Okay, the secret is out: Paramount+ has one of the best libraries of film out of all the many streaming services, making it easier than ever to have more options on what to watch.
No matter the circumstances or mood, you’re guaranteed to find something decent, maybe even a few masterpieces, because some of the best movies are on Paramount Plus. It boasts a catalog including Paramount films, A24 films, and more. So, here’s our selection of the best Paramount Plus movies right now:
Last updated on March 4, 2023
1. Top Gun/Top Gun: Maverick
Year: 1986, 2022
Starring: Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, Miles Teller, Glenn Powell
Genre: Action
Rating: PG, PG-13
Runtime: 1 hour 50 minutes, 2 hours 11 minutes
Director: Tony Scott, Joseph Kosinski
Trailer: Watch here
It is not at all hyperbolic to say that Top Gun and (especially) its box office hit sequel Top Gun: Maverick are cinematic miracles. Even if you’re not into planes or military propaganda or both, both films — the sequel being the stronger of the two — are significant to their respective years’, and respective decades’ pop culture. The original film embodies the ’80s in its songs, costumes and overall cheese and broke new ground for what action movies could do and be. The film also cemented Tom Cruise as an action star who could take the leading role in any kind of movie with ease and unprecedented physical commitment. For Top Gun: Maverick, Cruise made sure it could not be done without the proper technology, training, and cast: the actors in the film playing pilots, even those in supporting roles, went through flight training to prepare. The film was a box office hit and it also marked the first truly significant theatrical release since the pandemic, bringing many people back to the cinemas for a good, fun time after a long, sad break.
2. There Will Be Blood
Year: 2007
Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano
Genre: Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 158 minutes
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Trailer: Watch here
One can only imagine how difficult it was for notorious method actor Daniel Day-Lewis to take this character home every night. He portrays a hard-hustling miner, Daniel Plainview, who falls into great fortune during the oil boom and then into great villain mode in the aftermath. Paul Dano portrays identical twins, and as with many Paul Dano roles, you’ll likely want to punch him before the movie is over. Yet there are profound truths to be found while watching Plainview lose his humanity and push harder and faster for power before he eventually drinks that milkshake up. It’s a quirky prestige movie in a sense, but it was an instant classic.
3. A Quiet Place
Year: 2018
Starring: John Krasinski, Emily Blunt
Genre: Horror
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 1 hour 30 minutes
Director: John Krasinski
Trailer: Watch here
Who could have possibly predicted that Jim Halpert from The Office would direct and launch a modern horror franchise? John Krasinski stars in and directed A Quiet Place, co-starring his wife, Emily Blunt. Creatures who are blind but have incredibly sharp hearing have taken over Earth, leaving few survivors. The film follows a family living in upstate New York, who have survived by speaking in American sign language. When they accidentally make noise that draws the creatures to them, things go awry. A sequel came out in 2020, and Lupita Nyong’o will star in a spin-off film, A Quiet Place: Day One.
4. Everything Everywhere All At Once
Year: 2022
Starring: Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, Jamie Lee Curtis
Genre: Action Adventure
Rating: R
Runtime: 2 hours 19 minutes
Director: Daniel Kwan, Daniel Schneinert
Trailer: Watch here
Michelle Yeoh delivers a meta, layered, all-encompassing performance in the wild and weird non-Marvel multi-verse movie Everything Everywhere All at Once from the Daniels. Yeoh is one of the frontrunners for the Oscar for best actress for her incredible performance as Evelyn, a Chinese immigrant who runs a laundromat. While getting audited by the IRS, Evelyn discovers that she is the only person who can save the universe from being destroyed by a powerful being. The film is action-packed but also an emotionally moving story about love, family, and relationships.
5. Midsommar
Year: 2019
Starring: Florence Pugh, Will Poulter, Jack Raynor
Genre: Horror
Rating: R
Runtime: 2 hours 51 minutes
Director: Ari Aster
Trailer: Watch here
Florence Pugh is the final girl in this bright and stylish horror film from Ari Aster. A young couple in a toxic relationship that just needs to end already attends a seemingly idyllic midsummer festival in Sweden only to discover that the pagan cult behind it is creepy, violent, and willing to make human sacrifices. The retreat tests the young couple’s rocky relationship, and the film is both scary and a poignant depiction of how humans process trauma.
6. Jackass Forever
Year: 2022
Starring: Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Dave England, Wee Man
Genre: Reality, Comedy
Rating: R
Runtime: 1 hour 26 minutes
Director: Jeff Tremaine
Trailer: Watch here
The original cast of Jackass unites for the first time in over a decade (with newcomer Rachel Wolfson joining) in another entry into the most important franchise of the 21st century. Although the Jackass cast is grappling with aging (they can’t exactly perform the same ridiculous stunts they could 20 years ago), there are still plenty of gross, unbelievable things, most of which have to do with their penises.
7. Interstellar
Year: 2014
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain
Genre: Sci-fi, Drama
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 2 hours 49 minutes
Director: Christopher Nolan
Trailer: Watch here
Christopher Nolan’s space epic has an epic runtime and might not make any sense, but it looks good. In the near future, Earth is becoming increasingly inhabitable, with a global crop blight and a second Dust Bowl. A team of researchers is sent to space to enter a wormhole and explore three different planets in a different galaxy to discover which one is habitable. Matthew McConaughey delivers the most intimate performance of his career as a NASA pilot turned farmer who goes on the mission. The movie will leave you confused and wondering how time works, but that was probably Nolan’s intention.
8. Licorice Pizza
Year: 2021
Starring: Alana Haim, Cooper Hoffman, Sean Pen, Bradley Cooper
Genre: Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 2 hours, 34 minutes
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Trailer: Watch here
Licorice Pizza is the most Paul Thomas Anderson film Paul Thomas Anderson has ever made: it’s set in California in the 70s and has an impressive ensemble cast. The film stars Cooper Hoffman, son of frequent PTA collaborator Philip Seymour Hoffman as Gary, a teenager, and actor who gets into waterbed sales. He meets Alana, played by Alana Haim of the band Haim, who is feeling a bit mid-20s lost. It’s a coming-of-age story for them both and a bit of a love story as they begin to learn and appreciate one another. What the film lacks in plot, it makes up for with slow but in-depth character development, including a small role played by Bradley Cooper.
9. Beavis And Butt-Head Do The Universe
Year: 2022
Starring: Mike Judge, Andrea Savage, Jimmy O. Yang
Genre: Comedy, Animation
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: 1 hour, 26 minutes
Director: John Rice and Albert Calleros
Trailer: Watch here
Beavis and Butt-Head are back and possibly dumber than ever. In Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe, the friends who want nothing more than to lose their virginity inadvertently become astronauts which leads them to time travel from 1998 to 2022, where they meet intelligent versions of themselves.
10. Scream (2022)
Year: 2022
Starring: Jenna Ortega, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Jack Quaid
Genre: Horror
Rating: R
Runtime: 114 minutes
Director: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett
Trailer: Watch here
In this fifth installment of the classic Scream franchise, Neve Campbell and Courteney Cox return as Sidney Prescott and Gale Weathers. The two are haunted by the events of the original film as a new Ghostface killer emerges once again in Woodsboro and leaves another trail of teenage bodies in their wake. But what seems like random murders, soon becomes a twisted journey into the deadly past of the sleepy town where it all began. Who’s wielding the knife this time and will Sidney and Gale’s luck finally run out as they’re pulled into another bloodbath?
11. The Lighthouse
Year: 2019
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Willem Dafoe
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Rating: R
Runtime: 1 hour, 50 minutes
Director: Robert Eggers
Trailer: Watch here
Hollywood’s most iconic, reliable weirdos Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe unite in this equally weird psychological thriller about wickies (lighthouse keepers) who are driven mad on a job on a rocky island. The men drink, fart, laugh, and fight, and as the days pass, the island with rocky beaches, which may or may not have supernatural elements, begins to get to them. There are seriously so many farts in this film.
12. Django Unchained
Year: 2012
Starring: Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, Christoph Waltz, Samuel L. Jackson
Genre: Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 165 minutes
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Trailer: Watch here
Quentin Tarantino’s a master at assembling an all-star cast in the most fitting roles, and here, he puts Christoph Waltz into good-guy mode. Mostly, that is. Jamie Foxx stars as a slave who has endured a grueling life, although he ends up falling in line with Waltz’s bounty hunter, and that leads to raising hell on the plantation of Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). Walton Goggins makes a glorious cameo with Samuel L. Jackson nearly stealing the show as Candie’s twisted head slave who won’t take a shakeup while sitting down. Things get explosive, to say the very least.
13. Confess, Fletch
Year: 2022
Starring: Jon Hamm, Marcia Gay Harden, Roy Wood Jr., Ayden Mayeri
Genre: Comedy, Crime
Rating: R
Runtime: 1 hour, 38 minutes
Director: Greg Mottola
Trailer: Watch here
Jon Hamm found his post-Mad Men niche in the grossly under-marketed crime comedy, Confess, Fletch. Hamm plays the snarky and quick-witted investigative journalist Irwin M. Fletcher, who stumbles upon a crime scene while visiting Boston. The detectives on the case think he’s the murderer, and he investigates the crime himself while making zero effort to look innocent. The role was originally played by Chevy Chase in two Fletch films from the ’80s. In this case, we stan a reboot.
14. Lady Bird
Year: 2017
Starring: Saorise Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Beanie Feldstein, Tracy Letts
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 1 hour, 34 minutes
Director: Greta Gerwig
Trailer: Watch here
Greta Gerwig’s directorial debut is a classic. The semi-autobiographical coming-of-age film tells the story of Lady Bird, a high school senior who recently changed her name to Lady Bird. She has a tense relationship with her mom and wants more than anything to get away from her home of Sacramento, hoping to attend college on the east coast. Throughout her final year of high she has new relationships, a falling out with her best friend, but one thing is a constant: she always comes back to her mom, played by Laurie Metcalf, who should have won an Oscar for the role thank you very much!
15. Uncut Gems
Year: 2019
Starring: Adam Sandler
Genre: Drama/Thriller
Rating: R
Runtime: 135 minutes
Director: Josh and Benny Safdie
Trailer: Watch here
It’s Adam Sandler like you’ve never seen him. Wild-eyed and stressed to the max as a NYC-centered jeweler who arguably goes way too far in search of his next great score. “Arguably” might be too much because it’s such a pleasure to watch Sandler in this mode (even though you may end up gripping the remote control a bit too hard while vicariously enduring the pressure cooker. with a side of Julia Fox. He should have won that Oscar, man, not only because he deserved as much but because he should only be encouraged to go off the rails again.
16. Almost Famous
Year: 2000
Starring: Billy Crudup, Kate Hudson, Frances McDormand
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 2 hours, 2 minutes
Director: Cameron Crowe
Trailer: Watch here
Cameron Crowe’s beloved, ’70s-set journalism movie follows a teenage music fan, who is assigned to follow the fictional band Stillwater on tour for a profile in the magazine. Along the way, he falls in love with groupie Penny Lane — played by Kate Hudson, who received an Oscar nomination in the best supporting actress category along with co-star Frances McDormand — and learns about life, ethical journalism, and the reality of being in a rock and roll band. Crowe’s semi-autobiographical screenplay (he, too, wrote for Rolling Stone as a teen) won the Oscar for best original screenplay.
17. The Wolf of Wall Street
Year: 2013
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 3 hours
Director: Martin Scorsese
Trailer: Watch here
It’s the performance that should have made Leonardo DiCaprio the should have Oscar Award-winning actor he is today. After a series of dramatic collaborations in the aughts including The Aviator, Gangs of New York, and Shutter Island, Scorsese and DiCaprio loosen up a little in the strongest entry to their little series. DiCaprio, who often chooses extremely serious, emotionally demanding roles, applies his signature intensity to a more comedic role in a comedic film with Scorsese’s signature energizing style. In his performance as the disgraced Jordan Belfort, DiCaprio proves he has more range than anyone thought, and the presence of co-star Jonah Hill undoubtedly helped him get there. The Wolf of Wall Street also introduced the world to Margot Robbie, one of the best actors working today and now, a two-time Oscar nominee. DiCaprio and Scorsese reunite ten years later and for the first time since this film in 2023’s Killers of the Flower Moon.
18. Cruel Intentions
Year: 1999
Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Ryan Phillippe, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Selma Blair
Genre: Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 98 minutes
Director: Roger Kumble
Trailer: Watch here
In this late 90s romantic drama, Reese Witherspoon gives a breakout performance as Annette Hargrove, the virginal young daughter of a private school headmaster who finds herself targeted in a manipulative wager between wealthy step-siblings Kathryn (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Sebastian (Ryan Phillippe). While initially caring little about the damage caused by the wager, the once-arrogant and over-entitled Sebastian finds himself falling for Annette, which does not go over well with Kathryn. While Gellar was already on the cusp of fame with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cruel Intentions undoubtedly catapulted Witherspoon’s career as she followed up the film with Legally Blonde and cemented herself as an A-list star.
19. Smile
Year: 2022
Starring: Sosie Bacon, Jessie T. Usher, Kyle Gallner, Robin Weigert
Genre: Horror
Rating: R
Runtime: 1 hour, 55 minutes
Director: Parker Finn
Trailer: Watch here
Sosie Bacon stars as a therapist who, after witnessing the traumatic death of a patient who claims she was haunted by smiling people, starts to see the smiling people herself. As you can probably imagine, she spends the majority of the movie trying to figure out the source of the problem before it’s too late. There is a lot of smiling and a lot of trauma.
20. Mission: Impossible — Fallout
Year: 2018
Starring: Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, Simon Pegg
Genre: Action, Thriller
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 2 hours, 28 minutes
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Trailer: Watch here
Tom Cruise returns as the at this point superhuman Ethan Hunt for yet another impossible mission (the sixth film in the franchise). Cruise performs even more impressive life-threatening stunts in Mission: Impossible Fallout, including but certainly not limited to a helicopter chase. It’s long, but every minute is truly more thrilling than the next. Henry Cavill assimilated as well into a villain role — the role that required him to have the infamous mustache that was questionably edited out of his scenes in Justice League.
21. Candyman
Year: 2021
Starring: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Teyonah Parris
Genre: Horror
Rating: R
Runtime: 1 hour, 31 minutes
Director: Nia DaCosta
Trailer: Watch here
Nia DaCosta, whose Marvel film The Marvels is due out this summer, directed this follow-up to the ’90s cult classic starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as an artist who investigates a serial killer for a new project. His investigation leads him to other Black men who were murdered and secrets about his own lineage. DaCosta is a visionary director with a deep understanding of disturbing, thrilling, and impactful imagery.
22. The Virgin Suicides
Year: 1999
Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Josh Hartnett, Kathleen Turner, AJ Cook
Genre: Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 1 hour, 37 minutes
Director: Sofia Coppola
Trailer: Watch here
Sofia Coppola’s directorial debut introduced the world to the unique, feminine, dreamlike atmosphere of her filmography. Based on the 1993 best-seller of the same name by Jeffrey Eugenides, the film follows the lives of the sheltered Catholic Lisbon sisters living in an upper-middle-class suburb in Michigan in the 1970s. The overprotected girls are an enigma to everyone, especially a group of boys in town, who are enamored with them. The film is told from their perspective as they reminisce on the Lisbon girls as adults.
23. Devotion
Year: 2022
Starring: Jonathan Majors, Glenn Powell
Genre: Action
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 139 minutes
Director: J.D. Dillard
Trailer: Watch here
Devotion stars Jonathan Majors as Jesse Brown the first Black aviator in U.S. Navy history. In this tight military adventure, Brown and his closest friend, fellow fighter pilot Tom Hudner (Glenn Powell), are tasked with turning the tide in a brutal aerial battle during the Korean War. This inspirational true story is perfect for fans of Top Gun or anyone who enjoys an old school war movie. On top of that, Majors is becoming the actor of the moment, and Devotion is yet another powerhouse performance from the burgeoning star.
24. South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut
Year: 1999
Starring: Trey Parker, Matt Stone
Genre: Comedy, Animation, Musical
Rating: R
Runtime: 1 hour, 21 minutes
Director: Trey Parker
Trailer: Watch here
In this meta feature film version of the popular and controversial Comedy Central animated TV show South Park, the gang sneaks into an R-rated Canadian film. The children’s parents and teachers are alarmed by the vulgarity they’ve learned from the film and a censorship war begins, obvious commentary on the reception of South Park itself in the United States. Long story short, the kids become the only people who can save the filmmakers from death row.
25. American Hustle
Year: 2013
Starring: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence
Genre: Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 138 Minutes
Director: David O. Russell
Trailer: Watch here
There’s a whole lot of hair in this movie, but beyond that, Christian Bale must have been thrilled to eat a bag of potato chips to prep for this role rather than starve himself. These characters are wheeling and dealing in the art world while the story traces the real-life Abscam FBI sting of the 1980s. The style is terrible in this film that also happens to be stylish and slick, and the Oscars do love it when A-listers break bad. This was an enjoyable yarn if a bit overplayed at the time.
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