Paramount Plus is one of the newer arrivals on the streaming scene, and while its roster is rolling out plenty of exciting streaming original and acquired shows, there are plenty of movies on Paramount Plus that are worth exploring. From the classic to the current and from the vintage to the very new, Paramount Plus offers an excellent movie lineup that rivals any other streaming service. To save you some time from surfing, The Manual has dug out a few of the very best Paramount Plus movies. Here’s what’s on Paramount Plus that you should watch this month.
Interstellar (2014)
169m
Genre
Adventure, Drama, Science Fiction
Stars
Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain
Directed by
Christopher Nolan
Watch on Paramount+
In a career filled with precise, slightly cold movies, Interstellar feels like something of an outlier for Christopher Nolan. The film, which follows a space mission designed to save Earth from extinction, is really about what it means to love another person, and what that love can and cannot do. On top of that; the movie also features some of the most stunning visuals of Nolan’s career, as well as a score from Hans Zimmer that has become a classic in the decade since the movie’s release. Not everything about Interstellar works, but it’s hard to imagine any other director taking a swing this big and pulling it off this well.
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
131m
Genre
Action, Drama
Stars
Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly
Directed by
Joseph Kosinski
Watch on Paramount+
A sequel that no one needed and everyone was grateful for, Top Gun: Maverick improves on its predecessor by finding a more grounded emotional story to tell about its characters. The film follows Maverick, now a veteran pilot, as he returns to Top Gun to teach a class of young guns how to handle a deeply dangerous mission. Along the way, he falls in love, buries the hatchet with the son of his closest friend, and proves that Maverick is a legend that may never be equaled. If we failed to appreciate Tom Cruise before Maverick, this Top Gun sequel reminded moviegoing audiences everywhere why he’s still a major star.
The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
75%
8.2/10
180m
Genre
Crime, Drama, Comedy
Stars
Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie
Directed by
Martin Scorsese
Watch on Paramount+
An ode to greed and the misery it causes, The Wolf of Wall Street is a fabulous journey into forsaken levels of self-interest. Based on Jordan Belfort’s autobiography, The Wolf of Wall Street follows Belfort’s rise from stockbroker to penny stock hawker to a self-made millionaire who founds Stratton Oakmont at age 30. The over-the-counter brokerage house sells mounds of poor stock picks to uninformed investors, taking livelihoods along the way to making his brokers millionaires themselves. The party, the sex, the drugs, the whole house of cards, however, has to eventually fall. Filmmaker Martin Scorsese directs the on-screen story of the non-stop thrills at Stratton, where corruption ruled and more was never enough.
Babylon (2022)
189m
Genre
Drama, Comedy
Stars
Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Diego Calva
Directed by
Damien Chazelle
Watch on Paramount+
A fable set against the backdrop of 1920s Hollywood, Babylon is a movie about movies that is beautiful and rhapsodic in ways that few films even attempt to be. Running more than three hours, the movie follows three characters as they see their fortunes rise and fall against the backdrop of Hollywood’s transition to the sound era. One is an established Hollywood star (Brad Pitt), another an emerging ingenue who is too wild for her own good (Margot Robbie), and the third a behind-the-scenes striver who wants nothing more than to be close to the movie business (Diego Calva). The actual story of Babylon is rife with tragedy, and yet its baffling climax is a reminder that the movies live on when everything else is gone, and we can take some comfort in that at least.
Ascension (2021)
In Ascension, we get to see a modern economy’s growth from the ground up. The 2021 MTV documentary film follows the pursuit of the Chinese dream through a billion-member society that erupts in a riot of class stratification after permitting a regulated capitalism that prioritizes productivity and innovation over all else. This includes civil rights like freedom of speech, press, and more. Ascension premiered in June 2021 at the Tribeca Film Festival, where it won Best Documentary Feature. Director and producer Jessica Kingdon originally did not intend to focus solely on China. She described it as “an image-driven essay film composed of a series of vignettes, climbing up the rungs of China’s social ladder.” Like steps up society’s levels, Ascension is tiered into three stories, elevating up through classes — the proletariat, the aspirational middle, and a wanton elite — strict social tiers where the wealthiest are crystalized at the top.
Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)
147m
Genre
Action, Adventure
Stars
Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, Ving Rhames
Directed by
Christopher McQuarrie
Watch on Paramount+
The entire Mission: Impossible series is available on Paramount Plus, and anyone curious should probably start from the beginning. If you’re just looking for an all-time great action movie; then Mission: Impossible Fallout is probably the place to start. The movie follows Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt as he’s tasked with reacquiring plutonium that he loses in the movie’s opening scene. Really, though, the thing that makes Fallout great is the way it seems to constantly ramp up the action. Every set piece here is a showstopper, and each action beat seems to just build on the last. The movie is operating at a dead sprint from its opening moments, and that’s what makes it great. Cruise is singularly committed to making these kinds of movies, but he’s also aided by an incredible supporting cast that includes Rebecca Ferguson, Henry Cavill, Simon Pegg, and Angela Bassett. Fallout is, quite simply, thrilling.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
65%
7.2/10
146m
Genre
Drama, Science Fiction, Adventure
Stars
Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, Frances O'Connor
Directed by
Steven Spielberg
Watch on Paramount+
Over the course of his long career, Steven Spielberg has made a number of movies that could justifiably be called a masterpiece, but A.I. stands out as one of the very best. Spielberg took over the movie from Stanley Kubrick following that visionary’s death, which is part of what makes the movie feel so distinct. The movie, which tells the story of an AI boy who wants nothing more than the love of the mother who purchased him, is really a story about what it means to want love and how distinctly human that feeling is. Over the course of a sprawling saga, A.I. feels at turns prescient and whimsical and feels like the perfect combination of Spielberg’s winsome, wholesome sensibilities and Kubrick’s much colder instincts.
Past Lives (2023)
106m
Genre
Drama, Romance
Stars
Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, John Magaro
Directed by
Celine Song
Watch on Paramount+
One of the best movies of 2023, Past Lives tells the story of two Korean children who were close when they were young, but drifted apart as they aged. When they reunite for a weekend in New York City, they imagine how their lives might have been different and examine the way the choices they made shaped the people they ultimately became. Featuring outstanding performances from Greta Lee and Teo Yoo, Past Lives is one of the more quietly devastating movies of recent years, in part because it’s a reminder of how many small things shape the people we ultimately become.
Red Eye (2005)
85m
Genre
Thriller, Mystery
Stars
Rachel McAdams, Cillian Murphy, Brian Cox
Directed by
Wes Craven
Watch on Paramount+
Now that Cillian Murphy has got his Oscar, it’s time to revisit one of his best thrillers from the mid-2000s. Red Eye tells the story of a hotel manager who finds herself entranced by Murphy’s character, who reveals himself to be a terrorist, over the course of a single flight. The premise here is fairly standard, but what makes it work is the unique chemistry between Murphy and Rachel McAdams. Murphy ultimately turns sinister, but up until pretty late in the film, it’s easy to understand how you might be bewitched by his dreamy blue eyes.
Chinatown (1974)
130m
Genre
Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Stars
Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston
Directed by
Roman Polanski
Watch on Paramount+
A classic of the noir genre, Chinatown is set in Los Angeles in the 1920s, and follows a private detective who is hired to investigate adultery and discovers something much more horrific. This 1974 film was part of a run of outstanding performances from Jack Nicholson, and although it’s set 50 years before it was released, it’s also very much a movie about the cynicism of the 1970s. Chinatown is a classic for a reason, and although director Roman Polanski is a deeply complicated figure, it’s hard to deny that this movie is his masterpiece.
The Lost City (2022)
112m
Genre
Action, Adventure, Comedy
Stars
Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe
Directed by
Aaron Nee, Adam Nee
Watch on Paramount+
When Channing Tatum disappeared from movie screens for a couple of years in the early 2020s, it was audiences who really lost out. Thankfully, Tatum is back, and The Lost City is the perfect vehicle for his many charms. Here, Tatum is paired with Sandra Bullock, who plays an author of successful adventure novels. When this author and her cover model stumble into an actual jungle adventure, plenty of above-average action comedy ensues. Add in a Brad Pitt cameo and an excellent villain performance from Daniel Radcliffe, and you have the kind of mid-budget action comedy that they should make eight of every year.
Cloverfield (2008)
85m
Genre
Action, Thriller, Science Fiction
Stars
Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas, T.J. Miller
Directed by
Matt Reeves
Watch on Paramount+
One of the best found footage movies ever made, Cloverfield became a phenomenon the second it hit theaters. The movie follows a group of New Yorkers who find themselves fighting for their lives after an alien emerges from the Hudson River and begins to terrorize the city. Filmed entirely as if it was made on a camcorder, the movie’s thrills come in part from the fact that we rarely get a good look at the monster that is at the center of the story. Cloverfield knows exactly what to show us and exactly what to hide, and that makes everything we get feel all the more urgent.
What’s new on Paramount Plus in July?
July 1
- A Good Day to Die Hard
- A Perfect Day
- A Thin Line Between Love and Hate
- American History X
- Apache Junction
- Big Top Pee-Wee
- Biker Boyz
- Blades of Glory
- Blue Chips
- Boyz N’ The Hood
- Caddyshack
- Catch the Bullet
- Charlie’s Angels
- Charlie’s Angels Full Throttle
- Charlotte’s Web
- Copycat
- Defiance
- Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star
- Die Hard
- Die Hard 2
- Die Hard with a Vengeance
- Drag Me to Hell
- El Dorado
- Enemy at the Gates
- Fear
- Freedom Writers
- Funny Face
- Gone Baby Gone
- Good Mourning
- Grease
- Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
- Hamburger Hill
- Heat
- Heist
- Identity
- Imagine That
- John Grisham’s The Rainmaker
- Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life
- Legends of the Fall
- Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
- Live Free or Die Hard
- Love The Coopers
- Martha Marcy May Marlene
- Miss Sloane
- My Left Foot
- Necessary Roughness
- New Jack City
- Outlaw Posse
- Paid in Full
- Pawn Sacrifice
- Private Parts
- Rounders
- Rudy
- Rules of Engagement
- Rushmore
- RV
- Sahara
- Set It Off: Director’s Cut
- Sexy Beast
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
- Star Trek III: The Search For Spock
- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
- Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
- Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
- Star Trek: First Contact
- Star Trek: Generations
- Star Trek: Insurrection
- Star Trek: Nemesis
- Star Trek: The Motion Picture – The Director’s Edition
- Stephen King’s Thinner
- Stop-Loss
- Summer Rental
- Summer School
- Sunset Boulevard
- Superstar
- Swingers
- Terms of Endearment
- The Baby-Sitters Club
- The Babysitter
- The East
- The Love Letter
- The Mechanic
- The Running Man
- The Saint
- The Silence of the Lambs
- The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
- The Truman Show
- The Yards
- Timeline
- Tom & Jerry
- Top Secret!
- Total Recall
- Trainspotting
- Uncommon Valor
- Universal Soldier
- What Men Want
- Without a Paddle
- World Trade Center
- Yours, Mine & Ours
- Zero Dark Thirty
July 8
- Anesthesia
July 13
- Arthur and the Invisibles
July 15
- Fifty Shades of Black
- The Current War
July 24
- Weiner
July 27
- Hannibal Rising
