This weekend’s movie picks on Prime Video include a low-budget sci-fi that turns a dinner party into an existential nightmare, a Swedish dramedy that will have you crying before you realise what hit you, and one of Adam Driver’s quietly devastating performances in a film about a man who writes poems and drives a bus for a living.
We also have guides to the best new movies to stream, the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Hulu, the best free movies, and the best movies on Amazon Prime Video.
Coherence (2013)
- Genre: Sci-Fi, Mystery, Thriller
- IMDB rating: 7.2/10
- Rotten Tomatoes (critics): 89%
Eight friends gather for a dinner party on the night a comet passes overhead. The power goes out, and phones stop working. Then things get genuinely strange. Turns out, the comet has fractured reality, and stepping outside means risking getting trapped in a maze of parallel universes where identical versions of themselves already exist.
Made for just $50,000 with no script, no lighting equipment, and actors who were given their character backstories but had no idea what would happen next, Coherence is one of the most underrated low-budget sci-fi movies ever made. What makes it stick is how it uses quantum mechanics not as a gimmick but as a way to ask uncomfortable questions about identity and the choices we pretend we would never make.
You can watch Coherence on Prime Video.
A Man Called Ove (2015)
- Genre: Drama, Dark Comedy
- IMDB rating: 7.7/10
- Rotten Tomatoes (critics): 90%
Ove is a 59-year-old widower in Sweden who has decided he is done with life. He has rules, principles, a short fuse, and absolutely no interest in the loud young family that has just moved in next door and flattened his mailbox.
Based on Fredrik Backman’s internationally bestselling novel, A Man Called Ove is a film that earns its warmth the hard way, by making you sit with real grief before it lets any light in. It was nominated for two Academy Awards, including Best Foreign Language Film. I love how the movie never asks you to find Ove charming before it has given you a reason to.
You can watch A Man Called Ove on Prime Video.
Paterson (2016)
- Genre: Drama
- IMDB rating: 7.3/10
- Rotten Tomatoes (critics): 96%
Paterson is a bus driver in New Jersey. He wakes up at the same time every day, drives the same route, eats lunch by the same waterfall, and writes poetry in a secret notebook. Nothing dramatic happens, and that’s entirely the point.
This quiet, hypnotic film is about the beauty of ordinary routine and what it means to find meaning in a life that looks unremarkable from the outside. Adam Driver gives one of his most restrained and deeply felt performances here, and the movie has a warmth that sneaks up on you without ever announcing itself.
You can watch Paterson on Prime Video.