Photo: AVForums
Photo: AVForums

Amazon Prime Video has a ton of new films and TV shows hitting the UK, with some exciting (and long-awaited!) festival favorites finally making their way to our shores.

Highlights include time loop comedy Palm Springs which stars Andy Samberg, Cristin Milioti and J.K. Simmons, music drama Sound of Metal starring Riz Ahmed, Olivia Cooke and Paul Raci and star-studded drama thriller The Mauritanian.

1. Palm Springs (2020)

Photo: Hulu
Photo: Hulu

At first blush, Palm Springs is another take on Groundhog Day: Nyles (Andy Samberg) is a dude with the terrible misfortune of having to relive an acquaintance’s wedding day over and over again. But what makes Palm Springs stand out is how little it’s concerned with its own premise. Of course, the time-loop is all-encompassing and ever-present, but it’s also a fact of life. At the start, Nyles has been living in it for longer than he can remember; the only reason we learn about how it works is because something weird happens: Sarah (Cristin Milioti), the sister of the bride, gets trapped in it, too.

The new Hulu comedy might surprise some viewers, especially those tuning in for a film produced by comedy trio The Lonely Island — a crew that, across countless Saturday Night Live shorts or movies like Hot Rod and Popstar, became known for pop music parody and extremely silly humor. Palm Springs is definitely funny, but it’s a darker, hazier affair.

2. Sound of Metal (2019)

Photo: Amazon Original
Photo: Amazon Original

Darius Marder's Sound of Metal is emphatically not such a film, and Riz Ahmed's performance as Ruben, a punk-metal drummer who rapidly loses his hearing, is not such a performance.

There is sentiment here, but no sentimentality, no reaching for unearned emotion, no need to couch Ruben as a subject of our condescending pity, or blanket praise.

Credit Marder's script (which he co-wrote with his brother Abraham), which quickly establishes Ruben as a man convinced he can "fix" himself — who downplays what's happening to him and treats his hearing loss as a bump in the road. In early scenes between Ruben and his band-mate girlfriend Lou (Olivia Cooke), we get a pretty good sense why: Both are in recovery from addiction, and they seem to have replaced the rush of the needle with the rush of performing, and the easy romantic chemistry between them. When his hearing loss threatens both of those things, we understand why Ruben is so reluctant to accept his new reality, even if we know his attempts to resist it can lead nowhere good.

Ahmed's inward, soulful yet diamond-hard performance isn't about struggle, or suffering, or nobility, or uplift, and it's not presented for the hearing community to find cozy inspiration in. It's about a man living in a false belief, bargaining with his body to return to the life he's known.

3. The Mauritanian (2021)

Photo: Prime Video
Photo: Prime Video

Directed by Kevin Macdonald and based on the NY Times best-selling memoir "Guantánamo Diary" by Mohamedou Ould Slahi, this is the inspiring true story of Slahi's fight for freedom after being detained and imprisoned without charge by the U.S. Government for years. Alone and afraid, Slahi (Tahar Rahim) finds allies in defense attorney Nancy Hollander (Jodie Foster) and her associate Teri Duncan (Shailene Woodley) who battle the U.S. government in a fight for justice that tests their commitment to the law and their client at every turn. Their controversial advocacy, along with evidence uncovered by a formidable military prosecutor, Lt. Colonel Stuart Couch (Benedict Cumberbatch), uncovers shocking truths and ultimately proves that the human spirit cannot be locked up.

Full List of All the Movies and TV shows on Amazon Prime UK in April

1st April

Click

Dunkirk

Elysium

Ghostbusters

Ghostbusters (1984)

Goosebumps

Sausage Party

The Dissident

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part

The Mauritanian (Amazon Original)

5th April

American Hustle

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days

9th April

Palm Springs (Amazon Exclusive)

TV Series: THEM (Amazon Original)

12th April

TV Series: Flashforward S1

Sound of Metal (Amazon Original)

The Other Boleyn Girl

15th April

The Bodyguard

16th April

Mile 22

28th April

Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me

Austin Powers in Goldmember

London Has Fallen

Olympus Has Fallen

29th April

Crazy, Stupid, Love.

30th April

Blades of Glory

Love Fraud S1

Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse (Amazon Original)

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