This article contains affiliate links, we may earn a commission on any sales generated from it.
Holding an 88% Rotten Tomatoes score, the film was a word-of-mouth hit earlier in the year.
Prime Video has just added Challengers, one of 2024’s buzziest and best-reviewed movies.
Directed by Luca Guadagnino (A Bigger Splash, Call Me By Your Name), the film stars Zendaya (Euphoria), Josh O’Connor (The Crown) and Mike Faist (West Side Story) and tells the story of a love triangle in the competitive world of tennis.
“Challengers stars Zendaya as Tashi Duncan, a former tennis prodigy turned coach and a force of nature who makes no apologies for her game on and off the court,” the plot synopsis reads.
“Married to a champion on a losing streak (Faist), Tashi’s strategy for her husband’s redemption takes a surprising turn when he must face off against the washed-up Patrick (O’Connor) – his former best friend and Tashi’s former boyfriend.
“As their pasts and presents collide, and tensions run high, Tashi must ask herself, what will it cost to win.”
Written by Justin Kuritzkes (Queer), the screenplay for Challengers is a funny, smart and steamy portrait of a trio of people equally competitive in their personal and romantic lives as they are on the tennis court.
Adding to the lively love (or lust) triangle story is Guadagnino’s dynamic stylish direction, a pulse-pouding techno soundtrack by Oscar-winners Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (The Social Network) and the three brilliant central performances.
A word-of-mouth box office hit upon release last April, the movie currently holds an 88% Rotten Tomatoes score.
You can read a sample of some of the rave reviews for Challengers right here:
ABC News: “Zendaya shines like a true movie star, and she and costars Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist will blow you away as tennis pros in Luca Guadagnino’s swoony, sexy romantic triangle that finds hilarious and hardcore erotic mischief off the court and on.”
Baltimore Magazine: “Guadagnino films the tennis scenes like they’re boxing matches — often in slo-mo, with extreme close-ups of flying sweat, straining biceps, and leaping legs… I’ve never seen tennis filmed more beautifully or effectively.”
Chicago Sun-Times: “Sweat-drenched and emotionally bruising.”
Daily Telegraph (UK): “Challengers must be the most purely pleasurable film of the year so far. Like a great tennis match, it’s a clash of sleekly honed bodies and minds, and the question of who finally comes out on top is irrelevant to the fun of the struggle itself.”
Globe and Mail: “This is a startlingly entertaining, erotically charged movie that hits its many targets with a kind of ferocious and crazed accuracy that’ll knock the wind, among other things, right out of you.”
HeyUGuys: “This is without a doubt the single most exciting movie any of us are likely to see this year. Buckle up and enjoy this sexy ride, you won’t want it to end.”
Los Angeles Times: “A trim, naughty, ferociously well-acted trifle [that] takes subtlety and restraint and thwacks them over the fence and into the bushes.”
Challengers is streaming on Prime Video in Ireland, the UK and the US right now.
Read more:
- First details reportedly revealed about Christopher Nolan’s new movie
- Netflix cancels epic new series just weeks after release in shock move
- Barry Keoghan crime thriller being compared to Heat to start filming this month
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge