Classic Movies on Amazon Prime in November 2018

Aubrey Hepburn has breakfast.

It's been a couple of months since we last explored what Amazon Prime had to offer in the way of classic movies. Its current line-up includes a nice mix of popular fare, a rare Stanley Kubrick movie, a quartet of first-rate Westerns, and some cult classics.

If you gravitate toward big stars, then you're in luck with films featuring: Henry Fonda (12 Angry Men), Audrey Hepburn (Breakfast at Tiffany's), Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine (The Apartment), Humphrey Bogart (Dead Reckoning), Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint (Exodus), Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole (Becket), Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck (Meet John Doe), Jack Nicholson (Chinatown), and Ginger Rogers (The Groom Wore Spurs).

Frank Sinatra in Suddenly.

Frank Sinatra stars in three movies that boast some of his finest acting: The Man With the Golden Arm, The Manchurian Candidate, and Suddenly. The latter two share some intriguing similarities.

Stanley Kubrick gets the "director spotlight" with a trio of his works: the visually dazzling Barry Lyndon, the superb World War I drama Paths of Glory starring Kirk Douglas, and Kubrick's first non-documentary Fear and Desire (1953).

There are some choice Westerns from Howard Hawks (Red River), Sergio Leone (The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly), William Wyler (The Big Country), and Anthony Mann (Man of the West). Mann's picture is a tough drama with Shakespearean overtones and powerhouse performances from Gary Cooper and Lee J. Cobb.

Charlton Heston has a revelation.

Charlton Heston's sci fi drama Soylent Green and The Conversation, my favorite Francis Ford Coppola film, are the best known of the cult movies. But there are two delightful thrillers featuring nifty twists: Henri-Georges Clouzot's French classic Diabolique and Hammer Films' underrated Scream of Fear with Susan Strasburg and Christopher Lee. Ray Harryhausen fans can rejoice with one of his best-known fantasy adventures, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. 

Finally, there are several lesser-known films that are worth a look. Beat Girl (1961) is a British teen drama with an above-average cast (e.g., David Farrar and Christopher Lee again). However, it's now best known as composer John Barry's first big break. And if you're looking for some truly unusual fare, you won't want to miss Samuel Fuller's remarkable "B" picture The Naked Kiss. It features a brothel called Candy a La Carte, a telephone receiver used as a murder weapon, and a really bizarre scene of hospital ward children singing in pirate costumes.

Keep in mind that Amazon Prime sometimes changes its schedule without notice, so some of these movies may disappear without notice.