Must-Watch Amazon Prime Movies Coming In 2021 And Beyond

Founded in 2010, Amazon Studios has long been at the forefront of the streaming revolution. Originally an added benefit for subscribers to Amazon Prime, the studio's projects have become synonymous with the subscription service.

By combining the development of original series and films as well as acquiring other projects, Amazon has built up a huge in-house roster of programming available to Prime subscribers. Amazon Studios even made history by being the first streaming service to win Academy Awards, for Manchester by the Sea and The Salesman.

Now Amazon is a studio powerhouse, producing and distributing some of the most anticipated upcoming series and movies to grace screens small and big. Already in 2021, Amazon's Coming 2 America made a huge splash as the much-needed sequel to a classic comedy, while the next few films set to arrive in 2021 from Amazon Studios may well capture the same lightning with audiences. The films being developed and produced by the studio for late 2021 and beyond prove that the streamer will be knocking out hits for months and years to come.

Michael B. Jordan got his start as the unforgettable Wallace in The Wire but it was his turn in Fruitvale Station that made him into a bankable lead. His Killmonger arguably steals the show in Black Panther, and Creed was one of the best reboots of a 40-year-old franchise. So no doubt the world is excited for his new movie releasing April 30, Tom Clancy's Without Remorse. But the action-packed special forces thriller about a Navy S.E.A.L. taking vengeance for the murder of his wife has even more reasons to watch.

The screenplay was written by Will Staples (The Right Stuff TV series) and Taylor Sheridan (writer of films like Hell or High Water, Wind River and Sicario, as well as showrunner for Yellowstone). It's directed by Stefano Sollima, whose series Gomorrah is a continuation of the eponymous gritty modern-day Italian gangster film. The cast is rounded out by Jamie Bell, Guy Pearce, Colman Domingo (remember Victor from The Walking Dead?), Brett Gelman and many others.

Plus it's based on a Tom Clancy novel. While the film was originally produced by Paramount Pictures, Amazon acquired the rights as a result of theaters being shut down by COVID-19. Get ready for some deep conspiracy, lots of bullets, and Michael B. at his finest.

Run Sweetheart Run first debuted at the 2020 Sundance Festival. The producers planned to next take it to South by Southwest and then into a full theatrical release. When the latter was curbed by the global COVID-19 pandemic, producers Blumhouse and Automatik sold distribution rights to Amazon.

A horror movie written and directed by Shana Feste, the story is relatable in an age of people increasingly going on dates without meeting the other person first. A hard-working single mom gets her dating life back on track with a blind date set up by her boss. But when she realizes her date is far more sinister than she could have imagined, she has to escape through the streets of L.A., which the creep she's dated seems to be in charge of. It's a premise almost guaranteed to keep you white-knuckled to the end.

The lead is played by 2019 Charlie's Angels star Ella Balinska. Pilou Asbeck, who you might recognize as Euron Greyjoy from Game of Thrones, plays the date. Then there's Clark Gregg, best known as Agent Coulson in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Aml Ameen from Maze Runner and Oladayo Okeniyi (Thresh from Hunger Games). Plus it's the only stand-alone Blumhouse movie on the 2021 Amazon slate, featuring a beautiful woman literally running from the date from hell.

It's one thing to be woke; it's another thing to have it forced on you. International reggaeton star J. Balvin is Colombian, and in 2019, Colombia was engulfed with protests against right-wing leader Ivan Duque. This was a nation still reeling from Pablo Escobar, the Cali cartel, and the FARCs. In Colombia, politics, fighting and rebellion are about more than disagreements; they're ingrained in the national consciousness and have often had seriously fatal consequences.

The Boy from Medellin documents J. Balvin heading home for what should have been his coming home party, a big stadium show. He had a documentary crew for the week leading up to it more as a way to chronicle a boy-done-good story. But then the story takes an unforeseen pivot.

As the protests get real and eventually lead to the cancellation of other shows, the apolitical J. Balvin is faced with the reality that he's going to have to choose sides, even if he didn't really want to. It's kismet when a documentary inadvertently chronicles the struggles of an artist as his people force him to embrace an agenda he may or may not totally agree with.

Amazon picked up the doc in August 2020, just ahead of its premiere at the digital Toronto Film Festival.

In late 19^th century Paris, women deemed too far outside social norms and mores were institutionalized. A leading team of neurologists sought to cure these women of hysteria at the Salpetriere hospital. In the award-winning novel upon which this movie is based, Le Bal de Folles – translated as The Mad Women's Ball – we follow these women in the asylum. Apparently the Salpetriere had an annual ball organized with the patients that attracted the who's-who of Parisian society. The movie follows the patients through this whole experience, including the protagonist, who's seeking to prove she was unfairly deemed insane.

Melanie Laurent, memorable as the femme fatale who killed all the Nazis in Inglourious Basterds, wrote, directed, and stars in this adaptation of the novel. In a time where women are calling more and more attention to how their freedoms have been infringed upon and are still being attacked, this film couldn't be more important — especially as it follows the Laurent character's journey through darkness and her drive to find her own freedom.

The movie is currently listed as being in post-production, with Amazon Prime as the distributor.

Blumhouse and Amazon Studios created a series last year called Welcome to the Blumhouse that brought four amazing thriller/horror flicks to the Amazon fold, with the next round dropping in 2021.

There's The Manor, in which a woman (Barbara Hershey) who recently suffered a stroke moves into a nursing home that she thinks is haunted by an evil force. She has to get out, but first she has to recover to the point that she can survive on her own.

In Black as Night, a teenage girl (Abbie Gayle) builds her self-esteem by hunting vampires in New Orleans and is joined by her friends in the effort.

In Madres, a Mexican-American couple move to a California farm town expecting the birth of their first child. But soon horrific complications and visions begin to frighten them. As these escalate, the couple begins to question whether they're due to a curse or something more evil. 

Bingo centers on a tight-knit group of seniors, led by Adriana Barraza, who refuse to change. They're strong enough to fight anybody threatening their retired bliss. But then their bingo hall is sold to a force that may be fueled by more than money.

Adam Driver is on fire these days. Marion Cotillard has been blowing doors off since she won an Oscar for her turn as Edith Piaf in 2007's La Vie en Rose. And to see the English language debut of Leos Carax, a French director with a deep love of La Nouvelle Vague, is always fun. These factors alone make Annette, starring Cotillard and Driver and directed by Carax, a film not to miss.

The movie was acquired by Amazon Prime in 2017 and has been in the pipeline for a while, but it is officially completed. 

Annette is a musical where almost every line is sung, with the songs written by the band Sparks. The plot is centered on a stand-up comedian (Driver) and his famous opera soprano wife (Cotillard) who are living a high-flying life of luxury and beauty.

Then their daughter's born, which puts a big damper on their life in the rarefied air enjoyed by acclaimed artists. When their daughter turns out to have a unique gift, things take a big turn guaranteed to make everything different. Annette promises to be a great film, especially if you're at least somewhat a fan of musicals.

Biopics about artists are always great — especially one about a 19^th century artist known for surreal cat paintings, as is the protagonist of The Electrical Life of Louis Wain. Will Sharpe directs from his own script (co-credited with Simon Stephenson), which in 2014 made the Brit List of hottest unproduced UK screenplays. But on top of the script and the director, this film delivers a dynamite British cast. While StudioCanal has European rights, Amazon Studios oversees the US release.

Benedict Cumberbatch plays Wain, the eccentric man whose cat paintings presaged our obsession with crazy cat videos, anthropomorphized animals, and psychedelic colors. Wain became schizophrenic, possibly due to toxoplasmosis from cat feces. Claire Foy (The Crown) plays his wife Emily, who meets a tragic fate. The extremely accomplished Toby Jones (who played another iconic British artist, JMW Turner, in the play The Painter) also appears, as does Jamie Demetriou (the guy with the big teeth in Fleabag) and many more British dynamos.

The movie potentially promises to be a tour de force about brilliance, madness, love, and loss, as well as everything in between — and, of course, cats. Definitely can't forget the cats.

Voyeurs speaks to a world where people are constantly looking out their windows to feel a connection with somebody else, if only by watching them live their lives. Justice Smith, the star of Detective Pikachu (as well as Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and the colorful hip hop series The Get Down) plays Thomas, who moves with Pippa (Euphoria's Sydney Sweeney) into their dream apartment. Everything is perfect for these beautiful young lovers — at first, anyway.

Then they notice their windows look directly into the apartment across the way, where an attractive couple is living what seems to be a dramatic life they can't look away from — a relationship full of passion, both good and bad.

But as the relationship of the couple across the street grows increasingly volatile, Pippa and Thomas decide they have to do something. They try to intervene, anonymously of course. But unfortunately, no good deed goes unpunished and things quickly start to go very wrong. Written and directed by Michael Mohan, this may be the kind of thriller you can't take your eyes off.

In November 2020, Jamie Foxx joined The Burial as producer and star. The project is still in development but given the talent involved, it has a great likelihood of going forward and being out within the next year. Maggie Betts is directing; her last film, Novitiate, won the Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Director at Sundance in 2017. The script is written by Pulitzer winner Doug Wright, based on a New Yorker article by Jonathan Harr. Put the parts together and The Burial has the potential of being an entertaining story about funeral homes and legal battles.

The story alone is amazing and weird: a bankrupt funeral home owner hires a flamboyant attorney to sue a rival over an agreement gone wrong. This could be fun, in a wacky and morbid way. One can only hope for a Six Feet Under meets Better Call Saul vibe, but given how secretive the process has been and how few details have been confirmed — plus the fact that it's listed as "In development" on IMDB – it could go a lot of different directions, any of which will undoubtedly be worth a watch.

In post-production now, Invasion is about a father who goes on the run with his sons in an attempt to protect them from a threatening alien invasion. Along the way, they all have to fight for their lives, growing and discovering their own strengths in the process. Riz Ahmed (Rogue One) leads a cast including Rory Cochrane (who's come a long way since playing Slater in Dazed and Confused), and Academy Award-winning actress Octavia Spencer, who is worth watching on a cereal commercial much less a high-profile Amazon family pursuit film involving aliens. The movie is directed by Michael Pearce, the up-and-coming British director of Beast.

The story promises to be frightening, or at least tense and thrilling. It was written by Pearce and Joe Barton, who wrote the amazing chase horror film The Ritual. If it's anything like that one, Invasion will have audiences locked in until the credits roll. Since it's in post-production, there's even a chance it will drop in late 2021.

At first glance, All the Old Knives seems like it could have a romantic air to it. Chris Pine and Thandie Newton play CIA operatives and former lovers who reunite at Carmel-by-the-Sea. Their conversation moves into the hijacking of Royal Jordanian 127, which led to the death of all onboard and is still a disgrace for the CIA even years later. As the flirtatious dinner goes on and the talk gets more real, it's soon revealed that this failed mission may have compromised a CIA agent. Eventually it becomes clear that one of them may not survive to the end of the meal.

Based on Olen Steinhauer's eponymous New York Times best selling novel, All the Old Knives features a cast that is fireworks. Let's not forget that another Steinhauer spy novel, 2009's The Tourist, was adapted into the 2010 film starring Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie, although there may be some out there who want to forget it.

Still, the cast includes Pine and Newton, along with Jonathan Pryce (Pirates of the Caribbean, The Two Popes) and Laurence Fishburne, who joined in November. Top it off with director Janus Metz, who directed the well-received Borg vs. McEnroe and Amazon's ZeroZeroZero, and we've got a can't-miss spy thriller.

As the saying about Fred Astaire goes, "Sure he was great, but don't forget that Ginger Rogers did everything he did, backwards... and in high heels." The biopic Fred and Ginger dives into the lives of arguably the most famous dancing duo in American cinema, from their magnetic careers to exploring their little-known off-screen romance.

For a long time, Astaire got the bulk of credit as America's great screen dance impresario. But his greatest footwork was with Ginger Rogers, to the point that their names are rarely mentioned separately. Their on-screen chemistry was indelible and Fred and Ginger aims to explore why.

Jamie Bell, who began his career as the dancing protagonist of Billy Elliot, will play Fred. Margaret Qualley, perhaps best known as Pussycat, the hitchhiker who brings Cliff to the ranch in Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, will play Ginger. Qualley also practiced ballet for most of her young life, making it at 16 to the American Ballet Theatre's summer program. Though she quit ballet, she received an Emmy nod for her turn as Broadway star Ann Reinking in FX's Fosse/Verdon.

This project was only announced in December 2020 and is currently listed as "in development." 

Nicole Kidman as Lucille Ball. Javier Bardem as Desi Arnaz. Directed by Aaron Sorkin. This is Being the Ricardos. Seriously, what else do you need to know? 

The script is a compelling slice-of-life story that takes place over a one-week period during the filming of I Love Lucy. It starts with a table read of a script and ends in the production of the episode. During that week, Lucy and Desi hit some serious snags that may jeopardize their marriage, which would have a huge impact both on and off-screen. This might easily become one of the most anticipated films of 2022.

Sorkin, who's nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay with The Trial of the Chicago 7, wrote Being the Ricardos in addition to directing it. Joining Kidman and Bardem in the cast are J.K. Simmons as William Frawley, the actor who played Fred Mertz on I Love Lucy, Nina Arianda as Vivian Vance, who played Frawley's on-screen wife Ethel, Tony Hale as I Love Lucy showrunner Jess Oppenheimer and Alia Shawkat as writer Madelyn Pugh.

When you get dumped from your happily-ever-after, the only solution is to find somebody else in the same boat and go from commiserating to hatching an insane plan to get your respective exes to leave their new partners and get back with you. That's a totally logical approach to the situation.

That's also the plot of I Want You Back, and this premise had all the makings of comedy gold. Especially with funny queen Jenny Slate and the inimitable Charlie Day playing the jilted, scheming lovers looking for redemption. There's also Scott Eastwood, Jami Gertz, Manny Jacinto, and Gina Rodriguez rounding out the cast, according to IMDB.

Director Jason Orley helmed two Pete Davidson works recently, both his film Big Time Adolescence and his stand-up special Alive from New York, so he obviously knows something about comedy. But most importantly, while the cast was announced in February 2021, the film has already been listed as filming on IMDB. Which means that there's a good chance we'll be seeing if Slate and Day reunite with their unrequited loves before 2021 is over (or early 2022 at the latest).

The sooner the better — given the challenges of the last year, everybody could use a good laugh.

Ghosts. College drama. A strong black female team from writer/director Mariama Diallo to producer and actress Regina Hall to leads Zoe Renee and Amber Gray...Master has so many things to look forward to.

First the plot: Two black women make their way onto the hallowed grounds of elite New England university Ancaster, guided by the black queer head of Belleville house. But there's a twist: this particular university was built on a former Salem witch hunt gallows hill and all sorts of supernatural stuff starts happening. So we have women of color navigating a world of privilege against the background of occult frights rising through the prestigious school grounds.

"From the moment we read Master and met Mariama we knew we needed to be part of bringing this spine-chilling story to life," said Amazon Studios Co-Head of Movies Julie Rapaport in the 2020 announcement of the addition of Renee and Gray.

Hall joined as producer back in 2019. She plays the queer black head of house who has to help Renee and Gray navigate racial tensions, stuffy prestigious halls, and occult threats. It may seem that as the first big talent attached, and playing a mentor or hero figure, Hall is in fact the real master of the project.

There's a lot to look forward to for the rest of 2021 and just beyond. But Amazon Prime has already dropped several great films in 2021 that you should check out in the meantime.

Let's start with a movie that probably nobody missed but just in case: why haven't you watched Coming 2 America yet? The sequel to one of the most iconic movies of the 1980s brings back Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall, James Earl Jones, Shari Headley and Louie Anderson while adding Wesley Snipes, Leslie Jones, and Tracy Morgan.

The Map of Tiny Perfect Things is a teen redux of the time loop Groundhog Day concept, written by Lev Grossman and starring up-and-comers Kathryn Newton, Kyle Allen and Jermaine Harris. Allen and Harris play two teens who relive the same day, eventually leading them to create the map from which comes the title. It's that charming teen date movie even grown-ups will (maybe secretly) enjoy.

Then there's Bliss, starring Owen Wilson and Salma Hayek. Greg, played by Wilson, is a double loser, having recently gotten fired and divorced. Then he meets Isabel, played by Hayek, a street woman who believes that their messed-up world is a computer simulation. And Greg may be starting to buy in as well.

While you're waiting for the upcoming films on this list, check these three out. And if you've already seen them, might as well watch again.