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This December, Prime Video is bringing you a lot of entertainment, from the much-anticipated sequel film to My Fault to an exciting anthology series based on different video games titled Secret Level. However, for the purposes of this article, we are only including the films that are coming to Prime Video this month and have a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score. So, check out the 7 best films that are coming to Prime Video in December 2024 with a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score.

After Hours (December 1) Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90% Credit – Warner Bros.

After Hours is a dark comedy film directed by Martin Scorsese from a screenplay by Joseph Minion. The 1985 film follows Paul Hackett, an office worker with a set routine, but when one night he breaks that routine to meet a strange woman, he finds himself in several...

Terror is just beneath the surface in Orca, coming to 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray on January 21 via Kino Lorber.

Also known as Orca: The Killer Whale, the 1977 creature feature has been newly restored in 4K from the original camera negative with Dolby Vision/Hdr.

Inspired by the success of Jaws, Dino De Laurentiis produced the film with Michael Anderson (Logan’s Run) directing from a script by Luciano Vincenzoni & Sergio Donati (Raw Deal).

Richard Harris, Charlotte Rampling, Will Sampson, Bo Derek (in her film debut), Keenan Wynn, and Robert Carradine star.

Disc 1 – 4K Uhd:

4K Restoration from the Original Camera Negative Dolby Vision/Hdr Presentation of the Film Audio Commentary by Film Historians Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell, and Nathaniel Thompson (new) Audio Commentary by Film Historian Lee Gambin 5.1 Surround and Lossless 2.0 Audio

Disc 2 – Blu-ray:

4K Restoration from the Original Camera Negative Audio Commentary by Film Historians Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell,...

To watch Marco Bellocchio’s incendiary poliziottesco film Slap the Monster on Page One is to realize that the playbook of fascism has hardly changed over the past half-century. Exposing the thinly veiled collusion of right-wing politicians and reactionary media outlets, the demonization of leftist protesters, and the hypocritical piety that ran rampant during Italy’s “years of lead,” Bellocchio’s film probes the ways in which truth is undermined to shape public opinion and sway elections.

As the editor of Il Giornale, a fictional Italian newspaper, Giancarlo Bizanti (Gian Maria Volontè) certainly understands the power of seizing control of a narrative before one’s even been formed. Speaking to the lonely, embittered Rita (Laura Betti)—whom he manipulates into betraying her left-wing activist ex, Mario (Carrado Solari), ultimately falsely implicating the man in the murder of his current girlfriend, Maria (Silvia Kramar)—he says, “Let’s not try to lose our sense of reality.

Stars: Richard Harris, Charlotte Rampling, Will Sampson, Bo Derek, Keenan Wynn, Robert Carradine, Scott Walker, Peter Hooten | Written by Luciano Vincenzoni, Sergio Donati | Directed by Michael Anderson

Orca: The Killer Whale, directed by Michael Anderson and released in 1977, is a unique and polarizing entry in the animal horror genre. Riding the wave of killer animal thrillers that followed the massive success of Jaws (1975), Orca seeks to differentiate itself by focusing on one of the ocean’s most intelligent creatures, the killer whale. Despite its potential, the film never quite rises to the heights it aspires to, blending melodrama with ecological themes in ways that often clash.

The story revolves around Captain Nolan (Richard Harris), a fisherman who becomes obsessed with capturing a killer whale for profit. When his attempt to trap a male orca results in the death of its pregnant mate and unborn calf, the whale seeks revenge in...

As expansive and iconic as its title suggests, Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West certainly seemed to be written in John Ford’s blood, from the vast wide-angle visions of Monument Valley that Leone and cinematographer Tonino Delli Colli luxuriated in, to the railroad-based, future-of-America economic landscape that serves as a backdrop to a number of bandit-versus-bandit power plays. Henry Fonda, with that methodical, stately stroll of his and those killer blue eyes barely visible from under the rim of his hat, can be seen and heard throughout, sending a shiver of great nostalgia up one’s spine. Ripened and tanned by years of desert sunlight, Ford’s Wyatt Earp is back in the saddle again.

But that particular pace and posture that Fonda had become known for in such films as My Darling Clementine, matched with the devious glint in those baby blues, now took...

I don't think I'll ever tire of rhapsodizing about the shootouts in the movies of Sergio Leone. He was a director fascinated by the infinite possibilities of the showdown -- the critical few moments before the duelists draw their guns and try to shoot each other dead. With extreme close-ups, he studied faces as time stretched out to impossible lengths. And then, the matter was settled in a brief flurry of violence.

Leone's obsession with the waiting period reached its artistic peak in "Once Upon a Time in the West." Here, the timer for the showdown begins well before the logical starting point -- when all the adversaries are present and facing each other. For eight breathless minutes, three villains stand around and do nothing at a dusty train station in the middle of nowhere. One cracks his knuckles. Another tries to take a nap but is bothered by a fly.

Quentin Tarantino crowned Sergio Corbucci as the second-best director of Italian westerns, but our vote goes to Sergio Sollima — this is the most satisfying Spaghetti oater outside of the Leone corral. In his first starring role, Lee Van Cleef is lawman Jonathan Corbett, who pursues Tomas Milian’s killer into Mexico for an American millionaire. Political screenwriter Franco Solinas helped cook up the story, which pitches frontier ethics against ‘establishment’ corruption. The two-disc special edition presents the show in 4 versions, if we count a clever English-Italian language hybrid.

The Big Gundown

Region B Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1967 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 110, 90, 95 min. / La resa dei conti / Street Date February 13, 2023 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £22.99

Starring: Lee Van Cleef, Tomas Milian, Walter Barnes, Nieves Navarro, Gérard Herter, Manolita Barroso, Robert Camardiel, Ángel del Pozo, Luisa Rivelli, Luis Barboo, Benito Stefanelli.

Cinematography: Carlo Carlini

Set decorators: Carlo Leva, Carlo Simi, Nicola Tamburo

Costumes: Carlo...

UK correspondent Lee Broughton returns with coverage of a well-realised Spaghetti Western, Michele Lupo’s irony-laden semi-comedy Ben & Charlie. The film’s eponymous anti-heroes are played by fan favourites Giuliano Gemma and George Eastman and the duo receive great support from a number of familiar faces including Marisa Mell, Aldo Sambrell and Giacomo Rossi Stuart.

Ben & Charlie

Region-Free Blu-ray

Explosive Media GmbH

1972 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 113 min. / Amigo, Stay Away; Amico, stammi lontano almeno un palmo / Street Date, 28 October 2021 / Available from Explosive Media / £22.99

Starring: Giuliano Gemma, George Eastman, Vittorio Congia, Luciano Lorcas, Giacomo Rossi Stuart, Remo Capitani, Nello Pazzafini, Marisa Mell, Aldo Sambrell, Roberto Camardiel.

Cinematography: Aristide Massaccesi

Production Designer: Dario Micheli

Film Editor: Antonietta Zita

Original Music: Gianni Ferrio

Written by Luigi Montefiori and Sergio Donati

Produced by Lucio Bompani

Directed by Michele Lupo

Charlie (George Eastman) patiently waits outside of a Mexican prison so that he can give his...

The good news is that Kino’s new 4K encodings of Sergio Leone’s first two Italo ‘Dollars’ oaters look terrific, with Fistful showing a lot of improvement: the basic restorations are from prime Italian film elements. And the packages are collector / home theater enthusiast friendly — standard Blu-ray encodings are part of the deal. As the films are still licensed from MGM, they include the extras from 2007 of which we’re very proud. The end results may be the first Leone disc release that makes this viewer ‘The Man with No Complaints.’ Don’t forget, they’re separate purchases.

A Fistful of Dollars + For a Few Dollars More

4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1964-1965 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / Street Date May 31, 2022 / Separate Purchases / Available through Kino Lorber Fistful and A Few More /

Starring: Clint Eastwood, Gian-Maria Volontè, Lee Van Cleef

Original Music: Ennio Morricone

Directed by Sergio Leone

Yes,...

[This October is "Gialloween" on Daily Dead, as we celebrate the Halloween season by diving into the macabre mysteries, creepy kills, and eccentric characters found in some of our favorite giallo films! Keep checking back on Daily Dead this month for more retrospectives on classic, cult, and altogether unforgettable gialli, and visit our online hub to catch up on all of our Gialloween special features!]

Clue and Knives Out. Those were the two movies that immediately came to mind after my first viewing of Michele Lupo’s The Weekend Murders, aka Concerto per pistola solista. The film’s zany, anything-goes murder mystery reminded me of the former, while the comedic family strife reminded me of the latter, not to mention that the film revolves around a group of people staying at the same mansion where the rooms seem almost as endless as the rising body count.

To be honest, these similarities were as much a surprise to me as the untimely ends of the slain victims in The Weekend Murders. My previous experiences with gialli have been more somber and bleak viewings. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed the gialli that I have seen, and find them to be enthralling in their execution and engrossing in their storytelling, but I’ve never seen...

Sergio Leone was born Jan. 3, 1929; he would have been 90 this week. Though he directed only seven films, their impact has been wide and long-lasting, including making Clint Eastwood a star.

On Oct. 11, 1967, Variety carried a guest column by Lee Van Cleef shortly before the U.S. bow of “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.” The actor countered criticism that Leone’s films are too violent: “What could have more violent sequences than the Bible?” he wrote. Van Cleef added that the films were authentic and heavily researched, saying that on the set the filmmaker “carried a small library of well-illustrated American books devoted to American history of those times.”

In that same issue, Leone said he didn’t invent Westerns all’Italiana. There were two dozen before the 1964 “Fistful of Dollars.” But the film was such a hit, he said, it inspired more than 200 spaghetti Westerns in the following two years,...

More mysterious than ever, Sergio Leone’s ode to (condemnation of?) revolution is said to be the centerpiece of his three ‘Once Upon a Time’ movies linking western violence to the modern age of brutal politics and ruthless gangsterism. Crudeness rubs shoulders with sad, beautiful images as Leone takes on a theme he claimed not to like very much. The writers Donati and Vincenzoni show him the way, while James Coburn and Rod Steiger bring to life the non-narrative moments of what becomes a broad, mural-like epic.

Duck You Sucker (A Fistful of Dynamite)

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1971 / 157 154, 138, 120 min. / Giù la testa, A Fistful of Dynamite, Il était une fois … la révolution / Street Date March 6, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: James Coburn, Rod Steiger, Maria Monti, Rik Battaglia, Romolo Valli, Antoine St-John, Vivienne Chandler, David Warbeck.

Cinematography: Giuseppe Ruzzolini

Film Editor: Nino Baragli

Art Direction: Andrea Crisanti

Original Music: Ennio Morricone

Written by Sergio Leone,...

Writer-director Sergio Sollima gives us one of the best 'political' Italo westerns from the pre- May '68 era... with two top stars in great form, Gian Maria Volontè and Tomas Milian. This two-disc German import has both the long and short versions of the movie in HD, with full language options for each. Face to Face (Faccia a faccia; Von Angesicht zu Angesicht) Region A+B Blu-ray Explosive Media (Alive) 1967 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 93, 112 min. / Street Date April 29, 2016 / available at Amazon.de / E 21,93 Starring Gian Maria Volontè, Tomas Milian, William Berger, Jolanda Modio, Gianni Rizzo, Carole André Ángel del Pozo, Aldo Sambrell, Antonio Casas, Lidia Alfonsi, John Karlsen, Gastone Moschin, G&eacutge;rard Tichy. Cinematography Raphael Pacheco Film Editor Eugenio Alabiso Original Music Ennio Morricone Art Direction and sets Carlo Simi Written by Sergio Donati, Sergio Sollima Produced by Arturo González, Alberto Grimaldi <Directed by Sergio Sollima

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Wow,...

The Leone Film Group has begun developing an English-language TV series titled "Colt," based on an idea developed by the late and great iconic spaghetti western filmmaker Sergio Leone.

The concept centers around the six-shooter gun packed by Clint Eastwood in "For a Fistful of Dollars." In 1987 Sergio Leone hooked up with his old writing partners Sergio Donati and Fulvio Morsella to work on an idea for a TV series about a Colt revolver that passes from owner to owner throughout the Old West.

Leone was said to be interested in a more naturalistic take on the Spaghetti Western genre than his earlier works, hoping to show the Old West "like it really was." Donati wrote a treatment draft, but then the project was abandoned.

Italian director Stefano Sollima (Sky's "Gomorra") will direct the first two episodes and act as showrunner along with writing the screenplay alongside Luca Infascelli and Massimo Gaudioso.

Kino Lorber brings the 1967 spaghetti Western Face to Face to Blu-ray this month, one of director Sergio Sollima’s most notable titles, previously released on DVD as a box-set with the two other titles in Sollima’s trilogy The Big Gundown (1966) and Run, Man, Run (1968). Noted for imbuing his work with a bit of actual social and historical context, there’s a bit more substance than usual for a film relegated to the periphery of a movement dominated by a mere handful of notable names. Though it’s ultimately not at the same level as iconic works by Sergio Leone and hasn’t reached the same level of reappraisal as several other retroactively recuperated directors, it features more nuanced characterizations in its complex narrative structure than is usually evident in other titles of the era.

Boston professor Brad Fletcher (Gian Maria Volonte) is suffering from poor health, and is forced...

We previously reported that Sergio Sollima’s The Big Gundown would be released by the good folks at Grindhouse Releasing. Now, we have the fine details. DVDActive reports that Grindhouse Releasing (by the way, it’s great to have them back after a long hiatus) is releasing The Big Gundown starring Lee Van Cleef and Tomas Milian in a 4 disc Blu-Ray & DVD Combo. Read on for the official press release. Can’t wait to see this since it has been a hard film to find.

From DVDActive.com

Sergio Sollima’s Run, Man, Run! has been available on remastered DVD for years, but its superior prequel, The Big Gundown has been missing from the digital home video landscape in the Us…until now. Grindhouse Releasing continues their comeback trail with the first even Us Blu-ray release of this classic film. Alongside Damiano Damiani’s A Bullet for the General, The Big Gundown...

There are two kinds of Western films. Those that came before Sergio Leone and those that came afterward.

With only six films to really speak of the Italian director who made Clint Eastwood a superstar left behind a spellbinding body of work that capitalzes mainly on the mythology surrounding the old American West. Throughout his films the themes of violence, treachery, and ways of life meeting their end are consistently explored like in Once Upon a Time in the West where the outlaw is soon becoming a thing of the past with the coming of the railroad and Once Upon a Time in America where the gangster is slowly being forced to reform or risk being gunned down.

There is something unique about the experience gained from watching each of Leone’s movies. The characters are often amoral and sometimes don’t even have names, however, somehow despite their surreal...

Released two years after his iconic, Italian-made “Dollars trilogy” – which launched the career of TV actor Clint Eastwood and created the “Spaghetti Western” sub-genre – 1968′s Once Upon a Time in the West is arguably director Sergio Leone’s crowning achievement. The inspired casting of blue-eyed American great Henry Fonda as a cruel villain is matched by the spectacle of Charles Bronson as the mysterious “Harmonica” and Jason Robards as the likeable gun-slinging outlaw, whilst Ennio Morricone’s score – and an ingenious diegetic sound-scape - upstages everyone in a near three-hour epic with less than 15 pages of dialogue.

In many ways Leone was the original Quentin Tarantino: a dedicated cinephile who made films which consciously referenced those that inspired him. In Once Upon a Time in the West there are clear allusions to the work of John Ford, Howard Hawks and Nicholas Ray, among others. Yet far from being a derivative hack,...

Peter Fonda will star in the independent film "Banker to the Poor." The film will be based on the true-life story of Muhammad Yunus, who won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for creating the microcredit loan concept that helped people in third world countries too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans.Indian actor Irrfan Khan ("Slumdog Millionaire") is in advanced talks to star as Yunus while Fonda will play an American businessman against Yunus' economic approach.According to Variety, Italian director Marco Amenta ("The Sicilian Girl") will direct from a script he wrote with Italian writers Sergio Donati and Massimo Gaudioso with assistance from Yunus. Shooting begins in Sri Lanka in October.

iReel is a new web-based streaming VOD, Svod, Dto service, offering HD movies viewable directly from a special player on site. The iReel service, available in Canada and the Us, is noted as the only online movie service that does not require a downloadable player. With no cost to join, film content includes major studio, classic and independent features, with a "focus on ease of use and high quality..." This week's major studio iReel pick is Revolutionary Road , directed by Sam "American Beauty" Mendes, starring actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet of Titanic fame. Screenplay by Justin Haythe is based on the 1961 novel by author Richard Yates, set in 1955, following 'Frank' (Leonardo DiCaprio) and 'April Wheeler '(Kate Winslet) as they move to 'Revolutionary Road' located in one of New York City's wealthiest Connecticut suburbs, where they live a life, raise a family and challenge each other with bitter arguments and physical abuse.

Well now, here’s an intriguing fusion of the old and new. Executive producer Sergio Donati (Once Upon A Time In The West) is backing Andrew McKenzie’s Hired Guns, a spaghetti western due to start shooting in July with an in-talks cast of Will Patton, Jeff Fahey, Karl Urban, Keith David, Danny Trejo, Tom Savini and Zoe Bell and the score provided by Andrea Morricone who, yes, is the son of Ennio. This alone would be enough to catch the attention. The cast fits, Donati obviously knows the score and speaking of the score ... well, it’s hard to argue with the Morricone heritage, now isn’t it? But here’s where things get interesting: The film is going to be shot digitally on the Red camera and then put through the same rotoscope animation technique pioneered on Waking Life and subsequently employed for A Scanner Darkly and others.

Marco Amenta is ready to develop "Banker to the Poor," the big-screen adaptation of Nobel prize-winner Muhammad Yunus' novel.

Vareity says the film is expected to shoot in Bangladesh in early 2010. Yunus is known best for developing the concept of microcredit loans given to poor entrepreneurs.

Yunus, who founded the Grameen Bank, will serve as a consultant and go over the final script, which Amenta is writing with Sergio Donati.

"Banker" will be an international co-production produced on a budget of a little more than $6 million. The trade says the film "will topline two Indian leads with international cachet as well as a Western star and local talent."

The recent success of "Slumdog Millionaire" has apparently become an inspiration for Amenta, who claims the film will promote a similar inspirational story.

Amenta's credits also include "The Sicilian Girl" and "One Girl Against the Mafia."...

Wednesday – Today’s proceedings started with Sergio Sollima’s masterly ‘The Big Gundown’, with Lee Van Cleef and Tomás Milian, on which I had to pass, having made a loose appointment to interview Sergio Donati at yesterday’s press conference. Donati, who co-wrote ‘The Big Gundown’ with Sollima, turned up at the screening with every intention of watching it again, but when I explained that I would have to leave for another interview before the movie ended, he very kindly agreed to give it a miss too, saying with a smile, “It’s okay, I know the story.” He did, however, ask to watch the opening credit sequence before we left. Was this an example of a screenwriter, even forty-one years after the event, just wanting to make absolutely sure that, no, he hadn’t been screwed out his screen credit, or just a tribute to the film’s wonderful...

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Thursday 3:00 p.m. For the Spaghetti Western posse, the day started with a press conference for the official launch of Spaghetti Western: The Secret History of Italian Cinema 4, overseen by Festival chairman, Davide Croff, and the co-curators, Marco Giusti and Manlio Gomarasca. The guest line-up was comprised of Franco Nero, Sergio Donati, and Tonino Valerii, with American director Eli Roth, and New York Times film critic Elvis Mitchell, also on hand. After Manlio had described the Spaghetti Western as, “the Italian genre which most contributed to change in worldwide cinema,” Nero spoke with passion about the Western and its continuing importance: “No male actor in the world doesn’t want to play in Westerns. Westerns were often A-movies in America, but B-movies in Italy. But these B-movies paid for all the auteur films. When I travelled to Japan and South America, in the hotel registers,...