New to Amazon Prime Video in June

Amazon Prime Video’s newest 4K attraction is Le Mans: Racing is Everything, a documentary series that promises to reveal “the inside story of a race that pushes technology to the limit”.

It will stream from June 9 while the Martin Scorsese executive-produced doco about The Grateful Dead, Long Strange Trip, which the New York Times dubbed “passionate, impressionistic and encyclopedic”, will stream from June 2.

Publicity for Le Mans claims the filmmakers had “unprecedented” access to six of the teams competing for the “Mount Everest of Motorsport” on the road from Kuala Lumpur to the Côte D’Azur while exploring the storied legacy of Le Mans and the generations of drivers who have braved the course since 1923.

Led by cocksure three-time champion, André Lotterer, and competing for their 9th win in a decade, Audi are the kings of Le Mans. But challenging for the crown are Porsche, desperate to win back a race that was once synonymous with their brand. Their hopes are riding on F1 veteran, Mark Webber, who after two near-fatal crashes at Le Mans, has yet to finish the race. Plucky newcomers Nissan are in pursuit as well with a radical, untested car design and a lead driver, Jann Mardenborough, who they scouted from his sofa through a video game contest. Also battling for Le Mans glory are Rebellion’s Nico Prost, who drives in the shadow of his iconic father Alain Prost, along with Toyota’s Sébastien Buemi and Aston Martin’s Darren Turner.

Check out the trailer for Le Mans here.

Long Strange Trip is billed as “the first full-length documentary to explore the fiercely independent vision, perpetual innovation, and uncompromising commitment to their audience that made the Bay Area band one of the most influential musical groups of their generation”.

Artfully assembling candid interviews with the band, road crew, family members and notable Deadheads, Bar-Lev reveals the untold history of the Dead and the freewheeling psychedelic subculture that sprouted up around it. The film also provides poignant insight into the psyche of late lead guitarist Jerry Garcia, whose disdain for authority clashed with his de facto leadership of the sprawling collective that kept the show on the road. Long Strange Trip explores the Dead’s singular experiment in radically eclectic music making. Much more than the “behind the music” backstory of an exceptionally talented and beloved group of musicians, the film is at once an inspiring tale of unfettered artistic expression, a heartfelt American tragedy, and an incisive history of the rise and fall of 20th-century counterculture.

Check out the trailer for Long Strange Trip here.