Before she was the Queen's Gambit or the Furiosa of the Wasteland, Anya Taylor-Joy was a cold-blooded teen in one of the most audacious directorial debuts of the last decade. That film—Thoroughbreds—has largely been forgotten by mainstream audiences, but it's about to get a second life when it gallops onto Prime Video on June 1, 2026.
Directed by Cory Finley, Thoroughbreds is a dark comedy that somehow marries the savage satire of Mean Girls with the chilling detachment of American Psycho. It's a tightrope walk that few filmmakers could pull off, but Finley did so with unnerving confidence. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2017, where Focus Features snapped up domestic distribution rights. When it hit theaters in 2018, it earned rave reviews—an 87% Certified Fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes—but only grossed $3 million against a $5 million budget. Now, streaming could finally give this forgotten gem the audience it deserves.
The story follows two upper-class teenage girls—Amanda (Olivia Cooke) and Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy)—who rekindle their friendship and hatch a plan to murder Lily's abusive stepfather. What unfolds is a taut, unpredictable thriller that crackles with dark humor and razor-sharp dialogue. Both Taylor-Joy and Cooke deliver career-defining performances, long before they became franchise stars. Cooke would go on to play in Ready Player One and HBO's House of the Dragon, while Taylor-Joy cemented her status with The Queen's Gambit and Mad Max: Fury Road prequel Furiosa. Thoroughbreds remains their earliest calling card—a chilling showcase of their range.
Finley, meanwhile, has continued to craft ambitious, offbeat films. His follow-up, Bad Education (starring Hugh Jackman), was released directly on HBO, and his most recent feature, the sci-fi satire Landscape with Invisible Hand, barely got a theatrical run. He also directed the Apple TV+ series WeCrashed, starring Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway. But Thoroughbreds remains his most purely original work—a film that juggles genres with panache and refuses to let you look away.
If you're a fan of twisted teen thrillers or just want to see two future stars before they were famous, this is your chance. Thoroughbreds joins a strong June slate on Prime Video, which also includes Gerard Butler's survival thriller Plane and the timeless legal classic 12 Angry Men. But for those craving something darker and more unpredictable, Thoroughbreds is the hidden gem to stream late at night.
Mark your calendars: June 1, 2026. And if you've already seen it, it's worth a rewatch—Finley's debut only gets better with time.
