10 Best Comedy Movies to Stream on Prime Video (September 2026)

It’s 1962, and if you’re living in Florida, the ongoing Cuban Missile Crisis could mean the end of everything. Yet for teenager Gene (Simon Fenton), all he can think about is pretty classmate Sandra (Lisa Jakub) and the upcoming premiere of Mant!, a schlocky sci-fi film about a man who becomes a human-sized ant. Mant!’s producer, Lawrence Woolsey (John Goodman), is attending the screening, and Gene can’t wait to meet his cinema idol. But he’ll first have to avoid the school bully, somehow confess his feelings to Sandra, and reassure his brother that they won’t be obliterated by a nuclear bomb.

Matinee is a loving ode to a simpler time and place that probably never existed. Like The Sandlot, it idolizes Kennedy-era America by focusing on an all-American activity — going to the movies. But rather than being annoying, Matinee’s escapist nostalgia is utterly charming. It’s funny, too, especially whenever Goodman’s showman film producer is on the screen. Mant! is far from the best film ever made, but the way he promotes it to kids like Gene makes it the most important movie of all time.