Not every film needs hype to leave an impact. Prime Video is full of movies that never made headlines but deserve a spot on your watchlist tonight.
If you love sci-fi or stories built on mystery and suspense, The Vast of Night captures that feeling exactly. Set in a quiet New Mexico town in the 1950s, it follows Fay (Sierra McCormick), a teenage switchboard operator, and Everett (Jake Horowitz), a local radio DJ, as they stumble upon something strange.
One evening during her shift, Fay hears a strange signal crackling through the phone lines. Everett picks it up on his radio show and plays it for listeners, hoping someone can identify it. They soon receive calls from townspeople sharing unsettling stories, including sightings of unusual lights in the sky. The more they listen, the more it seems these stories are linked to something much larger.
Most of the story is told through conversations and late-night walks in empty streets and quiet living rooms, where the strange signal turns ordinary spaces uneasy.
There are no explosions or flashy effects. The suspense comes from the strange signal itself and from voices that hint at forces beyond human control. By the end of the night, Fay and Everett’s search brings them to an encounter that leaves more questions than answers.
Wind River begins on a freezing night in Wyoming, where Natalie Hanson (Kelsey Asbille) runs barefoot across the snow. Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner), a tracker with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, comes across her body while following animal tracks. The moment drags him back to the loss of his own daughter, who died under similar circumstances.
When the coroner confirms Natalie never had a chance against the cold, the case reopens wounds Cory has never healed from. It feels like a promise he must keep for both girls.
The FBI sends rookie agent Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen), unprepared for the brutal landscape and reliant on Cory’s knowledge of the land. Together, they retrace Natalie’s final steps, following faint tracks in the snow and piecing together how she ended up alone in the cold.
As the investigation deepens, the focus turns to the community itself, where families live with a history of violence that rarely makes the news. Natalie’s death feels like another tragedy that could easily be forgotten. The truth surfaces in a violent confrontation, but what lingers is not the gunfire. Wind River is about justice in a place the world often overlooks, and the grief that never fully leaves.
Eight friends gather around a dinner table, passing plates and trading small talk, when the night outside suddenly changes. A comet streaks overhead, and the atmosphere begins to shift. Phones lose service mid-call, a wine glass cracks on its own, and the house itself starts to feel unfamiliar.
Em (Emily Baldoni) notices something odd when she steps outside. On a street lined with darkened houses, only one still has its lights on. A few guests walk over to investigate, and when they return, they’re shaken. They insist the house isn’t just similar but identical to the one they left. That possibility unsettles everyone, planting the idea that they might be confronting alternate versions of themselves.
Much of Coherence plays out through improvised dialogue, which gives the unraveling tension a raw, unpredictable edge. Conversations overlap, with friends talking over one another as the pressure builds. Secrets slip through, and the trust that held the group together quickly erodes. Every choice pushes them further into darker territory, much like other underrated films you rarely hear about.
Everything happens inside a single suburban house, which makes the tension even tighter. As the night ends, the real threat isn’t the comet at all, but the realization of how fragile their relationships are when reality turns uncertain.
In The World’s Fastest Indian, Burt Munro (Anthony Hopkins) spends most of his days in a weathered shed in Invercargill, New Zealand, working on a 1920 Indian Scout motorcycle he has spent decades modifying. The bike rattles and smokes, and it struggles to pass safety checks, yet Burt believes it’s still capable of breaking records.
That belief eventually takes him beyond his small-town workshop and across the ocean to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. With little money and fading health, he ships his patched-up bike overseas, hoping to race alongside riders from around the world who come to test the limits of speed.
Burt arrives with improvised parts and a machine many doubt will run, yet he pushes forward. He hits setbacks, sleeps in cheap motels, leans on the kindness of strangers, and deals with officials who question whether his motorcycle is safe. Each obstacle could end the trip, but his persistence wins people over until they start rooting for him.
Hopkins plays Burt with gentle humor and quiet conviction, reminding us the story is as much about determination as it is about racing. The lasting impression isn’t just the roar of the engine, but the sight of a man chasing a lifelong dream late in life.
Slow West is the story of Jay Cavendish (Kodi Smit-McPhee), a young Scot who travels across America to find Rose, the girl he loves. He believes the journey will be simple, but the land is harsher than he imagined. A trading post robbery ends in violence, and a chase through the forest leaves him wounded, proof that even the quietest places can suddenly turn dangerous.
On his way, Jay meets Silas (Michael Fassbender), a drifter who offers to guide him for money. Silas stays cautious around strangers, expecting trouble wherever they go. He helps Jay more than once, but he also stays close, knowing Jay will eventually lead him to Rose. Together they pass through abandoned cabins and lonely camps where safety never lasts for long.
Jay believes Rose is waiting for him, but he does not know she and her father are fugitives with a price on their heads. Bounty hunters are already searching, and Silas knows more than he admits. Jay keeps moving forward, still hoping to find Rose, even as the danger around him grows.
In A Most Violent Year, Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac) runs a heating oil company in New York in 1981, one of the city’s most violent years. His trucks cut through frozen streets where every driver knows being stopped at gunpoint is a real risk. Hijackings are frequent, a worker is beaten, and even the banks begin to doubt whether Abel can keep the business afloat. Yet he refuses to arm his employees or make backroom deals. For Abel, winning means little if it costs him his values.
Anna, his wife, doesn’t see it the same way. Sharper and more willing to take risks, she pushes Abel to fight back harder, warning that holding back will only make them weaker. Their arguments give the film its pulse, turning their marriage into a running battle over what survival really demands.
Director J.C. Chandor builds tension in small moments, like a bank refusing Abel more support, a driver who won’t get back on the road, or Abel pacing in his office as problems keep piling up. It may sound slow on paper, but the steady pressure makes every scene matter.
What stays with you is not the violence but the questions that linger, the kind that keep certain films memorable no matter how many times you watch them.
So these are some of the movies on Prime Video you’ve probably never heard of. They don’t show up on the front page or in every recommendation, but that’s what makes them worth noticing.
