This year, some outstanding films have already been released to cinemas. The best of them will celebrate its streaming premiere on Amazon Prime Video in a few days.
When we sat down in the Moviepilot editorial office halfway through the year to choose the best films of 2024 so far, one title quickly emerged that even mega-blockbusters like Dune: Part Two couldn’t match: Challengers. The sports drama was released in German cinemas at the end of April.
A little more than five months later, the film is announced in the Amazon Prime Video flat rate. In six days, you can stream the latest work from Call Me by Your Name director Luca Guadagnino with a subscription. 131 nerve-wracking minutes full of tennis, unspoken feelings and much more await you.
Challengers is the best film of the year so far – and soon you can stream it on Amazon Prime with a subscription
At first glance, Challengers appears to be an ordinary sports film. We spend a lot of time on the tennis court, following tournaments and experiencing the players’ ascents and descents. But it quickly becomes clear that tennis is only the surface here. With every energetic shot, the relationships between the characters are renegotiated.
Watch the trailer for Challengers here:
Challengers transfers the rivalry in sports to a love triangle between three professionals whose ambitions and desires get in each other’s way. Art (Mike Faist) and Patrick (Josh O’Connor) are actually best friends. But when they meet the cool Tashi (Zendaya), everything changes abruptly.
Guadagnino directs Challengers as a gripping epic full of conflicted feelings and the uncomfortable question of whether love is not just a sport after all, where the goal is to score points and win. When do the characters look each other in the eye honestly, beyond their ambition, and do they even remember how to do that anymore?
A great desire lies dormant in this film, charging even the most inconspicuous gesture with a significance that can destroy a friendship in a split second. At times, the film feels like a psychological thriller, not least because of the driving score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (The Social Network).
