11 movies to check out on Prime Video in August 2023

The recent American Gigolo TV series starring Jon Bernthal only lasted one season on Showtime, but that doesn’t mean you should dismiss the O.G. (original gigolo) played by Richard Gere in Paul Schrader’s seminal 1980 neo-noir crime drama American Gigolo. The stylish and gorgeously filmed movie established Gere as a leading man and was one of the first mainstream films to show frontal male nudity. The movie also prominently features the No. 1 hit song “Call Me” by Blondie, which feels so summertime and is impossible to get out of your head—even 43 years later.

Stream it now: Prime Video

It’s a great month when the sci-fi parody Galaxy Quest is added to any streaming service, and this August it’s Prime Video’s turn. The 1999 cult classic starring Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, and Alan Rickman is about the crew of a Star Trek-esque TV show who are recruited by actual aliens to help save their race from another hostile alien species. Paramount+ is reportedly working on some kind of TV reboot/requel/whatever of Galaxy Quest, but it’s going to be tough to replace Allen and Weaver, who are hilarious in the original movie.

Stream it now: Prime Video

If you’re one of those people who think Timothée Chalamet is a brilliant actor and not at all overrated, you’ll have to add the cannibal romance Bones And All to your watch list. The movie, also starring Taylor Russell, was directed by Luca Guadagnino, who also directed Chalamet in Call Me By Your Name. The A.V. Club’s Brett Buckalew wrote, “With Bones And All, Guadagnino makes his second foray into horror, reuniting with Suspiria screenwriter David Kajganich for an adaptation of Camille DeAngelis’ young-adult novel that feels at once more grisly and more distinctively heartfelt than the pair’s first stab at the genre.”

Stream it now: Prime Video

The Amazon romantic comedy Red, White & Royal Blue is directed by Matthew Lopez and based on the 2019 novel of the same name by Casey McQuiston. The story imagines a world where the first son of the United States (Taylor Zakhar Perez) has a feud with, and then falls in love with, a British prince (Nicholas Galitzine). If the plot alone doesn’t pique your interest, what if we told you that Uma Thurman plays the president of the United States? Yeah, we thought that would get your attention.

Stream it now: Prime Video

Cocaine Bear is directed by Elizabeth Banks and is very loosely inspired by the true story of a black bear who ingested nearly 75 pounds of lost cocaine in 1985. The horror-comedy starring Keri Russell, Alden Ehrenreich, O’Shea Jackson Jr., and the late Ray Liotta is funny, gory, and features the best use of Depeche Mode’s “I Just Can’t Get Enough” on film. Cocaine Bear has bounced around several streaming services over the past few months before dropping in to Prime Video in August. Maybe it ingested something that makes it unable to stay put?

Stream it now: Prime Video

Set in the summer of 1999, Of An Age is about a 17-year-old Serbian-born Australian amateur ballroom dancer (Elias Anton) who has an unexpectedly intense romance with his dance partner’s older brother (Thom Green). The queer romantic drama directed by Goran Stolevski received positive reviews and won the Best Film Award at CinefestOZ.

Stream it now: Prime Video

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is a stand-alone fantasy-comedy-adventure based on the Dungeon & Dragons role-playing game and is not connected to the previous D&D film trilogy that started in 2000. The 2023 movie starring Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis, and Hugh Grant received positive reviews and is much more clever than people anticipating another cash-in game adaptation might expect. The A.V. Club’s Jordan Hoffman wrote, “The entire picture exudes the wide-eyed (some might say immature) wonderment found around slobbering beasts and magic spells.”

Stream it now: Prime Video

In Bobby Farrelly’s sports comedy-drama Champions, Woody Harrelson plays a former minor-league basketball coach ordered by a court to manage a team of players with intellectual disabilities. Champions might be too earnest and fuzzy for those who expect more of a comedic edge from a Farrelly brother, but Harrelson fans may want to give it a shot.

Stream it now: Prime Video

As fans of the stellar Snowpiercer TV series wait to find out which network or streaming service will air the show’s fourth and final season, it’s a good time to revisit the 2013 post-apocalyptic sci-fi action film of the same name, which inspired the series. Starring Chris Evans and Tilda Swinton, Snowpiercer is about the last remnants of humanity who circle the frozen Earth on a train that never stops. The cult classic featuring a weirdly wonderful performance by Swinton as the train’s second-in-command is directed by Bong Joon-ho in his English-language debut.

Stream it now: Prime Video

Sarah Polley directs Rooney Mara in the drama Women Talking, about the women in an isolated religious community who try to reconcile their faith with the disturbing truth that men have been raping the colony’s women. The screenplay, also written by Polley, won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar. The A.V. Club’s Leigh Monson wrote, “Women Talking is about as direct as cinema gets in portraying the complexities and nuances of the feminist struggle, and it achieves much with characters who wouldn’t likely consider themselves feminist or revolutionary.”

Stream it now: Prime Video

The romantic comedy Honor Society stars Angourie Rice as Honor Rose, a high school student who plots to take down the three competitors standing between her and a recommendation to enroll in Harvard. Honor’s plan backfires when she falls for one of the competitors, the sweet-natured Michael Dipnicky, played by Stranger Things’ Gaten Matarazzo. Honor Society proves that young-adult cinema is not completely dead, and that there is more to the genre than battling factions in dystopian worlds or vampire love triangles.

Stream it now: Prime Video