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 Gladiator, the Mission: Impossible series and Grease.
For now, Paramount+ can’t compare to the depth of a catalogue like 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
Gladiator
Year: 2000
Runtime: 2h 34m
Director: Ridley Scott
One of the most popular films of its era, this action epic stars Russell Crowe as the legendary Maximus, a warrior whose family is murdered by the vicious Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix). Forced into slavery, Maximus has to rise the gladiator arenas to get his vengeance. The film made a fortune on its way to winning the Oscar for Best Picture.
Beverly Hills Cop
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.
Chinatown
Year: 1974
Runtime: 2h 10m
Director: Roman Polanski
Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown. One of the best movies of the ‘70s, this Best Picture nominee (and Best Screenplay winner) tells the story of Jake Gittes, played unforgettably by Jack Nicholson, as he investigates an adulterer and finds something much more insidious under the surface of Los Angeles. It’s a must-see, as important as almost any film from its era.
Clueless
Year: 1995
Runtime: 1h 37m
Director: Amy Heckerling
You can keep all those stuffy Jane Austen adaptations—one of the best remains Amy Heckerling’s updating of the 1815 classic Emma to mid-‘90s L.A. Is this the most ‘90s movie ever? From its fashion to its references to its beloved characters, Clueless is certainly one of the most iconic, a movie that made a small impact when it was released but feels like it grows even more popular with each generation that discovers it.
Collateral
Year: 2004
Runtime: 1h 59m
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.
Eastern Promises
Year: 2007
Runtime: 1h 40m
Director: David Cronenberg
David Cronenberg directed this fantastic gangster flick that’s become iconic for a naked fight scene, but the movie around that is pretty great too. Naomi Watts stars as a midwife who uncovers a Russian prostitution ring that draws in the son of the godfather played by Vincent Cassel and an enforcer, played by Viggo Mortensen, in one of his best screen performances.
Face/Off
Year: 1997
Runtime: 2h 18m
Director: John Woo
There are rumors that a remake of this John Woo classic is on the horizon, so you owe it to yourself to go back and see the very high standard that project will have to meet. Face/Off is one of the best action movies of the ‘90s, a wonderfully staged blockbuster by one of the genre’s best filmmakers. And John Travolta and Nicolas Cage were near the peaks of their screen charismas as an FBI agent and terrorist who end up, well, switching faces. It’s a blast.
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.
*GoodFellas
Year: 1990
Runtime: 2h 25m
Director: Martin Scorsese
One of the best films of the 1990s, Martin Scorsese’s telling of the story of Henry Hill changed the language of how we tell stories about mobsters, and it’s a work that only feels more like a classic with each passing year. GoodFellas has held up perfectly over the last three decades partially because of how much that followed tried to hollowly repeat it, but it’s also still just a wildly entertaining piece of work, a movie with more life in any five-minute stretch than most films have in their entire runtime.
The Godfather
Year: 1972
Runtime: 2h 55m
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Maybe you’ve heard of it? In all seriousness, there’s a very cool opportunity right now to watch the entire Godfather trilogy on Paramount+, including the superior recent cut of the third film. You could then slide from some of the best filmmaking of all time into the streaming service’s original series The Offer, about the making of Coppola’s masterpiece.
Heat
Year: 1995
Runtime: 2h 50m
Director: Michael Mann
Robert De Niro and Al Pacino star in one of the best movies of the ‘90s, a stunning cat-and-mouse game between a career criminal and a workaholic cop. The book release of Heat 2 in 2022 brought a lot of people back to this movie, one that has held up remarkably well over the nearly three decades since it was released. It’s a masterpiece.
Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
Year: 1981
Runtime: 1h 55m
Director: Steven Spielberg
The first four films in the franchise featuring one of the world’s most famous action heroes is finally back on Prime Video (jump over to Disney for the fifth if you must). Of course, the first film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, remains the best of the bunch but there’s some value and fun in Temple of Doom and The Last Crusade too (and even parts of Crystal Skull. Yeah, we said it.)
*Inglourious Basterds
Year: 2009
Runtime: 2h 33m
Director: Quentin Tarantino
One of the most famous filmmakers of all time is reportedly prepping his last film. Before then, why not catch up with one of his best in this Oscar-winning revision of history? For his last few films, QT has been blending actual history with his love of cinema to create a hybrid that only he could make. And Christoph Waltz’s Oscar-winning performance here might be the best in any Tarantino movie.
Interstellar
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.
Jackass
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.
Jerry Maguire
Year: 1996
Runtime: 2h 18m
Director: Cameron Crowe
One of Cameron Crowe’s best films became something of a punchline with its heavily quoted lines (“Show me the money,†“You had me at hello,†everything that cute kid says) but it’s actually a character-driven romantic comedy that has held up incredibly well in the quarter-century since its release. Tom Cruise plays the title character, a sports agent who is pushed into starting his own agency while he falls in love with a single mother, played by Renee Zellweger. It’s sweet, smart, and funny.
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.
*Magnolia
Year: 1999
Runtime: 3h 8m
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Paul Thomas Anderson’s character study is one of the beloved auteur’s best works, a study of the interconnectivity of modern life and the fallibility of human relationships. Coming not long after Boogie Nights, Magnolia is the film that really affirmed PTA’s status as one of America’s best filmmakers and contains some of the career-best work of Tom Cruise, Philip Seymour Hoffman, John C. Reilly, Jason Robards, Julianne Moore, Philip Baker Hall, and more.
*Michael Clayton
Year: 2007
Runtime: 1h 59m
Director: Tony Gilroy
George Clooney does phenomenal work as the title character in Tony Gilroy’s feature debut. He’s a lawyer who has spent his career defending big business, but he finds himself in a moral quandary over a toxic cover-up. Nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture, it won Best Supporting Actress for the legendary Tilda Swinton. (Note: This one is especially poignant with the recent loss of Tom Wilkinson.)
Minority Report
Year: 2002
Runtime: 2h 25m
Director: Steven Spielberg
One of Steven Spielberg’s best modern movies is this adaptation of a Philip K. Dick story about a future in which crime can be predicted before it happens. Tom Cruise stars as a man who is convicted of a crime he has no intent of committing in a fantastic vision of a future in which the systems designed to stop crime have been corrupted. It’s timely and probably always will be.
Past Lives
Year: 2023
Runtime: 1h 45m
Director: Celine Song
A current Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay nominee, this phenomenal film isn’t on any of the other streamers. It stars the excellent Greta Lee and Teo Yoo as a couple who were close as children but reunite years later after she immigrated to the United States. It’s as much a story of what people leave behind when they change their entire lives as it is a traditional story of unrequited love. It’s beautiful and unforgettable.
A Quiet Place
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!
Scream
Year: 1996
Runtime: 1h 51m
Director: Wes Craven
The Ghostface killer came back in January 2022 with the release of Scream, the fifth film in this franchise and the first since the death of Wes Craven, and the fun continued with another sequel in 2023 (although the troubles around the production of the seventh film have been, well, notable). Paramount+ is the best place for a marathon with the original trilogy and the fifth and sixth films (but, bizarrely, not Scream 4.) The first movie is still a flat-out genre masterpiece.
*Taxi Driver
Year: 1976
Runtime: 1h 53m
Director: Martin Scorsese
One of Martin Scorsese’s early masterpieces, Taxi Driver is the wildly influential story of a man pushed off the edge of sanity, featuring a fearless performance from a young Robert De Niro. Few movies from this era are cited more than this one, and it’s not just because it touches on themes that remain timeless but that it does so in such a riveting, harrowing way. It’s unforgettable and the rare perfect film that holds up every single time you watch it.
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.
Titanic
Year: 1997
Runtime: 3h 14m
Director: James Cameron
More than just a blockbuster, this Best Picture winner was a legitimate cultural phenomenon, staying at the top of the box office charts for months. There was a point when it felt like not only had everyone seen the story of Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose (Kate Winslet), but most people had seen it twice. History has kind of reduced this epic to its quotable scenes and earworm theme song, but it’s a better movie than you remember, a great example of James Cameron’s truly robust filmmaking style.
Top Gun: Maverick
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.
*Unforgiven
Year: 1992
Runtime: 2h 10m
Director: Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood’s Western completely deconstructed a genre that the director/star helped define and earned the filmmaker Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture. It’s a straight-up masterpiece, the story of an aging outlaw dragged back into one more job that will remind him of his own history of violence and that of this country. In Eastwood’s notable career as a filmmaker, it’s arguably still his best work.
The Virgin Suicides
Year: 2000
Runtime: 1h 36m
Director: Sofia Coppola
Sofia Coppola made her directorial debut with this adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides’s beloved novel about a group of sisters who captivated the entire neighborhood in which they lived. Kirsten Dunst anchors a dreamy, captivating movie about the myth of perfection that exists in the world of picket fences in middle America. It’s got a great Air soundtrack too.
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.
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