Prime Video has a new number one movie and it's causing controversy

Maybe don't watch this one with your folks...

Prime Video has a new number one movie and it's causing controversy

One of the best - and most controversial - movies of the year has hit the Prime Video top spot, rounding out a successful 2023 for the film.

Saltburn is a new thriller written and directed by Emerald Fennell who also made the excellent Promising Young Woman and was one of the writers on Killing Eve.

The movies focuses on an Oxford University student who is lead astray by an aristocratic classmate, who invites him to his family's estate for what turns out to be a rather shocking summer.

Saltburn stars Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Richard E. Grant and Rosamund Pike, and has been getting decent, if polarising, reviews.

One of Prime Video's biggest-ever movies is set to stream before Christmas

Image Credit: Amazon Studios / MGM

The Wall Street Journal notes: "Mr. Keoghan has an uncanny ability to come across as shifty and devious even in repose, and his performance is the key to the movie."

Time Out says: "Emerald Fennell’s deliciously dark comedy sticks the knife into the English class system and gives it a proper twist."

Peter Travers at ABC News reckons: "Love it or loathe it, Emerald Fennell’s deliciousl takedown of the upper classes keeps you glued to Barry Keoghan as a poorboy driven to madness and worse by a rich Adonis (Jacob Elordi) and his hilariously vampiric mom (an Oscar-ready Rosamund Pike)."

While Rolling Stone believes: "Come for the class warfare and the occasional shots-fired zingers about the rich being different than you and me. Stay for Keoghan."

According to Flix Patrol, Saltburn is the number one movie on Prime right now and by some margin. According to their own unique stats, it's at least twice as popular as second-placed movie Candy Cane Lane and three times as popular as John Wick: Chapter 4 which is in third place.

Prime Video has a new number one movie and it's causing controversy

It didn't take long for Saltburn to hit Prime Video, with the movie still in theaters when it first landed on the straming platform. This is because it is an Amazon Studios production. Amazon is doing a similar thing it did with Air, adding it to its platform straight after the 36-day theatrical window closes.

The movie may well get into the Oscar nominations, especially Barry Keoghan's performance, and Fennell will be hoping she can emulate the success she had with Promising Young Women, which won the best screenplay Oscar in 2021.

Marc Chacksfield
Content Director

As Content Director of Shortlist, Marc likes nothing more than to compile endless lists of an evening by candlelight. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.