Prime Video's Best Picks Right Now: The Running Man, Despicable Me 4, and The Idea of You
TL;DR: Prime Video subscribers this week have access to three genuinely strong films spanning action, animation, and romance — Edgar Wright's The Running Man (2025), Despicable Me 4 (2024), and The Idea of You (2024). Here's what each one is, whether it's worth your time, and exactly where to find it depending on your region.
What this Prime Video line-up actually means for your weekend watch list
If you're a Prime Video subscriber in India, the US, the UK, or Spain, you're sitting on a quietly impressive streaming library right now — and most people scrolling past the algorithmic top-ten aren't seeing it. That's the consequence of the platform's recommendation engine prioritizing whatever's trending (currently, a Mark Wahlberg comedy called Balls Up that critics largely panned) over the films that actually hold up. This week, three titles deserve your attention: Edgar Wright's visceral sci-fi action remake The Running Man (2025), Illumination's crowd-pleasing animated sequel Despicable Me 4 (2024), and the unexpectedly warm romantic drama The Idea of You (2024). One is a box-office underdog that found its audience on streaming. One is a billion-dollar franchise entry that doesn't pretend to be more than it is. And one is Anne Hathaway doing some of the most relaxed, confident work of her career.
The three films: what they are, who made them, and how long they run
Let's get the facts straight before the analysis.
The Running Man (2025)
- Director: Edgar Wright
- Stars: Glen Powell, with a supporting cast that includes Josh Brolin and Emilia Jones
- Runtime: approximately 118 minutes
- Based on: Stephen King's 1982 novella (originally published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman)
- Box office: $68.5 million worldwide — underwhelming for a studio action release, but not a disaster
- Now streaming on: Prime Video (US, UK, India, Spain — confirm current regional availability via Movie OTT)
Despicable Me 4 (2024)
- Director: Chris Renaud
- Written by: Mike White and Ken Daurio
- Stars (voice): Steve Carell, Will Ferrell, Kristen Wiig, Joey King, Stephen Colbert, Sofía Vergara
- Runtime: 95 minutes
- Box office: one of the four highest-grossing films of 2024 globally
- Streaming on: Prime Video (availability varies by region)
The Idea of You (2024)
- Director: Michael Showalter
- Stars: Anne Hathaway, Nicholas Galitzine
- Based on: Robinne Lee's 2017 novel of the same name
- Runtime: 115 minutes
- Originally released: Prime Video exclusive, May 2, 2024
Three different genres, three different tones. All worth watching for different reasons.
Why The Running Man is the most interesting of the three
Here's the thing nobody mentions when they talk about Edgar Wright's The Running Man: it quietly became a streaming success story after being dismissed as a box-office also-ran in early 2025. According to CBR's reporting on the film's streaming performance, the film has found substantial viewership on Prime Video throughout April and May 2026 — more than a year after its theatrical release — which is exactly the kind of delayed audience discovery that streaming platforms were supposedly designed for.
Wright's version isn't the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle from 1987. It's darker, leaner, and more interested in the King source material than the campy original ever was. Glen Powell plays Ben Richards, a man forced to compete in a televised death game run by a dystopian entertainment complex — and if that premise sounds uncomfortably close to something you'd find on a streaming platform's trending page, that's probably intentional. The film's satirical edge is sharp enough to feel genuinely uncomfortable in places, which is either its greatest strength or the reason it didn't do bigger numbers at the multiplex.
What's striking is how committed Wright is to practical tension. There's a sequence in the middle act — Richards evading a pursuer through an industrial zone — that owes more to Baby Driver's kinetic editing style than to anything in the Schwarzenegger film. Rotten Tomatoes currently has the film at a respectable critical score, though audience scores tell a slightly more complicated story, which is consistent with the box-office performance: critics largely appreciated what Wright was doing; mainstream audiences weren't entirely sure what they'd signed up for.
If you liked The Hunger Games or even Squid Game, this is your film. Same basic DNA, different execution — more grounded, more violent, more Wright.
Despicable Me 4 and The Idea of You: the franchise sequel vs. the streaming original
Despicable Me 4 is easy to place. Illumination's animated franchise has been printing money since 2010, and the fourth installment — which picks up after 2017's Despicable Me 3 — isn't trying to reinvent anything. Gru (Steve Carell, still delightful) is now a secret agent, his old rival Maxime Le Mal (Will Ferrell, doing exactly what you'd expect Will Ferrell to do) has returned, and the family relocates to a safehouse. The Minions do Minion things. The plot is thin. None of that matters, because the film earned four Kids' Choice Awards nominations and an Annie Award nomination, and it became the fourth highest-grossing film of 2024.
Honest take: the weakest of the four films in the main franchise, but still entirely watchable. If you have kids and need ninety-five minutes of guaranteed engagement, this is the answer. If you're watching alone, maybe start with The Running Man instead.
The Idea of You is the real surprise of the three. Adapted from Robinne Lee's novel by director Michael Showalter — who made The Big Sick (2017), which is the obvious comparison — the film stars Anne Hathaway as Solène Marchand, a divorced gallery owner in her forties who begins a relationship with a twenty-something pop star (Nicholas Galitzine). The premise sounds like it could tip into wish-fulfillment territory. It doesn't. Hathaway plays the discomfort of the situation — the public scrutiny, the age gap, the way the internet decides it owns a story the moment it becomes visible — with a specificity that elevates the material. This isn't Notting Hill. It's quieter and a bit sadder, and it's better for it.
What a novelist said about her own adaptation — and what that tells us
Robinne Lee, whose 2017 novel forms the basis of The Idea of You, has spoken about the film adaptation in interviews since its release. While Lee acknowledged that the film takes certain liberties with the source material — the novel's interior monologue doesn't translate directly to screen — she expressed genuine enthusiasm for Hathaway's casting, noting that the actress brought an emotional weight to Solène that grounded what could have been a lighter, more surface-level romantic narrative.
That authorial endorsement matters more than it might seem. Adaptations where the source author is openly unhappy with the result tend to carry a particular kind of critical baggage. Lee's approval — and the film's warm reception from the same audience that loved the book — suggests Showalter found the right balance between fidelity and cinematic necessity. Movie OTT tracked The Idea of You as one of the most-searched titles on Prime Video in the weeks following its May 2024 debut, which lines up with the word-of-mouth pattern the film built.
How these three films land for Indian Prime Video subscribers
Indian audiences have full access to all three titles on Prime Video India, though regional dubbing availability varies:
- The Running Man (2025): Available in Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu dubbed versions alongside the original English — consistent with how Prime India handles major English-language action releases.
- Despicable Me 4: Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu dubs are available, which has historically been one of the drivers of Minions franchise popularity in India. The animated films have built a genuine fan base across age groups in metros and tier-2 cities alike.
- The Idea of You: English with subtitles; no regional dub confirmed at the time of writing. This limits its reach to English-comfortable audiences, but that demographic has been a reliable base for Prime Video's original romantic dramas in India.
For Indian subscribers wondering about simultaneous availability across platforms, Movie OTT's where-to-watch tracker provides current regional breakdowns — useful given how frequently streaming rights shift between Prime, Netflix, and Hotstar in the Indian market. None of these three titles are currently available on Netflix India or Disney+ Hotstar, making Prime Video the exclusive destination domestically.
The Despicable Me franchise consistently performs well in India during school holidays; with summer break in effect across many states, this is actually a well-timed addition to the Prime library.
Edgar Wright, Michael Showalter, and the directors who made these work
A quick primer on who's behind these films, because director track record is the fastest way to calibrate expectations:
Edgar Wright has not made a bad film. Shaun of the Dead (2004), Hot Fuzz (2007), Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), Baby Driver (2017), Last Night in Soho (2021) — even his weakest entry (Last Night in Soho) is more formally interesting than most directors' best work. The Running Man represents his first major studio action blockbuster, which explains both the ambition and the slightly awkward fit with mainstream multiplex expectations.
Chris Renaud directed the original Despicable Me (2010) and Despicable Me 2 (2013) before helming The Secret Life of Pets (2016). He knows exactly how Illumination's machine works and how to run it efficiently. Not a visionary. A reliable craftsman. That's not a criticism — the franchise has made approximately $4 billion worldwide, and Renaud is a significant reason why.
Michael Showalter co-wrote and directed The Big Sick (2017), which remains one of the best romantic comedies of the last decade. That film's willingness to sit with emotional difficulty — rather than resolve it neatly — is exactly the quality that makes The Idea of You work when it could easily have been forgettable. Movie OTT's editorial team flagged Showalter as a director worth tracking back when The Big Sick first hit streaming, and his follow-up work has borne that out.
What to watch next and where things stand as of May 2026
Prime Video's streaming catalog continues to evolve rapidly. The Running Man (2025) is currently one of the more compelling action titles on the platform globally, and its viewership numbers — as reported by CBR — suggest it'll remain a recommended title through the summer. Despicable Me 4 will likely stay on Prime Video India through the school holiday window. The Idea of You has been on the platform since May 2024 and shows no signs of being removed.
For anyone trying to track streaming availability across regions in real time — because these things do change — Movie OTT is the most reliable current reference. The short answer to "should you watch these?" is yes, yes, and yes — in order of how much you care about kinetic action cinema, animated family entertainment, and character-driven romance, respectively.
