Rami Malek’s The Amateur struggled to become a theatrical event, but the 2025 spy thriller is now getting the kind of second chance streaming was built to provide. More than a year after its cinema release, the film has climbed Prime Video’s U.S. charts, giving Malek’s unconventional action debut a new audience beyond the box office.
According to FlixPatrol data cited by Polygon, The Amateur reached No. 2 among movies on Prime Video in the United States and spent 21 days in the platform’s top 10. That does not erase the film’s underwhelming theatrical performance, but it does suggest that its central idea may have been better suited to at-home discovery than a crowded movie-theater market.
A spy thriller built around the person behind the screen
Directed by James Hawes and released by 20th Century Studios on April 11, 2025, The Amateur is an action and espionage thriller based on Robert Littell’s 1981 novel. The film stars Malek as Charlie Heller, a brilliant but deeply introverted CIA decoder whose wife is killed during a terrorist attack in London. (20th Century Studios)
Charlie is not introduced as a trained operative, elite soldier, or natural assassin. He works in a basement office, analyzing information and breaking codes. When his superiors refuse to pursue the people responsible for his wife’s death, he blackmails the agency into providing the training and resources he needs to conduct his own investigation.
That setup gives The Amateur a different entry point into the familiar revenge-thriller formula. Charlie is closer to a systems analyst or cybersecurity specialist than a traditional action hero, and his intelligence is supposed to compensate for his lack of field experience. The result is a film that asks what happens when the person who normally supports the mission from behind a computer is forced to become the mission.
For viewers who have grown tired of invincible assassins and effortlessly competent spies, that premise remains the film’s strongest selling point. Charlie has to improvise, study his opponents, and exploit their assumptions. In theory, his victories should feel less like power fantasy and more like carefully engineered problem-solving.
Malek’s unusual action-hero turn divides opinion
Malek is an unusual choice for a globe-trotting action thriller, which is precisely why the casting attracted attention. His performances often lean toward internal tension and psychological unease rather than conventional physicality, and The Amateur uses that quality to make Charlie feel visibly out of place in the world of espionage.
Critics have generally recognized the appeal of that approach while questioning whether the film fully capitalizes on it. Rotten Tomatoes lists the movie at 61 percent from critics and 87 percent from verified audience ratings. Its critical consensus describes Malek as a compellingly unconventional action hero, while also arguing that the surrounding thriller is more formulaic than its premise suggests. (Rotten Tomatoes)
Recurring criticism has focused on pacing, emotional distance, and the uneven balance between cerebral suspense and traditional action. Some reviewers found the film reasonably exciting when its set pieces arrived, but less effective during the stretches between them. Others responded more favorably to its restrained tone, atmospheric presentation, and “nerd power” angle.
That split helps explain why the movie may be finding a more receptive audience on streaming. A theatrical release asks viewers to commit immediately, often based on marketing, star power, and opening-weekend momentum. Streaming allows a film like The Amateur to be discovered gradually by viewers who are specifically interested in a mid-budget spy thriller, Malek’s performance, or a less conventional revenge story.
Why streaming may be the right battlefield
The Amateur entered theaters in a difficult market for original adult action movies. It had recognizable stars, including Rachel Brosnahan, Laurence Fishburne, Jon Bernthal, Caitríona Balfe, Holt McCallany, and Michael Stuhlbarg, but it was not part of a major franchise. Its premise was distinctive, yet its marketing still had to compete with bigger event films and more immediately recognizable brands.
The film’s reported budget was around $60 million, while its worldwide theatrical gross remained below $100 million. That is not the kind of result normally associated with a breakout action franchise, particularly after distribution, marketing, and theater splits are taken into account. Still, those numbers do not necessarily measure the movie’s long-term appeal.
Streaming also changes the expectations surrounding a film. A viewer deciding what to watch on a weeknight may be more willing to try a two-hour spy thriller with a curious premise than someone buying a premium theatrical ticket. The same qualities that made The Amateur look modest beside blockbuster competition—its controlled scale, unfamiliar hero, and lack of franchise baggage—can make it feel approachable in a streaming library.
That does not mean the film has suddenly become a hidden masterpiece. The audience response is stronger than the critical response, but the movie remains a fairly traditional revenge thriller once its unusual protagonist is established. Its streaming performance is better understood as evidence of delayed audience interest rather than a complete critical reappraisal.
What this means for Malek’s action future
Malek’s post-Bohemian Rhapsody career has been defined by a mixture of high-profile successes and less successful ensemble projects. He appeared in the blockbuster No Time to Die, played a supporting role in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, and starred in Amsterdam, a heavily cast period mystery that failed to make a major commercial impact.
The Amateur was his clearest attempt to carry an action film, but its theatrical performance did not establish him as a conventional blockbuster lead. The Prime Video resurgence offers a more interesting possibility: Malek may be better suited to distinctive, character-driven genre projects than to straightforward attempts at creating the next unstoppable action franchise.
His next major move also points in a different direction. Malek stars in Ira Sachs’ The Man I Love, a musical fantasy set in late-1980s New York, playing performance artist Jimmy George alongside Tom Sturridge, Rebecca Hall, Luther Ford, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach. Whether that film leads him back toward prestige cinema or The Amateur creates demand for another action role remains uncertain.
For now, the film’s Prime Video success is a modest but meaningful win. The Amateur did not conquer theaters, but streaming has given its “computer expert becomes field operative” concept room to breathe. In an industry increasingly focused on franchises and guaranteed hits, that kind of delayed discovery may be the most realistic path forward for unconventional action movies.
Sources
polygon.com
20thcenturystudios.com
rottentomatoes.com
disneyplus.com
flixpatrol.com
