11 movies to check out on Prime Video in August 2023

Cocaine Bear, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, and Red, White & Royal Blue highlight this month's Prime offerings

11 movies to check out on Prime Video in August 2023
Clockwise from top left: Cocaine Bear (Universal Pictures), Red, White & Royal Blue (Amazon), Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (Paramount Pictures) Photo: The A.V. Club

Are you ready to do the streaming-service shuffle? You may have noticed that many catalog titles and new releases ping-pong around to different streaming providers every few months in an attempt to make you subscribe to ALL of them to maintain access to your favorite movies. If you’re in an exclusive streaming relationship with Prime Video, you’ll be excited that it’s now Amazon’s turn to add the surprise hits Cocaine Bear and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves to its roster. Also on deck in August is Galaxy Quest, Snowpiercer, the Amazon original romantic comedy Red, White & Royal Blue, the Oscar-winning Women Talking, Timothée Chalamet’s romantic horror film Bones And All, and many more.

American Gigolo (1980, available August 1)
American Gigolo - Trailer

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 . 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:

Galaxy Quest (1999, available August 1)
Galaxy Quest (1999) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers

It’s a great month when the sci-fi parody 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. 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:

Bones And All (2022, available August 8)
BONES AND ALL | Theatrical Trailer

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 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 , 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:

Red, White & Royal Blue (2023, available August 11)
Red, White, & Royal Blue - Official Trailer | Prime Video

The Amazon romantic comedy 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:

Cocaine Bear (2023, available August 15)
Cocaine Bear | Official Trailer [HD]

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:

Of An Age (2002, available August 15)
Of An Age - Official Trailer - Only In Theaters February 17

Set in the summer of 1999, 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:

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023, available August 25)
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves | Official Trailer (2023 Movie)

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:

Champions (2023, available August 29)
CHAMPIONS - Official Trailer [HD] - Only In Theaters March 10

In Bobby Farrelly’s sports comedy-drama , 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:

Snowpiercer (2014, available August 29)
Snowpiercer Official US Release Trailer #1 (2014) - Chris Evans Movie HD

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, 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:

Women Talking (2022, available August 29)
WOMEN TALKING | Official Trailer

Sarah Polley directs Rooney Mara in the drama , 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:

 
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