The 30 Best Movies on Paramount+ Right Now

Gladiator.

Photo: DreamWorks Distribution

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This post will be updated frequently as movies enter and leave the service. *New titles are indicated with an asterisk.

In 2021, CBS All Access rebranded with the name Paramount+, reflecting the history of the legendary film and TV company with that nifty little mathematical sign that all the streaming companies seem to love these days. The name Paramount brings a deep catalogue of feature films, and the streaming service also includes titles from the Miramax and MGM libraries. They have also added a more robust original selection than at launch to complement the service’s classics like Top Gun, the Mission: Impossible series and Grease.

For now, Paramount+ can’t compare to the depth of a catalogue like HBO Max’s or the award-winning original works at other streamers, but it has a solid library with at least 30 films you should see.

This Month’s Editor’s Pick

*Almost Famous

Year: 2000
Runtime: 2h 3m
Director: Cameron Crowe

Cameron Crowe wrote and directed this 2000 masterpiece about a young man (Patrick Fugit) who ends up on tour with a rock band known as Stillwater. With incredible supporting performances from Kate Hudson, Billy Crudup, Frances McDormand, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, this is one of the richest and most timeless films of its era, a rare movie that gets better every time you see it.

Almost Famous

12 Angry Men

Year: 1957
Runtime: 1h 36m
Director: Sidney Lumet

Sidney Lumet’s American classic impacted not just the courtroom dramas that would follow but the very judicial process. Who hasn’t gone into jury duty thinking they would be the “Juror 8” in their group, the one willing to really look at the case before rushing to justice? Henry Fonda gives one of his most iconic performances in a movie that holds up six decades after it was released.

12 Angry Men

17 Blocks

Year: 2019
Runtime: 1 hour, 38 minutes
Director: Davy Rothbart

One of the best documentaries of the last couple years is also one of the least seen, so it’s great that a service like Paramount+ can bring it to a wider audience. Premiering at Tribeca in 2019, this is the story of the Sanford family, a clan in northern D.C. who filmed themselves over 20 years. The title comes from the family’s proximity to the White House, even though their lives couldn’t be more different from the people who live there.

17 Blocks

American Honey

Year: 2016
Runtime: 2h 43m
Director: Andrea Arnold

At nearly three hours and made with largely unknowns, this epic look at the youth of America remains one of the most vital and impressive films of the 2010s. Sasha Lane plays Star, an average teenager who runs away from home and joins a traveling sales crew of young people who traverse the Midwest. She’s drawn to a rebel (played by Shia LaBeouf) and the leader of the group (an unforgettable Riley Keough). This movie hums with an energy we don’t get in movies all often enough.

American Honey

Year: 1984
Runtime: 1h 45m
Director: Martin Brest

It’s hard to explain to people too young to experience it how big a star Eddie Murphy was in 1984 when his Axel Foley ruled the world. Murphy’s wit and charm were put to perfect use in Beverly Hills Cop that produced two inferior sequels, and both happen to also be on Paramount Plus.

Beverly Hills Cop

Black Bear

Year: 2020
Runtime: 1h 44m
Director: Lawrence Michael Levine

One of the best films of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, this mind-f*ck of a movie by Lawrence Michael Levine stars Aubrey Plaza, doing the best acting work of her career as a film director who travels to a remote cabin owned by characters played by Sarah Gadon and Christopher Abbott. Things get weird, especially in a second half that basically deconstructs the first. It’s a smart, underrated movie.

Black Bear

Citizen Ruth

Year: 1996
Runtime: 1h 46m
Director: Alexander Payne

Before Election and The Descendants, Alexander Payne made his directorial debut with this razor-sharp comedy about abortion. Laura Dern gives one of her best performances as a pregnant woman who becomes a household name when pro-life and pro-choice activists turn her into the center of a debate over the eternally divisive issue. Smart and sharp, this is one of Payne’s best films.

Citizen Ruth

*Collateral

Year: 2004
Runtime: 2h
Director: Michael Mann

Tom Cruise gives one of his most fascinating performances as Vincent, the passenger to Jamie Foxx’s L.A. cab driver on a very fateful night. It turns out that Vincent is hitman and he needs Foxx’s character to drive him on a killing spree in this tense, gorgeously-shot thriller from the masterful craftsman Michael Mann.

Collateral

Year: 1974
Runtime: 1h 53m
Director: Francis Ford Coppola

In between the first two Godfather movies, Francis Ford Coppola wrote and directed a drama that’s arguably even better (yes, we said it) in this stunning story of a surveillance expert who believes he has uncovered a murder plot. Gene Hackman leads an incredible cast in a film that’s about paranoia, privacy, and power. It was nominated for Best Picture but lost to, believe it or not, The Godfather Part II.

The Conversation

Year: 2022
Runtime: 2h 19m
Director: J.D. Dillard

The proximity to another little movie about pilots called Top Gun: Maverick likely hurt the bottom line of this excellent, old-fashioned drama based on a true story. The excellent Jonathan Majors plays Jesse Brown, the first Black aviator in Navy history, and Maverick star Glen Powell plays his co-pilot and friend Tom Hudner. Both young future stars are excellent in a film that viewers can now find at home.

Devotion

Escape From Alcatraz

Year: 1979
Runtime: 1h 52m
Director: Don Siegel

Don Siegel’s adaptation of the hit 1963 book stars Clint Eastwood in the true story of the escape from the legendary San Francisco prison by Frank Morris, Clarence Anglin, and John Anglin. The film was a massive hit and remains one of those movies that seems to pop up on cable on every few months. Watch it on your own time on streaming.

Escape From Alcatraz

Finding Yingying

Year: 2020
Runtime: 1h 38m
Director: Jiayan “Jenny” Shi

Jiayan Shi directed and produced this heartbreaking documentary about the disappearance and death of Yingying Zhang in 2017. Shi has unique access to the story in that she knew Yingying, and so her film has an incredible you-are-there quality as Shi captures the investigation and grief that would emerge from this horrific crime. Paramount+ deserves credit for bringing smaller projects like this to their subscribers, ones that other major streamers might ignore.

Finding Yingying

Year: 2000
Runtime: 2h 35m
Director: Ridley Scott

The first Best Picture winner of the new millennium was one of the most beloved period action films of all time. Russell Crowe gives his most memorable performance as a Roman general named Maximus, who watches his family murdered and his life destroyed by a vicious ruler named Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix). Forced into slavery, Maximus must become a gladiator, competing in arenas until he can achieve his ultimate revenge.

Gladiator

Grease

Year: 1978
Runtime: 1h 50m
Director: Randal Kleiser

John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John changed the course of the movie musical with this wildly beloved flick about the kids at Rydell High. Based on the 1971 stage musical of the same name, Grease was a massive hit, and still draws audiences to theaters and on cable over four decades after its release. Why do people keep falling so in love with Danny and Sandy? Watch it again and report back to us.

Grease

Year: 2014
Runtime: 2h 49m
Director: Christopher Nolan

No one else makes movies like Christopher Nolan, a man who took his superhero success and used it to get gigantic budgets to bring his wildest dreams to the big screen. Who else could make this sprawling, emotional, complicated film about an astronaut (Matthew McConaughey) searching for a new home for humanity? It’s divisive among some Nolan fans for its deep emotions, but those who love it really love it.

Interstellar

Year: 2002
Runtime: 1h 25m
Director: Jeff Tremaine

Jackass Forever helped 2022 start with a bang. Now you can go back and watch the whole series exclusively on Paramount+ right now! (Even the “alternate” ones like Jackass 3.5). Go back to the heyday of Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, and the rest of the dangerous idiots. These movies are often derided as being dumb but they’re a glorious, infectious kind of dumb that wants nothing more than to make you laugh.

Jackass

Year: 2022
Runtime: 2h 13m
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

A controversial nominee for Best Picture at the beginning of 2022, P.T. Anderson’s latest is already on Paramount+ for subscribers for no extra cost; And they should. Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman are transcendent in this story of a teenager who falls for a twentysomething woman, and the odd adventures that somehow keep falling into their lives. It’s a lyrical, gorgeously shot period comedy about those hazy days when anything seems possible.

Licorice Pizza

The Lost City

Year: 2022
Runtime: 1h 52m
Director: Aaron Nee, Adam Nee

With echoes of beloved rom-coms like African Queen and Romancing the Stone, this film truly felt like an anomaly in 2022, and yet it turned into a pretty big hit at the theater. It’s already on streaming services, and it’s a great choice if you’re looking for some escapism tonight. Travel to the middle of nowhere with a romance novel writer (Sandra Bullock) and the cover model (Channing Tatum) who tries to save the day.

The Lost City

Year: 1996-present
Runtime: Varies
Director: Various

The whole series is finally here! For some reason, parts 1 to 3 and parts 4 to 6 have alternated residence on a lot of streaming services, but Paramount+ currently hosts the entire thing from De Palma’s first movie to Fallout. While we wait for Mission: Impossible 7, revisit the whole arc of the saga of Ethan Hunt to date.

Mission: Impossible

Nebraska

Year: 2013
Runtime: 1h 55m
Director: Alexander Payne

Alexander Payne directed Bob Nelson’s ace screenplay in this 2013 comedy about an elderly man (Bruce Dern) who travels the country with his son (Will Forte) to claim a prize in a sweepstakes. A sharp study of life in the heartland of America, it was nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor.

Nebraska

Year: 2018
Runtime: 1h 30m
Director: John Krasinski

Who could have possibly guessed that Jim from The Office would be behind one of the most successful horror films of the ‘10s? You’ve probably already seen this story of a world in which silence is the only way to survive, but it’s worth another look to marvel at its tight, taut filmmaking and a stellar performance from Emily Blunt. Plus, Paramount+ recently added the sequel, so: double feature time!

A Quiet Place

Year: 2002
Runtime: 1h 55m
Director: Gore Verbinski

Gore Verbinski broke the pattern in which remakes of Asian horror films are usually a total waste of time with this update of the incredible Ringu. Instead of just repeating the beats of a story of a VHS tape that kills people after seven days, Verbinski made his own film and grounded it with a great central performance by Naomi Watts.

The Ring

Rosemary’s Baby

Year: 1968
Runtime: 2h 17m
Director: Roman Polanski

Paranoia fuels every frame of Roman Polanski’s horror masterpiece, a movie about an average wife (Mia Farrow), who becomes convinced that her apartment building neighbors are hiding a horrible secret. To say this film was ahead of its time is a massive understatement—it reshaped the horror landscape, feeding on the increasing discomfort that people felt when it came to the rest of the human population. It also features a stunning, perfect, fearless performance from Farrow.

Rosemary’s Baby

Year: 2019
Runtime: 1h 24m
Director: Rose Glass

Rose Glass’s terrifying horror film is one of the best movies of 2021 and it’s already on Paramount+. Reminiscent of psychological nightmares of the ‘70s like Repulsion and Rosemary’s Baby, this is the tale of a hospice nurse named Maud (a fearless performance from Morfydd Clark) who becomes obsessed with saving the soul of one of her patients (Jennifer Ehle). It’s unforgettable.

Saint Maud

Year: 1998
Runtime: 2h 49m
Director: Steven Spielberg

War movies haven’t gone anywhere. The genre has been a prominent part of film history from its early days through the release of 1917. There are certain tentpoles in the history of war movies that feel like game changers, and one came in 1998 when Steven Spielberg returned to World War II to tell a different story of history, reminding everyone in the world about the sacrifices that were made that day, and the obligation we all have to make them worthwhile.

Saving Private Ryan

Smile

Year: 2022
Runtime: 1h 52m
Director: Parker Finn

Paramount has been regularly funneling some of their biggest theatrical hits to their streaming service, including this film that was in theaters less than three months ago, and made a fortune worldwide (over $200 million). One of the biggest commercial and critical horror hits of the year, Smile is about a therapist who discovers something supernatural stalking her patients. It will get under your skin.

Smile

*There Will Be Blood

Year: 2007
Runtime: 2h 38m
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

One of the best films of the ‘00s, Paul Thomas Anderson’s adaptation of Upton Sinclair’s Oil! won Daniel Day-Lewis his second Oscar as the unforgettable Daniel Plainview. As detailed and epic as great fiction, Anderson’s movie is one of the most acclaimed of its era, a film in which it’s hard to find a single flaw. Even if you think you’ve seen it enough, watch it again. You’ll find a new reason to admire it.

There Will Be Blood

Top Gun

Year: 1986
Runtime: 1h 49m
Director: Tony Scott

Audiences were reminded how much they love Tom Cruise’s Maverick with the blockbuster sequel to this film that dominated the entirety of Summer 2022. Why not go back to revisit the movie that started it all on Paramount Plus? Tom Cruise’s career changed forever with the massive success of this movie about a hotshot pilot, his romantic partner, and his rival. It’s SO very ‘80s but that’s kind of its charm now.

Top Gun

Year: 2022
Runtime: 2h 10m
Director: Joseph Kosinski

It’s the movie that saved movies last year! The truth is that Paramount wanted to drop this long-awaited sequel on a streamer during the pandemic, but Tom Cruise knew it was the kind of thing that should be appreciated in a theater. He bet on himself and the result is arguably the biggest hit of his career, a movie that made a fortune and seems primed to win Oscars in a couple months.

Top Gun: Maverick

The Wolf of Wall Street

Year: 2013
Runtime: 3h
Director: Martin Scorsese

Leonardo DiCaprio should have won the Oscar for his amazing performance as Jordan Belfort, the financial criminal that rocked Wall Street and shocked audiences in one of Scorsese’s best late films. Arguments over whether or not this film glorifies a “bad guy” have become prominent—and could only really be made by people who haven’t actually watched it. Most of all, it’s a shockingly robust film, filmed with more energy in a few minutes than most flicks have in their entire runtime.

The Wolf of Wall Street

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