Though it’s a relative newcomer in the streaming landscape, Paramount+ has already built up an extensive library of movies to choose from. The best movies to watch right now on Paramount+ covers a wide variety of genres, and thanks to Paramount’s position as a high-end Hollywood studio there are some incredible blockbusters on the platform alongside some lesser-known hidden gems. Paramount+ is arguably better known for its original TV shows, such as the Yellowstone and Star Trek franchises, but its movie selection shouldn’t be overlooked.
Thanks to its deep library of titles, Paramount+ has an impressive range of available films. Subscribers looking for a new movie to watch can find plenty of classics, along with brand-new releases they may have missed in theaters. However, there’s so much choice that it can be a little overwhelming for those uninitiated with the Paramount+ streaming platform. While it isn’t the most prominent streaming service, it is amassing a loyal following, and the best movies you can stream right now on Paramount+ showcase why.
Best Comedy Movies On Paramount+
Catch Me If You Can (2002)
2002’s Catch Me If You Can is a comedy that, if anything, proves just how titanic the legacies of its director and leading cast members are. Directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks, Catch Me If You Can is rarely cited among the cinematic achievements of any members of the trio. However, had it been directed by anyone else or starred almost any other cast members in the lead, it would undoubtedly be a highlight of any hypothetical replacement’s filmographies. The comedy-drama is based on the “true story” of Frank Abagnale Jr. and was adapted from his autobiography.
Played by DiCaprio in Catch Me If You Can, Abagnale was a con-man who managed to swindle millions of dollars before he’d even turned 19. The movie follows DiCaprio’s Abagnale Jr. as he consistently stays ahead of the FBI agent assigned to bring him to justice — the increasingly frustrated Carl Hanratty, played to hilarious perfection by Tom Hanks. The various cons pulled off by Abagnale throughout the movie alone make it worth a watch, but the performances of both Hanks and DiCaprio cement it as essential viewing among Paramount+ movies (and Christopher Walken’s Oscar-nominated appearance as Frank Abagnale Sr. definitely adds to the appeal).
Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy (2004)
Will Ferrell is considered a comedy A-Lister in the 2020’s, and one of the movies that put him on the map was 2004’s Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. The amount of memorable quotes in Anchorman is difficult to overstate, and for years Ron Burgundy (Ferrell) was considered by many as the funniest fictional movie character of all time. While tastes have changed somewhat over the decades, Anchorman remains laugh-out-loud hilarious throughout, and Paramount+ subscribers will be hard put to find a movie on the platform that’s as bombastic or unashamedly silly.
While the comedy of Will Ferrell is arguably an acquired taste, he’s far from alone in the cast. Joining him in Anchorman are the likes of Christina Applegate, Paul Rudd, Steve Carell, and Kathryn Hahn, as well as notable cameos from Vince Vaughn, Jack Black, Danny Trejo, Tim Robbins, Ben Stiller, and Seth Rogen. Few films capture the spirit of 2000s comedy quite like Anchorman, and its 86% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes shows that it’s stood the test of time.
IF (2024)
Due to being owned by one of Hollywood’s leading studios, Paramount+ is often first to host some of the best recent releases. Such is the case with 2024’s IF, which is now available on Paramount+ despite having only recently finished its theatrical run. IF is a charming, heartwarming family comedy that viewers of all ages can enjoy. Written and directed by John Krasinski of The Office and A Quiet Place fame, IF focuses on 12-year-old Bea who, after moving into her godmother’s apartment, discovers she can see imaginary friends.
However, Bea quickly learns that imaginary beings she can see have a problem — due to the kids who imagined them growing up, they’re all alone. The movie then becomes a wild ride full of colorful characters as Bea teams up with Cal (Ryan Reynolds) to help the child-less imaginary friends of New York City find new kids. While IF received middling reviews from critics, all seemed to be in agreement that it ticks the boxes for a solid family comedy, making it the perfect choice for movie night with younger viewers when it comes to the movies on Paramount+ right now.
Tropic Thunder (2008)
Directed, written by, and starring Ben Stiller, 2008’s Tropic Thunder was an incredibly controversial comedy even when it released in 2008, though it is considered by an overwhelming majority of viewers to be a flawless film about filmmaking. The movie centers on a group of hapless fictional actors all at crossroads in their career. When they head to Vietnam to shoot a movie based on the (fraudulent) memoirs of veteran John “Four Lead” Tayback, the central characters find themselves under fire from a genuine Opium syndicate.
As far as comedy movies on Paramount+ go, few can match
Tropic Thunder
when it comes to squeezing hilarity into every minute of its runtime.
Tropic Thunder is laugh-out-loud hilarious throughout, with the three leading cast members — Ben Stiller as Tugg Speedman, Jack Black as Jeff Portnoy, Robert Downey Jr. as Kirk Lazarus — all giving some of the best performances of their careers. What’s more, the Tropic Thunder cast also includes the likes of Danny McBride, Matthew McConaughey, and megastar Tom Cruise who, despite not being known for comedic roles, manages to steal the show. As far as comedy movies on Paramount+ go, few can match Tropic Thunder when it comes to squeezing hilarity into every minute of its runtime.
Jackass: The Movie (2002)
The stunt-based slapstick antics of Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, and the rest of the Jackass crew may feel like a relic in the age of social media when online pranksters are a dime-a-dozen, but the Jackass movies show why the band of daredevils that started it all are still the best. All of the Jackass movies are available to stream on Paramount+, including 2022’s Jackass Forever, but 2002’s Jackass: The Movie arguably remains the funniest of the bunch.
While Jackass is an acquired taste as far as comedy goes, the pioneering attitude of the cast in a time when chasing likes and views wasn’t a thing — combined with the reactions of an unaware public untainted by overexposure to public antics in the age of smartphones — make Jackass: The Movie just as hilarious over two decades after it hit theaters.
While
Jackass: The Movie
wasn’t critically acclaimed, it was incredibly profitable, grossing over $79million with a budget of $5million (
via
Box Office Mojo
)
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)
Widely considered one of John Hughes’ best movies, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is the movie that turned Matthew Broderick into a star. He plays the eponymous high school slacker, who skips school with his best friend Cameron (Alan Ruck) and girlfriend Sloane (Mia Sara), and together they have one of the most memorable, adventurous days of their lives. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is one of the best movies about truancy ever thanks to its clever script and Broderick’s charming performance.
One of the cinema’s most charismatic teenagers
While a case can be made that Ferris Bueller is a terrible friend, he’s one of the cinema’s most charismatic teenagers, and he makes great points about the importance of people taking time for themselves. Paramount+ is even developing a spin-off movie called Sam & Victor’s Day Off, centered on the valets who go joyriding in Cameron’s father’s car.
Matthew Broderick was nominated for a Golden Globe in 1987 for Best Actor thanks to his career-defining performance as Ferris Bueller.
The Addams Family (1991)
Releasing in 1991, The Addams Family marks the big-screen debut of the creepy and kooky clan based on the cartoons by Charles Addams. The comedy sees the Addamses reconnect with family member Fester (Christopher Lloyd) after he had a falling out with his brother, the family patriarch Gomez Addams (Raul Julia). However, “Fester” isn’t actually who he says he is, as he’s actually a con artist behind an elaborate scheme to steal the Addams family’s riches.
The Addams Family had a notoriously troubled production but was a box-office smash, likely thanks to the performances of its talented cast led by Julia, Lloyd, Anjelica Huston as Morticia, and a young Christina Ricci in a star-marking turn as Wednesday Addams. The film spawned another sequel, Addams Family Values and the Addams Family legacy didn’t stop there, as Wednesday, starring Jenna Oretga as the titular anti-heroine, became a hit show for Netflix — and even features an appearance from Ricci.
The sequel
Addams Family Values
is also available to stream on Paramount+
Mean Girls (2004)
Teen comedies are often looked down on, but Mean Girls bypassed “so fetch” and went straight to pop culture icon status. From the brilliant mind of Tina Fey, Mean Girls sees the homeschooled Cady Heron experience public high school for the first time. Beautiful and sweet, Cady is quickly snapped up by the most popular girls in school, the Plastics, only to be immediately betrayed by Queen Bee Regina George (Rachel McAdams in her breakout role). With the aid of a couple of misfits, Cady enacts her revenge and learns just what being a mean girl is.
The movie stands out for its hilariously exaggerated yet shockingly realistic portrayal of high school girl politics, and Mean Girls‘ most iconic quotes — “She doesn’t even go here!”, “You go, Glen Coco!”, etc. — are still spoken to this day. Thanks to its success, Mean Girls spawned a successful Broadway musical that itself received a movie adaptation in 2024, and both versions of Mean Girls are currently available on Paramount+.
Mean Girls
won several awards during its release year, including an MTV Movie Award for Best Female Performance for Lindsay Lohan and Breakthrough Female Performance for Rachel McAdams.
The Lost City (2022)
It’s hard to go wrong with a Sandra Bullock romance movie, and The Lost City is a rom-com made for rom-com lovers. Bullock plays Loretta, a bestselling romance author who gets kidnapped by a young megalomaniac billionaire (Daniel Radcliffe) and transported to an Atlantic island to find him the treasure she writes about in her novels. And when Loretta’s dashing book cover model Alan (Channing Tatum) discovers she’s missing, he makes it his mission to save her.
In an age where most rom-coms go straight to streaming services, the fact that this adventurous romp made its way to theaters is something special. The Lost City is a thrilling adventure from start to finish, bolstered by Bullock and Tatum’s sweet yet electric chemistry.
School Of Rock (2003)
School of Rock is far and away director Richard Linklater’s most mainstream, successful movie, and the most essential film in Jack Black’s biography. Black plays Dewey Finn, an aspiring guitar player who gets kicked out of his band and is strapped for cash. When he poses as a private school substitute teacher, Dewey discovers that the class he’s teaching is comprised of musical geniuses so he recruits the kids to compete with him in Battle of the Bands.
The movie was a box office hit and spawned a television series and a popular Broadway musical adaptation. Dewey Finn is easily Black’s best and funniest role, and School of Rock‘s message about the importance of rock music and following your dreams still strikes a chord 20 years later.
Jack Black was nominated for a Golden Globe for
School of Rock,
losing Best Actor – Comedy or Musical to Billy Murray’s performance in
Lost in Translation.
Best Drama Movies On Paramount+
Interstellar (2014)
2014’s Interstellar may not be the most acclaimed or celebrated of Christopher Nolan’s movies, but that’s simply because the director has one of the strongest filmographies of any currently active filmmaker in Hollywood. As it stands, the sci-fi drama Interstellar is one of the best movies on Paramount+ right now, and one many critics consider as essential viewing (especially in the realms of science-fiction).
Just like Inception and many of Nolan’s other projects, Interstellar is partly an exploration of time and the impact losing or gaining it has on the human mind. The movie focuses on the crew of an exploratory starship, the Endurance, as they attempt to find a new home for humanity by travelling through a newly emerged wormhole near Saturn. Of course, things quickly go awry for the Endurance team (which is led by Matthew McConaughey as Cooper), and the adventure that follows has some of the most epic sci-fi visuals of the past decade.
Interstellar
won and was nominated for a slew of awards, including five Academy Award nominations (and it won Best Visual Effects).
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Of all the movies on Paramount+ right now, few are as critically acclaimed as 1998’s Saving Private Ryan. Widely considered the best WW2 movie ever made, Saving Private Ryan is inarguably a career highlight both for director Steven Spielberg and leading cast member Tom Hanks — an impressive feat, considering both have filmography’s stacked end-to-end with critical and box-office hits. While full of unrivaled action sequences that still hold up decades later, Saving Private Ryan is, at its heart, a drama, as it never lets the considerable amount of jaw-dropping spectacle detract from the incredibly character-driven narrative.
Saving Private Ryan had an incredibly impressive awards season when it released, landing the Golden Globe for Best Drama and Best Director, as well as nominations for Best Drama Actor (for Tom Hanks), Best Original Score, and Best Screenplay. It then went on to land Oscars for Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Sound, and Best Sound Effects Editing at the Academy Awards the same year. Tom Hanks also received an Oscar nod with a nomination for Best Actor. The legacy of Saving Private Ryan is incredibly difficult to overstate, and it’s nigh-on-impossible to debate its place as one of the best movies currently on Paramount+.
Forrest Gump (1994)
Of all the movies on Paramount+, few are notable for as many reasons as 1994’s Forrest Gump. Not only does it feature one of the best performances of Tom Hanks career, but it’s also near-unbeaten as a movie that summarizes the final decades of the 20th century in such a succinct (and, at times, hilarious) way, and the Forrest Gump soundtrack is a near-unrivaled collection of classic rock tracks.
However, what makes Forrest Gump so impossible to forget is its story. Tom Hanks plays the titular character, Forrest Gump, who — despite having an IQ of only 75 — manages to become one of the most coincidentally significant figures of the century. From his humble beginnings in Alabama, Forrest ends up meeting multiple presidents, serving in the Vietnam War, becomes an international ping-pong champion, and by the 1990s, a billionaire (though he still mows lawns for free). At times hilarious and at others tear-jerking, Forrest Gump is rightly considered a must-watch as far as the movies on Paramount+ go.
Gladiator (2000)
Ridley Scott’s historical epic Gladiator is widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, so it’s understandably also ranked as one of the best movies among Paramount+’s extensive library. Set in Ancient Rome, Gladiator stars Russell Crowe as Maximus, a fallen Roman soldier who becomes enslaved and forced to fight as a gladiator in the Colosseum.
Crowe delivered a career-defining performance, as did Joaquin Phoenix as the vile Emperor Commodus. Gladiator set Oscars records with its success, and to this day remains more-or-less unrivaled when it comes to action-heavy historical dramas.
After two decades, sequel
Gladiator 2
is arriving in 2024
, making it the perfect time for Paramount+ subscribers who have yet to see the first movie to find out why it’s so acclaimed.
The Godfather (1972)
Few films have been as influential as 1972 crime drama The Godfather, and cinephiles looking for a cool movie to watch on Paramount+ right now need look no further. Marlon Brando’s performance as the ruthless yet soft-spoken mafia kingpin Vito Corleone is one of the most quoted in cinema history, and Al Pacino’s role as Michael Corleone launched his career.
Directed by the legendary Francis Ford Coppola, The Godfather spawned two sequels, and despite releasing over 50 years ago still holds up as one of the most gripping dramas ever made.
The entire
Godfather
trilogy is available to stream on Paramount+.
Titanic (1997)
James Cameron’s epic romance film Titanic had a massive effect on Hollywood the moment it sailed into theaters in 1997. Making huge stars out of its lead actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, Titanic‘s story of the doomed ship parallels the doomed lovers who set sail upon it in 1912. They are, of course, the upper-class Rose DeWitt Bukater (Winslet), engaged to be married to the villainous Cal Hockley (Billy Zane), and Jack Dawson (DiCaprio) a poor artist with big dreams.
They meet aboard the ship and fall passionately in love, only for tragedy to strike. But while the ship sunk, the movie soared, with Titanic breaking myriad records. Titanic was the first movie to gross over $1 billion and it also tied Ben-Hur for most Academy Awards wins with 11 out of 14 nominations, including Best Picture. It was a movie event for the ages and can still be watched and enjoyed on Paramount+.
Best Sci-Fi, Fantasy, & Action Movies On Paramount+
Transformers (2007)
The Transformers movies are a staple of action sci-fi in the 2020s, and the live-action film that started it all is 2007’s Transformers. What’s more, it’s still considered one of the most solid entries in the film series, with a self-contained story that requires no previous knowledge of the wider franchise. Starring Megan Fox and Shia LaBeouf, with the likes of Peter Cullen and Hugo Weaving voicing Optimus Prime and Megatron respectively, Transformers is the epitome of big-budget easy watching from start to finish.
Fans of Michael Bay in particular will find Transformers immensely satisfying, as it’s dripping with the director’s penchant for explosions and high-octane action sequences. Despite being released over a decade ago the CGI in the 2007 movie still holds up too, showing that it more than earned its Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects at the 80th awards.
Dungeons And Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)
Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves may not have performed as well at the box office as it could have when it released in 2023, but over the time since, has gained a following due to it being one of the most lighthearted and enjoyable fantasy movies of the decade so far. Now Paramount+ subscribers can find out why Honor Among Thieves is becoming so beloved, both by fans of the Dungeons and Dragons tabletop roleplaying game and those who simply enjoy a hilarious and visually-spellbinding movie.
While Honor Among Thieves contains many nods to Dungeons and Dragons, knowledge of the game is far from a requirement to enjoy the movie. The film stands as an action-packed ride through a mythical fantasy kingdom that never lets itself get bogged down in lore and exposition at the expense of good storytelling. While the visual effects and script are solid throughout, the true strength of Honor Among Thieves is its cast, with the likes of Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Hugh Grant, Justic Smith, and Sophia Lillis all giving absolutely hilarious performances.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
The much-anticipated follow-up to 1984’s The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day superseded expectations and is widely considered to be the best film in the sci-fi franchise. A young John Connor (Edward Furlong) is the key to humanity’s survival, and he and his mother Sarah (Linda Hamilton) are on the run from T-1000 (Robert Patrick), a Terminator sent from the future to kill the boy, with T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) there to protect them.
The sequel made huge stars out of its lead actors, and its special effects are so impressive that they’re just one of the things about Terminator 2 that still hold up today. The franchise has been chasing Terminator 2‘s success with increasingly diminishing returns, all the more proving that this is a classic piece of sci-fi cinema.
The special effects and sound design on
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
earned it 4 Academy Awards.
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
After many decades, the classic 1986 aviation movie Top Gun received a sequel, and 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick both lived up to the original and even — according to many viewers and critics — surpassed it. Tom Cruise returns for Top Gun 2 to reprise his role as Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, and in the follow-up he’s struggling to adapt to a changing world that’s increasingly reliant on drones, AI, and other varieties of technology that threaten to render ace pilots redundant.
Taking the helm of the Top Gun flight school, Maverick shows that no technology could ever truly replace the skills and intuition of a human pilot. Top Gun: Maverick easily stands as one of the best action movies currently available on Paramount+, as evidenced by its impressive 65 award wins from 183 nominations. It even received Academy Award nods for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, and while it didn’t win, Top Gun 2 still stands as an incredibly impressive modern action movie that’s sure to thrill Paramount+ subscribers.
Paramount+ subscribers who want to enjoy both movies in the franchise are in luck, as the original 1986
Top Gun
is also available to stream on the platform.
Mission: Impossible (1996)
The Mission: Impossible series is one of the rare action series that has just gotten better and better with each installment, but it’s well worth revisiting the first movie that started it all almost 30 years ago. Brian De Palma’s spy thriller doesn’t rewrite the genre, but what it does do is make Tom Cruise a bona fide action star.
While Cruise had been in action movies prior to this one, it could be argued that Mission: Impossible‘s still-iconic scene of Ethan Hunt breaking into a high-security vault on a line is what solidified Cruise as a practical stunt junkie — stunts he’s henceforth made sure he does himself. Since then, the Mission: Impossible movies have only gotten bigger and more eye-popping with the stunt work.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023)
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles haven’t had the most successful showing on the big screen, but Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem turns that all around in an uproariously fun way. From a team of writers that includes the hilarious Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, the animated movie sees the four Turtles (Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown Jr., Nicolas Cantu, and Brady Noon) and their friend April (Ayo Edebiri) looking to bring a crime syndicate to justice. However, they have to contend with a deadly mutant army that is sent after them.
Much like they did with Superbad, Rogen, Goldberg, and co. make Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem a great movie by centering it on coming-of-age themes like the desire to fit in and find acceptance. This makes the characters as relatable as they are charming and funny, and gives the movie heart along with some great action sequences. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is perfect for a family movie night, and there’s more Turtles fun to come, as Paramount+ is also developing a follow-up TV series, Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Best Thriller Movies On Paramount+
Face/Off (1997)
Among the movies on Paramount+ is 1997’s Face/Off, a genre-blurring action-heavy borderline-sci-fi crime thriller from renowned director John Woo. Face/Off is a film whose cast and premise draw instant attention, and the end-product more than lives up to the initial intrigue. For starters, Face/Off stars both John Travolta and Nicolas Cage, and they both play the same pair of characters. The reason for this curious casting is simple — Face/Off is about an FBI agent who gets his face swapped with a notorious terrorist through a surgical procedure so that he can go undercover and find the location of a bomb that could destroy Los Angeles.
At the start of the movie, John Travolta plays the aforementioned FBI agent, named Sean Archer, with Nicolas Cage as the psychotic terrorist Castor Troy. However, throughout most of the film, Travolta plays Castor Troy wearing Archer’s face, and vice versa. Both actors give absolutely incredible performances, and the high-stakes tension present throughout Face/Off ensures its one of several movies on Paramount+ subscribers will be more than happy to return to.
Jack Reacher (2012)
Tom Cruise is the star of several of the best movies on Paramount+. However, while hits such as Mission: Impossible and Top Gun: Maverick may be career-defining roles for the Hollywood megastar, one of his most nailbiting thrillers is also currently available to stream. 2012’s Jack Reacher is an adaptation of the Lee Child movie One Shot, and stars Cruise as the titular retired US Army investigator who finds himself pulled back into his former life to help capture a retired military sniper responsible for a mass shooting.
The premise of Jack Reacher alone already sets up an intense action-thriller, but the presence of Tom Cruise in the lead role lets Paramount+ subscribers know that they’ll be in for an edge-of-the-seat ride for every minute of the 2h 10 runtime. While Jack Reacher may only have received middling reviews from many critics, it’s managed to find its own fanbase, and thanks to its availability to stream, it will be easy for Paramount+ users to find out why.
Collateral (2004)
Tom Cruise is one of Hollywood’s biggest movie stars thanks to iconic leading man performances like Ethan Hunt in the Mission: Impossible franchise and Maverick in the Top Gun movies. However, his villainous turn as hitman Vincent in Collateral is truly one of his best roles. Filling the role of the hero in the Michael Mann-directed film is Jamie Foxx as Max Durocher, a cab driver who is forced to drive Vincent around as he completes his contract kills.
Mann is the master of the noir thriller, and Cruise and Foxx have electric, tension-fueled chemistry as they play off each other. Foxx was nominated for a Best Supporting Oscar for his performance, and Collateral delivers many thought-provoking questions along with its thrills.
Best Horror Movies On Paramount+
Annihilation (2018)
Director Alex Garland’s 2018 sci-fi horror has traveled across several streaming services, and Annihilation is currently available on Paramount+. The mind-bending film stars Natalie Portman alongside the likes of Tessa Thompson and Oscar Isaac, and remains one of the most puzzling and mentally engaging movies in the sci-fi horror subgenre of the past several decades.Annihilation focuses on a team of scientists led by Lena (Portman) who are tasked with exploring an anomalous space dubbed “The Shimmer”.
With a diameter of several miles, The Shimmer has had strange effects on anything caught within its boundaries, including a team of soldiers led by Lena’s now-missing husband (Oscar Isaac’s Kane). The impact of The Shimmer leads to some truly unforgettable moments, and its reshaping of DNA also creates no shortage of horrors (such as the now-infamous Annihilation bear). Annihilation is a movie that’s best entered with as few spoilers as possible, and it’s all-but-guaranteed to satisfy Paramount+ subscribers seeking a horror that has as many thought-provoking plot points as it does jump scares.
A Quiet Place: Day One (2024)
Among the new movies that have come directly from theaters to Paramount+ is 2024’s A Quiet Place: Day One, the long awaited prequel to A Quiet Place and A Quiet Place: Part II (both of which are also currently available on the platform). Directed by Micahel Samoski from a script co-written with John Krasinski (the creative mind behind the previous two entries in the trilogy), A Quiet Place: Day One showcases the initial invasion of the terrifying-but-blind aliens that are still terrorizing humanity by the time of the first movie in the franchise.
A Quiet Place: Day One stars Lupita Nyong’o as Sam, a terminal cancer patient living in a hospice just outside New York City. The plot of the movie follows Sam as she tries to survive the sudden invasion of Earth by hostile extraterrestrials, and Day One lives up to the expectations fans have of the A Quiet Place franchise when it comes to being terrifying and incredibly tense throughout. Critics responded to A Quiet Place: Day One incredibly positively, as evidenced by its score of 86% on Rotten Tomatoes.
World War Z (2013)
World War Z was an incredibly divisive movie when it released in 2013, and in many ways, it remains one. The Brad Pitt action horror is based on the novel of the same name by Max Brooks. However, the adaptation is incredibly loose, and there were many complaints both about its version of the narrative, and that director Marc Foster’s version watered down the tone to achieve a PG-13 rating. However, when analyzed on its own merit, World War Z stands as an incredibly solid zombie movie with some unrivaled special effects.
The plot of World War Z is, as its title suggests, a globe-spanning affair. Brad Pitt’s Gerry is a retired UN investigator who finds himself as one of the most integral figures in the team trying to figure out the origins of the global zombie outbreak and how to stop it. This sees him visit locations like Korea, Israel, the UK, and others. What World War Z lacks in book-accuarcy it more than makes up for with some of its jaw-dropping sequences, especially when it comes to the especially unrelenting behavior of the zombies themselves.
Pet Sematary (2019)
The 2019 remake of Pet Sematary is one of the most solid Stephen King adaptations of the last decade, and one of the most chilling horror movies on Paramount+ right now. The movie follows the Creed family who, after being evicted from their home in Boston, moves to the small town of Ludlow, Maine with their two children. The family quickly discovers that the local “Pet Sematary” has strange properties, most notably that animals buried their return from the grave.
Of course, things aren’t as they seem, and this is where the tale takes a sinister turn. After the Creed’s young daughter, Ellie, is hit by a truck and killed, her father, Louis, decides to take her body to the mysterious location in the hopes for a miracle. While Ellie does indeed return, she isn’t the same, and the Creed’s quickly learn why the residents of Ludlow had warned them to stay away from the Pet Sematary and the darkness that dwells beneath it.
Smile (2022)
One of the most widely discussed new horror movies that isn’t a remake, reboot, or sequel in the last 5 years is 2022’s Smile. From the moment the Smile trailer arrived, it got horror genre fans talking thanks to its incredibly striking and disturbing visuals — most notably the ghoulish, distended grin every victim afflicted by the Smile curse sees in those around them and, eventually, wear themselves in their final moments. When the movie released in 2022 it more than lived up to the reputation its viral marketing had created.
Not only is Smile one of the best horror movies on Paramount+, but it’s also one of the most innovative recent horror movies, and is already kickstarting a franchise since Smile 2 is on the way. There are some incredibly brutal kills, and the entire cast gives a harrowing performance throughout.
