Watch With Us is keenly aware it’s Mother’s Day weekend, and Prime Video has some great movies you can watch with your beloved mom.
But what if you want to watch some films when mom isn’t around? Then you’re reading the right article!
We’ve curated a short list of the best new Prime Video movies to watch this weekend. At the top of the list is Dragonheart, an underrated ‘90s fantasy epic featuring Sean Connery as a wise dragon.
Babe is another ‘90s classic, and its heartwarming tale of a talking pig trying to fit in at a farm is still enchanting today.
Finally, The Glass Castle is a not-so-sunny drama starring Woody Harrelson as an irresponsible patriarch of a lower-class family in the 1970s.
‘Dragonheart’ (1996)
Game of Thrones made dragons popular on the small screen, but the magical flying creatures have yet to break through in movies. They came close with Dragonheart, a 1996 fantasy film starring Dennis Quaid as Sir Bowen, a medieval knight with a reputation for killing dragons. That’s what makes it all the more ironic when he has to partner with the last dragon in existence, Draco (voiced by Connery), to overthrow the evil ruler Einon (David Thewlis). Even if they’re victorious, it’s doomsday for Draco, as he shares his heart with Einon. If Einon croaks, so does Draco.
Dragonheart is a throwback to the high-fantasy films of the 1970s and 1980s, although by 1996, CGI had advanced enough to fully realize a realistic-looking dragon. The result is a surprisingly effective action-adventure tale with enough dazzling set pieces and palace intrigue to satiate George R.R. Martin fans and newbies alike. Quaid unplugs his megawatt smile to portray a morose nobleman who no longer believes in honor and Connery is terrific as the one creature who can restore his faith. The special effects were nominated for an Oscar in 1997 and still hold up today.
Dragonheart is streaming on Prime Video.
‘Babe’ (1995)
Who doesn’t like a talking pig? When orphaned piglet Babe (Christine Cavanaugh) is brought to kindly farmer Arthur Hoggett’s (The Green Mile‘s James Cromwell) farm, he quickly befriends a menagerie of cute animals, including sassy pooch Fly (Miriam Margolyes) and Ferdinand (Danny Mann), a duck who crows like a rooster. Babe quickly impresses everyone enough to help Arthur win the local sheep herding contest, but will the charismatic porker come through to make his newfound family happy?
There’s not much to Babe, and that’s probably why it works so well. The stakes are pleasantly low, with the only real emergency being Babe’s revelation that humans eat his own kind. Nominated for seven Oscars, Babe is a family-friendly movie that is sweet without being saccharine. It’s winningly wholesome, and it may just make you swear off pork for the immediate future.
Babe is streaming on Prime Video.
‘The Glass Castle’ (2017)
Rex Walls (Woody Harrelson) isn’t your typical father. With his wife, Rose (Naomi Watts), he raises his four children in a way that would make most other parents grimace. Dirt poor and aimless, the Walls family leads an itinerant life that eventually takes its toll on one of them, Jeannette (Chandler Head, Ella Anderson and Brie Larson). She eventually grows up and becomes a writer, but she can’t quite escape her unconventional upbringing and the memory of her dad, whom she thinks made all the wrong choices.
The Glass Castle is a powerful drama that often feels like someone punched you in the stomach. It’s tough to take at times, and that’s because everything you see on screen is based on fact. The movie is adapted from Jeannette’s bestselling memoir, also called The Glass Castle, and it conveys all the uncertainty and heartbreak of growing up in a dysfunctional family. It’s also an inspiring survivor’s tale, one that any child who had it rough early on in their life can relate to.
The Glass Castle is streaming on Prime Video.
