I’m pausing my Prime Video Max subscription in November to stream these five movies
It’s been a busy month for the best streaming services: This time of year is the time when we’re staying indoors and streaming more, and to ensure that there are tons of new things to watch on all the major streamers. Prime Video and Max added a ton of new stuff this month – but if you’re like us and saving your pennies for Black Friday deals and the holidays, subscribing to all streamers isn’t really an option. Which service should disappear this month?
Amazon’s streaming service has been particularly busy on the movie front More than 200 new titles are coming to Prime Video this month. Max has been busy too, but… Max’s schedule for November 2024 is much more focused on TV shows: there are just over two dozen new movies in Prime Video’s 200. There are some crackers in there – Goodfellas, Eleven, unforgivable and three Jurassic Parksfor example – but Prime Video clearly has the movie magic this month.
Here are five Prime Video movies that more than justify this month’s subscription.
Carrie (streaming now)
Carrie is one of the best horror films ever made. One of Stephen King’s best books, one of Brian DePalma’s best films and one of Sissy Spacek’s best performances combine in the original 1976 film, a stone-cold horror classic about a tormented girl and her terrible revenge. The 2013 remake is also available to stream on Prime Video, but the original is much better: the sequel barely managed a 51% on the Rotten Tomatoes tomato meter, while the original has a well-deserved 94%.
As the legendary critic of The New Yorker Pauline Kael put it this way, the film is ‘a terrifyingly lyrical thriller… Brian DePalma has mastered a teasing style – a perverse mix of comedy and horror and suspense, like that of Hitchcock or Polanski, but with a soothing sensuality. He longingly builds up our fears. , mitigating us for the murder.”
Good Will Hunting (streaming now)
Goodwill hunting With Matt Damon as a young, headstrong boy and Robin Williams as the professor who takes him under his wing. So far so predictable. But the performances here are something special, with Williams in particular bringing a depth and darkness not always present in his other twinkly-eyed roles (and if you want to see an even darker side of him, his performance alongside Ed Norton in Death to Smoochyis also incredible. That is currently a rental property).
This movie is beloved for good reasons: like RogerEbert.com put it this way, it’s “lyrically directed, efficiently written, hilariously funny, quietly devastating.” I love Vice’s reviewwhich states: “It’s a film that captures the limitless possibilities of youth (in a way an older screenwriter might not be able to convey), a film in which one character can say to another, without cynicism, ‘You could do anything do what you want. You’re not bound by anything.'”
Jacob’s Ladder (streaming now)
![Jacob's Ladder (1990) ORIGINAL TRAILER [HD 1080p] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/tLulu1Ovi2c/maxresdefault.jpg)
I’ve seen a lot of scary things on my TV. Slasher movies. Pointless gore. Paw Patrol. But nothing has given me such nightmares Jacob’s Ladder. Forget the remake: Prime Video has the 1990 original, in which Tim Robbins delivers an incredibly disturbing performance as a veteran who experiences horrors at home. Amazon’s three-word summary – ‘cerebral/emotional/terrifying’ – doesn’t do it justice; this is a movie that made me alternately sob and hide behind the couch, and it’s no less powerful today.
Here is the Seattle Times: “Hours and days after you see it, you’ll still collect it in your mind. While it’s all gripping, it only comes together in the final scene, which is shocking, transcendent and unexpected, yet inevitable.” There is a speech from one of the characters, Louis (Danny Aiello), that will stick in your head for years to come.
The LEGO Movie (now streaming)
![The LEGO® Movie - Official Main Trailer [HD] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/fZ_JOBCLF-I/maxresdefault.jpg)
As a parent, I’m used to cynical cash-ins from major toy brands. But long before that BarbieThe LEGO movie showed what you can do with a big heart and a big brand. Everything in The LEGO Movie is really great.
Write down io9Charlie Jane Anders explains, “The Lego Movie is both a perfect satire of noisy toy-driven summer action movies, and an absolutely perfect summer movie in its own right.” Alternative lens called it “an instant animated classic”. And like Katey Rich from Vanity fair wrote in a pre-Barbie era, “It’s one of the few movies based on toys with no explicit story behind it. And it’s the only one so far that’s actually good.”
Coraline (streaming from November 24)
Writer Neil Gaiman has been credibly accused of abuse that tainted the work he was involved in — even though that work is generally the product of talented teams, not just Gaiman. Henry Selick’s adaptation of his book is an absolutely beautiful and at times utterly terrifying classic, and it’s one of the best stop-motion films of all time. If you didn’t catch the 15th anniversary re-release in theaters this year, this is an absolute treat: it’s visually stunning, utterly thrilling and surprisingly scary for what is officially a children’s film.
If Empire says it’s a true horror film: “Frightening and beautiful, believable and fantastic, this is one of the best children’s films in years and Selick’s best – better even than The Nightmare Before Christmas.”
