If you suffer from decision fatigue, or simply don’t know how to differentiate the hundreds of titles you scroll through on streaming services, you might find the experience of picking a movie to watch rather harrowing.
Thankfully, we’ve done some of the hard work for you, pulling together these three films that are the perfect way to spend a weekend watching movies. Amazon Prime Video has plenty of movies worth your time, but these three very different titles have all flown more under the radar than they should have.
Need more recommendations? Then check out the best new movies to stream this week, as well as the best shows on Netflix, best shows on Hulu, best shows on Amazon Prime Video, and best shows on Disney+.
Cloud Atlas (2012)
The Wachowskis made The Matrix, one of the great sci-fi movies ever produced, but their other efforts have been met with a much more mixed reception. One of those efforts is the sprawling, uncontainable Cloud Atlas, which is adapted from a novel of the same name. The film is set during six different points across humanity’s past and future, and is ultimately about the long unbroken string that is humanity.
Cloud Atlas is definitely a heady, strange experience, but if you let yourself fall under its spell, you’ll be amazed by how moving and transcendent the film feels by the time it’s over. It also boasts one of the oddest star-studded casts in recent memory, with Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant, Susan Sarandon, and Black Doves‘ Ben Whishaw popping in and out.
You can watch Cloud Atlas on Amazon Prime Video.
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005)
Based on a 2003 book of the same name, this documentary tells the story of Enron and the men who made it one of the most high-profile fraud cases in the history of the United States. Over the company’s life, the men running it orchestrated a number of underhanded schemes designed to extract as much profit as possible from their customers.
Two decades after this movie’s release, it’s story of a corporation pursuing profits above all else, until someone finally realized how much they were screwing over everyone in their wake.
You can watch Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room on Amazon Prime Video.
Yentl (1983)
Barbra Streisand’s directorial career kicked off with Yentl, and what a debut it is. Telling the story of a Jewish woman with a ferocious intellect who disguises herself as a man in order to study alongside the men at a religious institute. When she finds herself falling in love with a fellow student, she must decide whether her studies or her heart are more important.
Featuring a handful of all-time classic songs like Papa, Can You Hear Me? and The Way He Makes Me Feel, both of which were nominated for an Academy Award in 1984, as well a great central performance from Streisand, Yentl is a surprisingly moving portrait of a woman wondering why she can’t simply have everything she wants.
You can watch Yentl on Amazon Prime Video.
