Prime Video is the second-biggest streaming service on the planet, second only to Netflix. Since it started making original content in 2013, it’s amassed a deep library of quality content. Some, like The Boys, became big hits. But there are a lot of other underrated or largely forgotten series that are just sitting there, waiting for you to discover and binge them to completion.
Goliath
Before he was Landman
Goliath is a legal drama created by David E. Kelley, a TV titan who created hit shows like The Practice, Ally McBeal, and Boston Legal back in the day. Goliath proves that he’s still got it. It’s about a washed-up, burnt-out ambulance chaser named Billy McBride (Billy Bob Thornton) who finds new purpose when he takes a wonderful case that pits him against the powerful law firm he helped create.
Thornton is magnetic as the self-destructive McBride, proving why he’s been a star since the 1990s. Each of Goliath’s four seasons tells a different story, so while there are serialized elements, you don’t have to remember every detail of every episode to enjoy it.
- Release Date
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2016 – 2021-00-00
- Network
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Prime Video
- Directors
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Dennie Gordon, Alik Sakharov, Anthony Hemingway, Bill D’Elia
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Billy Bob Thornton
Billy McBride
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Dominic Hoffman
Judge Walter Strauss
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Ever Carradine
Rachel Kennedy
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Haley Joel Osment
Dylan Zax
Upload
The sitcom of the future
Upload is a unique, deeply underrated sitcom starring Robbie Amell as a computer engineer who dies and then finds himself uploaded into a digital afterlife. The show delivers solid jokes, skewers Silicon Valley’s wild flights of fancy (some company will announce digital immortality any day now), and sprinkles in some romance for good measure.
Like Goliath, Upload runs for four seasons.
- Release Date
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2020 – 2025-00-00
- Network
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Prime Video
- Showrunner
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Greg Daniels
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Robbie Amell
Nathan Brown
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Allegra Edwards
Ingrid Bannerman
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The Man in High Castle
Courtesy of Philip K. Dick
One of the first major, big-budget swings Prime Video took as a streaming service was The Man in the High Castle, a sci-fi epic that deserves more of a following. Based on the book by sci-fi legend Philip K. Dick, the show is set in an alternate reality where the Axis powers won World War II, and where the United States has been divided up between Germany and Japan. Although there is an author, the titular man in the high castle, who wrote a book imagining what hte world would be like had things gone differently.
Over the course of four seasons, we follow a large cast of characters as they explore this strange new world. Some argue that the show falls off in quality towards the end, but it’s still a fascinating journey.
- Release Date
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2015 – 2019-00-00
- Network
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Prime Video
- Showrunner
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Frank Spotnitz
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Alexa Davalos
Juliana Crain
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Joel de la Fuente
Inspector Kido
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Carnival Row
Faeries, love, and murder
Carnival Row is an ambitious fantasy series set in a metropolis that’s going through an industrial revolution. Human beings live alongside fantasy creatures like faeries, fauns, and centaurs, although not as always happily; the fantasy creatures are a metaphor for immigrants, and it falls to Detective Rycroft Philostrate (Orlando Bloom) to investigate when several of them turn up murdered.
There’s also a star-crossed romance between Rycroft and a faerie named Vignette (Cara Delevingne). Carnival Row wasn’t as big a hit as Prime Video was hoping, but it still tells a compelling, complete story across its two seasons.
- Release Date
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2019 – 2022
- Network
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Amazon Prime Video
- Showrunner
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Travis Beacham
- Directors
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Travis Beacham
- Writers
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Travis Beacham
Sneaky Pete
A delightful long con
Sneaky Pete stars Giovanni Ribisi as Marius Josipović, a con artist who has a problem when he gets out of jail: the vicious gangster that Marius once robbed (Bryan Cranston) is still hunting him. Thinking on his feet like always, Marius assumes the identity of his cellmate, Pete Murphy (Ethan Embry), even ingratiating himself with Pete’s estranged family. How long can he keep up the charade?
Answering that question ends up being very entertaining. Sneaky Pete is full of nail-biting moment as the clever Marius threads the needle, trying to stay ahead of his former criminal associates as well as the suspicions of Pete’s real family, who hadn’t seen him since he was a child, 20 years earlier. Grandmother Audrey Bernhardt (Margo Martindale) is especially suspicious.
As you may have noticed, the acting talent on Sneaky Pete is top-notch, and the writing matches it more often than not. The show was canceled after three seasons, but it still has a satisfying ending that doesn’t feel like it leaves things unresolved.
- Release Date
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2015 – 2019-00-00
- Network
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Prime Video
- Showrunner
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David Shore, Bryan Cranston
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Giovanni Ribisi
Pete Murphy / Marius Josipović
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Lois Smith
Reverend Ethel Landry
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Marin Ireland
Julia Bowman
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Michael Drayer
Eddie Josipović
Hanna
Why must I be a teenager in danger?
Hanna is about a 15-year-old girl named Hanna (Esme Creed-Miles) raised in extreme isolation by her survivalist father Erik (Joel Kinnaman), who trains her for combat. This is because Hanna is actually a genetically enhanced super-soldier, and the people behind a CIA program called UTRAX want her back to use her as a living weapon.
Hanna splits itself between visceral action scenes and sequences where Hanna just tries to have a normal teenage life. It’s a surprisingly effective mixture. The show has three seasons and ends with a definitive conclusion.
- Release Date
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2019 – 2020
- Network
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Amazon Prime Video
- Showrunner
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David Farr
- Directors
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David Farr
- Writers
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David Farr
Red Oaks
Ring in the ’80s
Red Oaks is a gentle slice-of-life comedy about a college student (Craig Roberts) who gets a summer job at a New Jersey country club in the summer of 1985. It’s a warm coming-of-age story with a lot of heart, a great cast that also includes Paul Reiser and Richard Kind, and an authentic ’80s vibe that doesn’t feel like a parody of itself.
At three seasons and 26 episodes total, this show goes down nice and nice. It also goes out on a high note with a definitive ending.
Patriot
Patriot is an off-beat spy series about a government operative named John Tavner (Michael Dorman) who splits his time between going on dangerous missions where he has to kill people and writing folk songs about his feelings. John attracts a group of misfits who become a kind of second family.
The tone of Patriot is off-kilter, weird, and hard to describe; it has to be seen to be believed. The show lasted for two seasons.
- Release Date
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2015 – 2018-00-00
- Network
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Prime Video
- Directors
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Ted Griffin
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Gil Bellows
Lawrence Lacroix
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Julian Richings
Peter Icabod
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And if all else fails…
…there’s always Netflix. If you run out of quality stuff to watch on Prime Video, the original streaming titan is right there, with lots of finished series ready for you to binge front to back.
But Prime Video shouldn’t be counted out. There’s more than enough room in the Streaming Wars for more than one combatant.