What’s more American than Tom Cruise, Ryan Gosling and some great movies that will make you think, laugh and experience things you’ve never seen before?
Prime Video is dropping some seriously entertaining movies this 4th of July weekend, and you may not have enough time to watch fireworks.
If you can only stream just one movie, Watch With Us recommends watching Project Hail Mary, which was just made available on Prime Video after an exclusive two-week run on MGM+.
If you can accommodate more films, we also suggest you check out two wildly different Tom Cruise pictures: the 2008 comedy Tropic Thunder, which sees the Top Gun actor play a sleazy Hollywood executive, and Lions for Lambs, a 2007 political drama that features the Cocktail star as a charming senator with a hidden agenda.
‘Project Hail Mary’ (2026)
Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) is an average middle-grade science teacher who finds himself somewhere extraordinary: outer space. How did someone like him get there? At first, he’s not quite sure himself. All he knows is that he’s the only living human left on his ship. He’s not alone, though – eventually, he meets a strange, stone-like alien creature, Rocky (James Ortiz). They’re obviously very different, but they have the same goal – to save their home planets from certain destruction. But what problem is big enough to threaten two distant planets in a densely populated galaxy?
Chances are you already know the answer, as Project Hail Mary was a huge success when it was released in movie theaters this past spring. But just in case you don’t, it’s best to watch the film with as little information as possible. All you need to know is that the film is blockbuster filmmaking at its very best, with a great performance by Gosling, some truly innovative special effects and spectacular cinematography, score and production design. Project Hail Mary is sure to be a major Oscar contender in early 2027, so stream it now before the awards buzz inspires the inevitable backlash.
‘Tropic Thunder’ (2008)
Director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) is in serious trouble. His epic Vietnam War movie, Tropic Thunder, is behind schedule and way over budget, his cast is out of control and he’s about to be fired. To save the film and himself, he does something drastic: he tricks his actors into entering the Golden Triangle jungle that’s rigged with hidden cameras and pyrotechnics to capture a more authentic experience about the brutality of war – and to save a little cash. But what Damien doesn’t know is that the jungle is occupied by a drug-smuggling gang who don’t like the cast and crew intruding on their territory. In trying to save Tropic Thunder, he may have doomed his actors – and himself.
Starring Ben Stiller, Jack Black and an Oscar-nominated Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder is an outrageous parody that satirizes modern Hollywood and the large egos that populate it. The film contains plenty of tongue-in-cheek satire as well as some gross-out bits, usually involving Jack Black’s Eddie Murphy-like character, Jeff Portnoy, who became a star by headlining awful comedies like The Fatties: Fart 2. Tom Cruise also has a memorable supporting part as Les Grossman, a Hollywood executive who lives up to his surname.
‘Lions for Lambs’ (2007)
Did you know Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, Robert Redford and Andrew Garfield were in a movie together? Probably not, since Lions for Lambs didn’t light the box office on fire when it was released in 2007. While it’s not as good or compelling as it wants to be, it’s nonetheless a fascinating film to watch, both as a star vehicle for four different kinds of stars from different decades and as a time capsule of the George H.W. Bush era.
Directed by Robert Redford, the film is split into three parts: an after-school meeting between a professor, Stephen Malley (Redford) and his apathetic student, Todd Hayes (Garfield); an interview between liberal journalist Janine Roth (Streep) and Republican senator Jasper Irving (Cruise); and a skirmish in Afghanistan between two American soldiers, Arian (Derek Luke) and Ernest (Michael Peña), and the Taliban.
All of their lives are affected by a war that’s gone on way too long, and they all face pivotal choices about whether or not they will continue to support it. Lions for Lambs is unabashedly political, but seen today in 2026, it’s more relevant than ever as yet another war in the Middle East poses the same questions to a populace that hasn’t forgotten what happened two decades ago.
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