Most movies are good, but very few of them are a perfect 10/10.
That’s what makes the films included in this article so special — they don’t come along very often, but when they do, you’d better sit down and watch them asap.
Prime Video just added three movie masterpieces in September that only get better with age and repeat viewing.
The ripped-from-the-headlines drama Bombshell gave three of the best actresses working today — Nicole Kidman, Charlize Theron and Margot Robbie — meaty roles to showcase their versatile talents.
Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon faithfully recreated a moment in time now forgotten by most people, while the sci-fi remake The Thing with Kurt Russell terrified anyone who watched it with its depiction of an alien creature that can shapeshift into anyone it comes into contact with.
‘Bombshell’ (2019)
Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly, Nicole Kidman as Gretchen Carlson, Margot Robbie as Kayla Pospisil in Bombshell. Hilary Bronwyn Gayle / © Lionsgate / courtesy Everett Collection
Fox News is the No. 1 cable news network, but it’s also a place where numerous women have experienced workplace sexual harassment. Among them is Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman), a high-profile news anchor who, after being fired, accuses the network’s president, Roger Ailes (John Lithgow), of making unwanted advances toward her during her tenure. That inspires other women to come forward, but some, like rising star Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron) and new employee Kayla Pospisil (Robbie), refrain from speaking out.
Bombshell is inspired by real events involving real people, although Robbie’s character is a composite of other lesser-known women who eventually came forward with their own claims. The film plays like a thriller, with each of the three leads weighing the personal and professional ramifications of revealing the truth about their traumatic experiences. The cast is uniformly excellent, but Theron is on another level. Like Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest, the Mad Max: Fury Road star fully immerses herself in her character, making it hard to separate the actress from her real-life subject.
‘Frost/Nixon’ (2009)
Michael Sheen as David Frost, Frank Langella as Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon. Universal/courtesy Everett Collection
Three years after he resigned as president of the United States, Richard Nixon (Frank Lengella) sat down for a series of interviews with British talk show host David Frost (Michael Sheen). For Nixon, he wants to repair the massive damage the Watergate scandal did to his image; for Frost, he wants to score the scoop of the century by persuading Nixon to reveal more details about his role in Watergate and maybe admit his culpability. Across three recorded sessions, the two men engage in some tricky verbal jousting, with both of their reputations on the line.
Frost/Nixon doesn’t sound like exciting cinema; after all, how thrilling can a re-enactment of a few television interviews from the ‘70s be? But that just shows how impressively director Ron Howard used historical fact to make one of the decade’s most suspenseful pictures. He’s helped by two terrific lead actors, with Langella conveying all the intelligence, delusion and sadness of a public figure who once ruled the free world and now is forever shunned by it. Sheen, too, is terrific as an ambitious journalist who pushes his subject to reveal something that surprises both men.
‘The Thing’ (1982)
Deep in the Arctic, a ragtag American crew at a research station rescues an abandoned dog from a nearby Norwegian base, which has been torn apart by an unknown force. Gradually, they realize the dog isn’t a dog at all — it’s an alien parasite that absorbs other life forms and can mimic their appearance. After several of their crew are murdered, the men, led by pilot R.J. MacReady (Kurt Russell), begin to distrust each other. Is one of the survivors actually The Thing in disguise? And if so, how do you kill a creature that can live in the cold and can seemingly withstand being shot at and sliced in half?
Say goodbye to summer because September is here! Prime Video is celebrating the advent of sweater weather by adding a slew of must-watch new movies and TV shows this month. The big debuts this month are Neagley, the Reacher spinoff featuring Maria Sten‘s fan-favorite character, the return of Thursday Night Football and the original rom-com […]
A major critical and commercial disaster when it was released in the summer of 1982, John Carpenter’s The Thing has been rightly re-evaluated as a sci-fi masterpiece and one of the best films of the 1980s. While the cast, which includes character actors like Keith David and Wilford Brimley, is top-notch, the star of the show is the film’s groundbreaking and gory makeup and special effects. The Thing’s thing is visceral and all too real, and when you witness a poor victim’s arms get bitten clean off by an open human chest cavity, you’ll wince with pleasure. The Thing’s gore has been widely celebrated, but make no mistake — this film is an excellent thriller that keeps you in its grip until the very end.
