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
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
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)
180m
Genre
Crime, Drama, Comedy
Stars
Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie
Directed by
Martin Scorsese
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
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)
97m
Genre
Documentary
Directed by
Jessica Kingdon
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
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)
146m
Genre
Drama, Science Fiction, Adventure
Stars
Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, Frances O'Connor
Directed by
Steven Spielberg
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
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
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
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.
What’s new on Paramount Plus in May?
May 1
- All About the Benjamins
- Annihilation
- Anything for Fame*
- Baywatch
- Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
- Belly*
- Belly 2: Millionaire Boyz Club*
- Big Jake
- Big Night
- Black Lotus*
- Boogie Nights
- Clockstoppers
- Crawl
- Days of Heaven
- Double Jeopardy
- Ella Enchanted
- Everybody Wants Some!!
- Faster
- Fences
- Fire In The Sky
- Flight Of The Intruder
- Four Brothers
- Frida*
- Ghost
- Harriet The Spy
- Hellraiser III: Hell On Earth
- Hellraiser IV: Bloodline
- Hellraiser V: Inferno
- Hellraiser VI: Hellseeker
- Hellraiser VII: Deader
- Hellraiser VIII: Hellworld
- How She Move*
- I Know What You Did Last Summer*
- I Still Know What You Did Last Summer*
- I’ll See You in My Dreams*
- Imagine That
- In the Cut
- Indecent Proposal
- Jack Reacher: Never Go Back
- Joy Ride
- Kelly & Cal*
- Kinky Boots*
- Maid in Manhattan*
- Margot At The Wedding*
- Marvin’s Room*
- Mommie Dearest*
- No Country for Old Men
- Once Upon A Time In The West
- Point Break
- Revolutionary Road*
- Rocketman
- Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion
- Serpico
- Shall We Dance?*
- Shane
- Sliver
- Stand By Me*
- Terms of Endearment
- The Accused
- The Back-up Plan
- The Gift*
- The Golden Child
- The Guilt Trip
- The Hateful Eight*
- The Haunting
- The Joy Luck Club
- The Longest Yard
- The Mechanic
- The Original Kings of Comedy*
- The Prince Of Tides
- The Terminal
- True Grit
- True Grit
- Vantage Point
- Virtuosity
- What’s Eating Gilbert Grape*
- What’s Your Number?
- Zoolander
- Charles: The New King
- PAW Patrol: Dino Rescue
- PAW Patrol: Rescue Knights
May 15
- The Boss Baby 2: Family Business
May 18
- Supernova*
May 25
- National Lampoon’s Van Wilder – The Rise of Taj*
May 28
- 3 Generations*
May 31
- Black Christmas*
*Title available on Paramount+ with Showtime
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