more for the delays than Carnival Row Season 2. Season 1 aired in 2019, an interminable wait for any dedicated viewer. Continue Reading →
The Seven Faces of Jane
Most kids have probably drawn an exquisite corpse at least once, even if they didn’t know it had such a name. You fold up a paper into thirds before drawing a man, with the top third as the head, the second as the torso, and the third as the legs. You draw the head and then fold it over hiding your creation before passing the paper to the next person. This way, it becomes a collaborative drawing where each part is created in secret and you only see how it all comes together when it’s unfolded at the end. It’s an incredibly fun way to spend a rainy afternoon and, as it turns out, a pretty awful way to make a movie. Continue Reading →
After Yang
Ambulance
Michael Bay, whose 1990s actioners are—for good and ill—iconic parts of the decade’s cinema, and whose 2000s and 2010s work is reliably fascinating (from the terrific Pain & Gain to the baleful Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen) delivers a bombastic chase movie that doubles as a damn good character study. Loving but criminal brothers (Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) take an ambulance hostage to escape a heist gone sideways. Along for the ride are a masterful EMT (Eiza González) resigned to personal apathy, and a critically injured cop (Jackson White). Amidst the carefully shaped chaos of burnt rubber and bullets, Bay makes space for Gyllenhaal (frenzied and in denial about how badly everything’s gone) Abdul-Mateen II (trying to keep cool even as that becomes impossible) and González (who must break out of her self-built walls if she is to survive) to bounce off each other in a pile of compelling ways. [JH] Continue Reading →
Babylon
SimilarLucky Number Slevin (2006), Maria Full of Grace (2004), My Own Private Idaho (1991),
Watch afterAnt-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), The Whale (2022),
Babylon is a frenetic crash course in Hollywood history that plays fast and loose with most of its facts. However, it still paints a vivid portrait of Tinseltown from its birth to the behemoth it is today. You won’t find the meticulous and mind-boggling commitment to detail of Mank (most of Margot Robbie’s costuming looks more 2010s than 1920s). Still, director and screenwriter Damien Chazelle is less interested in getting everything right than translating that history into something an audience can feel in their bones. Continue Reading →
Spoiler Alert
SimilarBrubaker (1980), Freedom Writers (2007), Mississippi Burning (1988), Rope (1948),
While they say that love is eternal, eventually, even the greatest of love stories come to an end. Marriage vows foretell the reality of “to death do us part.” It’s an inevitability rarely explored in cinema, and even then, only in schmaltzy melodramatic weepers. Fortunately, Michael Showalter’s Spoiler Alert is free of schmaltz. Instead, the film deftly explores the process of a couple dealing with a terminal illness amid all the usual messiness of a real relationship. Continue Reading →
Nanny
SimilarA Real Young Girl (1976), Copying Beethoven (2006),
Nikyatu Jusu’s debut feature, Nanny is a story about the American Dream turned gothic nightmare. It’s a film whose horror lies in a deep-rooted sense of unease. It’s the feeling in your gut that something is wrong, even when you can’t name exactly what. Worse yet, knowing this creeping dread has nothing to do with everything so obviously wrong around you. It’s something else, something you can only assume (or fear) is so much worse than you imagine. Continue Reading →