Credit: Lucas Gouveia/How-To GeekThe best part about Prime Video refilling its library coffers with more than 50 new movies at the beginning of the month is that it almost always includes more than enough iconic, sure-fire hits that are guaranteed to please. Sure, you could take Project Hail Mary for another spin, but when you’ve got the four top-shelf titles below to watch this week, why would you?
All of these acclaimed films are free for Prime subscribers in the U.S., and they all landed in the August 1 dump. They range from deep space to deep snow to the meanest streets of 1988 Los Angeles. But my top pick this week (and you might not be ready to hear this) has arrived just in time for back-to-school prep, as it’s one of the greatest classic college comedies of all time.
4
Interstellar
Christopher Nolan: blowing people’s minds way before The Odyssey
Christopher Nolan’s mind-bending, dimension-hopping 2014 sci-fi epic is making the rounds on several streaming services right now (you’ll also find it on Paramount+ and Hulu at the moment), and if you’ve seen The Odyssey, you might be curious about the elite director’s other masterpieces. Well, it doesn’t get much better than Interstellar.
In a not-too-distant future, Earth is choking on dust, and its crops are being decimated by disease—it’s crunch time, and the dying planet is in need of a miracle, or somewhere else for humanity to go. Enter former NASA pilot Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), who joins scientist Amelia Brand (Anne Hathaway) on a last-ditch mission through a wormhole off the rings of Saturn where they hope to find a habitable planet.
But time works differently out there—hours on one planet cost decades on Earth, where Cooper’s daughter Murph (Mackenzie Foy, and later Jessica Chastain) grows up resentful, but through some interdimensional connection, also might be humanity’s only hope for survival. Interstellar is a must-see.
Cast
Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Michael Caine, Jessica Chastain, Casey Affleck, Wes Bentley, Topher Grace, Mackenzie Foy, Ellen Burstyn, John Lithgow, Bill Irwin, David Gyasi, Timothée Chalamet, Matt Damon, Josh Stewart, Leah Cairns, Liam Dickinson, Francis X. McCarthy, William Devane, Andrew Borba, Elyes Gabel, David Oyelowo, Collette Wolfe, Jeff Hephner, Russ Fega
Runtime
169 minutes
Director
Christopher Nolan
Writers
Jonathan Nolan
Producers
Emma Thomas, Jake Myers, Kip Thorne, Lynda Obst, Jordan Goldberg, Thomas Tull
Main Genre
Sci-Fi
Budget
165 million
Studio(s)
Warner Bros. Pictures, Paramount Pictures
Distributor(s)
Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures
3
Fargo
A Coen Brothers masterpiece, dontchaknow
Few filmmakers can come close to the lineup of iconic films that Joel and Ethan Coen have amassed. From Blood Simple and Raising Arizona to The Big Lebowski and No Country for Old Men, it’s an untouchable body of work. 1996’s Fargo, however, is the film that arguably catapulted the brothers from niche indie darlings to cultural icons, and firmly established their unique cinematic style.
Quiz
Name that Coen Brothers movie
trivia challenge
From quirky criminals to existential drifters — can you name the Coen
Brothers movie from the clues?
CharactersPlotSettingDialogueDetails
Characters
A pregnant police chief, a wood chipper, and a ransom gone horribly wrong — which
Coen Brothers film features Marge Gunderson as its unflappable hero?
the cheerful and brilliant police chief of Brainerd, Minnesota. McDormand won the Academy Award for Best
Actress for the role, one of the most beloved performances in Coen Brothers history.
Gunderson, a pregnant Minnesota police chief who investigates a kidnapping scheme that spirals into
chaos. The wood chipper scene is one of cinema’s most grimly memorable moments.
Dialogue
Which Coen Brothers film features the iconic line: ‘The Dude abides’?
Lebowski, a lazy Los Angeles slacker played by Jeff Bridges, whose rug gets ruined and sends him on a
wild, absurdist adventure. ‘The Dude abides’ has become one of the most quotable lines in modern cinema.
plays Jeffrey Lebowski, better known as ‘The Dude,’ a White Russian-drinking slacker drawn into a
kidnapping plot. The film has become a cult classic with an almost religious following.
Plot
In which Coen Brothers film does a couple desperate for a child steal a baby from a
family that just had quintuplets?
as H.I. and Ed, a couple who kidnap one of the Arizona quintuplets because they cannot have children of
their own. It’s one of the Coens’ most anarchic and comedic early works.
lovable but desperate couple who steal a baby from furniture mogul Nathan Arizona, who has more than
enough to spare — or so they think. The film is a madcap comedy that showcases the Coens’ early flair
for wild characters.
Setting
Which Coen Brothers film is set primarily in a hotel during a 1940s Hollywood
screenwriters’ competition, featuring a mysterious neighbor and a devastating fire?
to Hollywood to write for the movies and gets trapped in a decaying hotel with a haunting neighbor. The
film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes and is one of the Coens’ most surreal and unsettling works.
pretentious playwright who finds himself unable to write and surrounded by increasingly strange and
sinister forces at the Hotel Earle. The film is a dark meditation on creativity, identity, and
Hollywood’s soul-crushing machinery.
Characters
Anton Chigurh, a terrifying hitman who uses a captive bolt pistol and decides
victims’ fates with a coin flip, is the villain of which Coen Brothers film?
Chigurh, widely considered one of cinema’s greatest villains. The film, based on Cormac McCarthy’s
novel, won four Academy Awards including Best Picture, and Bardem won Best Supporting Actor for his
chilling performance.
a relentless and philosophical killer whose coin-flip method of deciding fate became iconic. The 2007
film swept the Oscars and is considered one of the greatest crime films ever made.
Details
Which Coen Brothers film is a Depression-era adventure loosely inspired by Homer’s
Odyssey, featuring a trio of escaped convicts who accidentally become music stars?
John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson as three bumbling convicts on the run in 1930s Mississippi. The
soundtrack, featuring American folk, gospel, and bluegrass, won the Grammy for Album of the Year.
Homer’s Odyssey to the American South during the Great Depression, complete with Sirens, a Cyclops, and
a journey home. George Clooney’s performance as the fast-talking Ulysses Everett McGill remains one of
his most charming roles.
Plot
Which Coen Brothers film is a noir thriller set in Texas involving marital
infidelity, a botched murder plot, and a private detective who turns the scheme against everyone?
established their signature style of dark, twisting crime plots and morally compromised characters. The
title comes from a Dashiell Hammett term describing the paranoid, irrational thinking that overtakes
people who have committed — or plan to commit — a crime.
from 1984. A jealous bar owner hires a sleazy private detective to kill his unfaithful wife and her
lover, but nothing goes as planned. It’s a masterclass in slow-burn neo-noir tension and set the
template for the Coens’ entire career.
Setting
Which Coen Brothers film is set in a 1920s Irish-American mob underworld and follows
a calculating political fixer navigating loyalty, betrayal, and a dangerous love triangle?
Coens’ most elegant and underrated films. Starring Gabriel Byrne, Albert Finney, and John Turturro, it
draws heavily from Dashiell Hammett’s crime novels and features some of the most stylish cinematography
in their entire filmography.
and calculating advisor to an Irish mob boss whose loyalties are constantly in question. The film is a
beautifully crafted homage to classic gangster fiction and features the unforgettable ‘look into your
heart’ scene with John Turturro.
Your Score
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The film centers on Minneapolis car salesman Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy), who’s desperate to get out of some legal and financial hot water, so he hires a pair of criminals—the weaselly Carl (Steve Buscemi) and psychopathic Gaear (Peter Stormare)—to kidnap his wife so he can extort the ransom from his wealthy father-in-law, Wade Gustafson (Harve Presnell).
But the plan goes south pretty fast as Carl and Gaear leave a trail of bodies in their wake, which draws out whip-smart (and very pregnant) Brainerd police chief Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand), who wastes no time tracking down the dim-witted criminals. It’s a 94% rated masterpiece that will make you never look at a wood chipper the same way again.
Cast
Frances McDormand, William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare, Harve Presnell, John Carroll Lynch, Kristin Rudrüd, Bruce Bohne, Steve Reevis, Steve Park, Gary Houston, Sally Wingert, Larissa Kokernot, Melissa Peterman, Tony Denman, Larry Brandenburg, Michelle Hutchison, Bain Boehlke, Warren Keith, Michelle LeDoux, Sharon Anderson, Kurt Schweickhardt, James Gaulke, J. Todd Anderson, Wayne A. Evenson
Runtime
98 minutes
Director
Joel Coen
Writers
Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Producers
Ethan Coen
Main Genre
Thriller
Executive Producer(s)
Eric Fellner, Tim Bevan
2
Colors
Sean Penn and Robert Duvall are cops caught in a L.A. gang war
Directed by the late, great Dennis Hopper (who also directed and starred in the classic Easy Rider), Colors was the definitive 1980s L.A. gang movie that paved the way for genre-defining inner-city films of the ’90s like Boyz n the Hood and Menace II Society. With its Ice-T-penned hit theme song that still pops into my head if I even see the word “color” written down, Colors is one of those generational films you just can’t shake.
Robert Duvall stars as Bob Hodges, a veteran LAPD officer working in the elite anti-gang unit who, nearing retirement, gets paired with hot-headed rookie officer Danny McGavin (a young Sean Penn). While Hodges’ approach is to build respect, McGavin is intent on stomping all over it, which doesn’t go over too well with the Bloods, Crips, and Hispanic gangs that are killing each other in the streets, who soon put a target on McGavin’s back, too. Come for Penn and Duvall, stay for early performances by Don Cheadle and Damon Wayans.
Cast
Robert Duvall, Sean Penn, María Conchita Alonso, Randy Brooks, Grand L. Bush, Don Cheadle, Gerardo Mejía, Glenn Plummer, Rudy Ramos, Sy Richardson, Trinidad Silva, Charles Walker, Damon Wayans, Fred Asparagus, Sherman Augustus, Bruce Beatty, Paula Bellamy, Brandon Bluhm, Mark Booker, Ron Boyd, Verda Bridges, R. D. Call, Steven Camarillo, Seymour Cassel, Gary Carlos Cervantes
Runtime
120 minutes
Director
Dennis Hopper
Writers
Michael Schiffer
Producers
Robert H. Solo
Main Genre
Crime
1
Back to School
A Rodney Dangerfield college comedy classic you must watch
I’m sorry, but the greatest Olympic divers in the world cannot hold a candle to Thornton Melon’s legendary Triple Lindy in this classic of all classic fish-out-of-water college comedies that should be required viewing for anyone about to head to school in a few weeks. Legendary one-liner comic Rodney Dangerfield’s biggest hit, 1986’s Back to School turned an $11 million budget into a $91 million payoff and is a bona fide classic.
Dangerfield stars as Thornton, a millionaire men’s clothing magnate who enrolls at the fictional Grand Lakes University when his son Jason (Keith Gordon) threatens to drop out. It’s all a party for Thornton, who chums up with the dean, buys his way through classes, and starts dating his English Lit professor (Sally Kellerman). But when he’s forced to actually study to take an exam, Thornton’s resolve is put to the test. And when Jason’s championship dive team is short a diver at the film’s climax, it’s Triple Lindy time! It’s a classic that still holds up—it has an 87% on Rotten Tomatoes, too.
Back to School
Release Date
June 13, 1986
WHERE TO WATCH
Cast
Rodney Dangerfield, Sally Kellerman, Burt Young, Keith Gordon, Robert Downey Jr., William Zabka, Paxton Whitehead, Adrienne Barbeau, M. Emmet Walsh, Terry Farrell, Ned Beatty, Severn Darden, Sam Kinison, Robert Picardo, Kurt Vonnegut, Edie McClurg, Sarah Abrell, Boris Aplon, Nora Boland, Kimberlin Brown, Lisa Denton, Bob Drew, Jason Hervey, Leslie Scarborough
Runtime
96 minutes
Director
Alan Metter
Writers
Harold Ramis, Steven Kampmann, William Porter, PJ Torokvei, Dennis Snee, Greg Fields, Rodney Dangerfield
Producers
Chuck Russell
Main Genre
Comedy
Executive Producer(s)
Estelle Endler, Harold Ramis, Michael Endler
Consider your syllabus set
Four movie nights and zero homework, unless you count arguing about the ending of Interstellar, and if you do, good luck with that. How-To Geek’s streaming section does this same sorting every week, across every service you subscribe to, so check there often.
Subscription with ads
Yes, via Prime membership or $9/month
Simultaneous streams
3
Live TV
No
Price
Included with Amazon Prime subscription ($15/month or $139/year) or $9/month standalone
