To me, the best part of streaming are that great movies and TV shows that may not have made a splash upon their initial release for whatever reason can get a second chance to find an audience. This week I’m hoping we get two examples of that as two of the better movies I saw at the tail end of last year but weren’t able to crack through against the likes of Gladiator 2, Wicked and more, land on Prime Video — September 5 and The Fire Inside.
Both movies arrived on the streaming service on May 27 and both should be added to your watchlist real quick. September 5 was one of the best movies of 2024 that I saw, while The Fire Inside is a winning crowd-pleaser sports movie that goes deeper than others in the genre.
Let’s start with September 5, a journalism thriller that follows the ABC Sports broadcast crew of the 1972 Olympics that find themselves in the middle of the story of their lives when the Munich hostage situation takes place. Tim Fehlbaum directed and co-wrote the movie, which takes place almost entirely in the broadcast room of ABC Sports, using archival footage of the actual event to chronicle the story. The movie also features an outstanding ensemble that consists of John Magaro, Peter Sarsgaard, Ben Chaplin and breakout star Leonie Benesch.
My September 5 review gave the movie five stars, as not only is it a gripping thriller (I was hooked to see how everything unfolded despite the fact that the event happened more than 50 years ago), but it immediately put itself with the best journalism movies of all time, All the President’s Men and Spotlight. Other critics were of a similar mind, as September 5 is “Certified Fresh” at 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. Yet audiences and awards bodies mostly ignored it.
While I never would have expected September 5 to be a $100 million movie, a shifting release date that ultimately had it open limited on December 13, 2024, before releasing everywhere in the US on January 17, 2025, yielded disappointing results (just $2.5 million in the US). Major awards bodies didn’t recognize it either, with the Golden Globes only giving it one nomination (even though it was for Best Picture) and the Oscars following suit (nominating it for Best Original Screenplay). The German Film Awards gave the movie its proper due, handing it nine of the 10 awards it was nominated for, including Outstanding Feature Film.
At just over 90 minutes and an almost non-stop, tense thriller, September 5 can hopefully find its audience at last on Prime Video.
Moving on to The Fire Inside, directed by Rachel Morrison, this is another based-on-a-true-story movie, this time about Claressa Shields, a young boxer from Flint, Mich., who became the first American woman to win a gold medal at the Olympics for boxing. Her incredible athletic accomplishment is just one part of the movie though, as it also touches on the reality that Olympic glory does not always bring the benefits you might expect.
That extra bit of depth to the story (courtesy of a script from Oscar-winner Barry Jenkins), along with the chemistry between stars Ryan Destiny and Bryan Tyree Henry, are the secret sauce to this movie, which I gave four stars in my The Fire Inside review. Unfortunately again, The Fire Inside failed to register at the box office (just over $8 million) and felt like it was quickly forgotten.
We need to remedy that for both The Fire Inside and September 5. I highly recommend you give these movies a chance now that they are available to stream on Prime Video.
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