Jon Bernthal's 124-Minute Gritty Spy Thriller Is One Of Prime's Biggest Action Movies
One of Jon Bernthal's most overlooked recent films is quickly dominating streaming charts.
While his turn as Shane in The Walking Dead initially helped him breakthrough, Bernthal has been on a meteoric rise on screen over the past decade, particularly thanks to his acclaimed performance as Frank Castle/The Punisher in the Marvel Cinematic Universe beginning with Netflix's Daredevil. He swiftly followed it up with everything from Edgar Wright's music-centric heist thriller Baby Driver to the Oscar-winning Williams sisters biopic King Richard.
More recently, Bernthal made his MCU return in grand fashion with Daredevil: Born Again season 1 and his Disney+ special Punisher: One Last Kill, which he co-wrote with director Reinaldo Marcus Green. He's also garnered widespread acclaim for FX on Hulu's The Bear, earning two Emmy nominations and one win for the series, and most recently co-led Netflix's His & Hers, which broke multiple viewership records, and played Spartan king Menelaus in Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey.
Now, as he gears up for his next major return to the big screen, Bernthal has a new streaming hit in the form of The Amateur. Helmed by Slow Horses vet James Hawes, the gritty spy thriller marked the second adaptation of Robert Littell's novel of the same name, centered on Rami Malek as CIA cryptographer Charlie Heller who, in the wake of his wife's murder in a terrorist attack, gets agency training in order to hunt down those responsible.
Bernthal starred in The Amateur as CIA field operative Jackson O'Brien, better known as The Bear, who Charlie has befriended and attempts to dissuade the titular character out of his revenge-filled mission. Also in the movie's ensemble cast were Laurence Fishburne, Rachel Brosnahan, Caitríona Balfe, Michael Stuhlbarg, Holt McCallany and Julianne Nicholson.
Just over a year after the film hit theaters, The Amateur has found itself resurfacing on Prime Video's domestic streaming charts. At the time of writing, the revenge spy thriller is quickly shooting up both the platform's Top 10 overall and Top 10 movie charts, holding the No. 6 position on the former and the No. 4 spot on the latter. It first entered Prime's Top 10 charts last week on the lower rung of both, steadily climbing to its current positions.
The movie's newfound Prime Video success isn't the first time The Amateur has made its way onto a platform's Top 10 charts after its April 2025 theatrical debut. Upon its Hulu and Disney+ debut in Summer 2025, the action movie overtook the No. 1 spot on both platforms, while maintaining a Top 10 spot for the two months that followed.
Now that it is a Prime Video hit, The Amateur has further secured its status as a modern sleeper hit following its lackluster initial release, having split critics with its 61% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and grossing $96 million against its $60 million production budget. With Bernthal remaining at the forefront of audiences' minds, and the spy genre still a favorite thanks to the likes of Slow Horses, The Agency and The Night Agent, it seems likely the film could climb even higher on the platform's charts.