The 8 Best Movies Coming to Prime Video in September 2022
The beginning of September marks the unofficial beginning of fall, and Amazon Prime Video will help get you ready for Halloween with several horror movies coming to the service. But with the long-awaited Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power release, Amazon is also gifting viewers with a Middle Earth movie, too. Here’s a look at the best movies coming to Prime Video this month.
1. ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’
- Sept. 1
Peter Jackson successfully brought J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy world to life in The Lord of the Rings movies, and he revisited Middle Earth with his The Hobbit trilogy. The Hobbit movies didn’t achieve the same kind of impact as The Lord of the Rings, but the first comes closest to replicating the magic.
An Unexpected Journey followed Bilbo Baggins’ adventures with The One Ring, while the Prime Video original The Rings of Power covers events thousands of years earlier.
2. ‘Crazy Heart’
- Sept. 1
Jeff Bridges has been one of his generation’s most consistent and versatile actors. From action (Kong Kong) to sci-fi (Tron) to comedy (The Big Lebowski) to drama (The Contender) to “big-budget student films” (Iron Man), he’s covered a ton of ground in his career.
Yet he didn’t win an Academy Award until he played down-and-out country music artist Bad Blake in Crazy Heart. Bridges’ strong performance steals the show, but co-stars Maggie Gyllenhaal (nominated for best supporting actress) and Colin Farrell nearly match him.
3. ‘Mother’
- Sept. 1
Director Darren Aronofsky takes elements from some of his previous movies — relationship tension from Requiem for a Dream, foggy reality of Black Swan — and brings them to Mother.
Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem star as a couple restoring a once-incinerated isolated house. One stranger knocks on their door, then another, and soon hordes of people invade their space. The home and Lawrence’s character’s reality aren’t quite what they seem. The drama/thriller goes heavy on the horror elements, making Mother a good choice for some pre-Halloween viewing. Whether it’s a good date movie, as Aronofsky once claimed, well, that’s up to the viewer.
4. ‘Silence of the Lambs’
- Sept. 1
You don’t need fava beans and a nice chianti to enjoy this 1991 thriller. Come for the realistic and tense storyline. Stay for the performances that wowed Academy Awards voters.
Jodie Foster won her second Oscar, Anthony Hopkins earned his first nomination and win for a role he’ll never be able to escape from, and Silence of the Lambs also picked up Oscars for best picture, director, and adapted screenplay.
5. ‘He Got Game’
- Sept. 1
Amid the fantasy, horror, and thriller releases, Prime Video’s September schedule includes this Denzel Washington-starring Spike Lee movie.
Ostensibly a basketball movie — it co-stars Basketball Hall of Fame member Ray Allen — it’s more about an estranged father and talented son trying to mend their fractured relationship.
6. ‘Goodnight Mommy’
- Sept. 16
Prime Video’s September release schedule includes this original that stars Naomi Watts in a remake of a 2014 Austrian film.
When twin brothers (played by Cameron and Nicholas Crovetti) arrive home to find their mother’s demeanor altered and face covered in surgical bandages, they suspect the woman beneath the gauze might not be their real mother. More or less isolated from the outside world, the brothers need to fend for themselves as they work to figure out exactly what happened to their mom and if the person in their house is an imposter.
7. ‘Ambulance’
- Sept. 30
The most recent movie directed by Michael Bay doesn’t stray too far from his previous work. Ambulance contains plenty of action, intense chase sequences (Yahya Abdul-Mateen said he terrorized Jake Gyllenhaal with his driving) in real ambulances, and sweeping shots.
Ambulance might not have a deep storyline or fully-developed characters, but it’s an enjoyable and entertaining ride that doubles as something of a love letter to Los Angeles.
8. ‘My Best Friend’s Exorcism’
- Sept. 30
The last day of the month sees Prime Video drop another original horror movie. Based on the novel of the same name by author Grady Hendrix, My Best Friend’s Exorcism is a horror-comedy set in 1988 that arrives just in time to ramp up for Halloween.
High schoolers Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since fourth grade. But after an evening of skinny-dipping goes disastrously wrong, Gretchen begins to act differently. She’s moody and irritable, and bizarre incidents keep happening whenever she’s nearby.
Abby’s investigation leads her to some startling discoveries with one question she needs to answer: Is her friendship with Gretchen powerful enough to beat the devil?
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