Since its debut in 2021, Paramount+ has quickly risen to become one of the greatest subscription-based streaming platforms you can currently find online. Combining a range of properties from CBS, Paramount, Nickelodeon, and Comedy Central, it boasts a rich library of beloved movies, TV series, and documentaries.
Like all the most noteworthy streaming platforms, Paramount+ also has a ton of exclusive content at its disposal, such as Star Trek: Picard, 1883, and The Good Fight.
Along with those exclusive titles, the platform also has a dense catalog of movies streaming on the service, from newer films like Mission: Impossible and Good Time to classics like Carrie and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
Here are some of the best movies you can find playing on Paramount+ right now.
Updated: February 5.
Action: Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation
One of the rare franchises where the movies only seem to be getting better, Mission: Impossible has firmly cemented its place as the go-to spy series in the eyes of fans and critics worldwide. And when it comes to entries like Rogue Nation, it’s easy to understand why.
After the IMF is officially disbanded by the US government, former agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team go on the run from the CIA and an underground spy network known as the Syndicate.
It’s difficult to say which is the best Mission: Impossible, but Rogue Nation has a strong claim to that title. Relying on better action sequences, better characterization, and overall better writing and acting, it’s a movie that’s only continued to maintain the franchise heights set by its immediate predecessor, Ghost Protocol.
Horror: Carrie
A landmark in ‘70s horror, Carrie established a new age in modern horror that set the shape for everything that followed. Not only did it mark the first adaptation of Stephen King’s work, it also helped establish stars out of Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie, alongside its then-young director, Brian De Palma.
At a high school in the suburbs, lonely teenager Carrie (Spacek) discovers she has psychic powers. Tormented by her classmates and her abusive, religious zealot mother (Laurie), Carrie decides to use these newfound abilities for revenge.
After Carrie, audiences were no longer interested in the subtle, down-played nature of Hitchcock or early Spielberg. De Palma’s film marked a new era, a terrifying movement in horror towards shocking subject matter, upsetting thematic content, and violence galore.
Mystery: Clue
It’s not often you see a movie adapted from a board game. Even rarer are the times when you see a great movie adapted from a board game, as seen with the 1985 film, Clue. Less than warmly received at the time of its release, the movie has gone on to achieve a massive cult following in the following decades, with virtually every element about the movie (its wonderful cast, its quirky soundtrack, its energetic script) singled out for praise.
In 1950s New England, a group of strangers are invited to attend a dinner party thrown by their enigmatic host (Lee Ving), who is revealed to be blackmailing all of them. When their host is seemingly killed, it’s up to the strangers to find out who killed him, where, and with what weapon.
With a cast that includes Tim Curry, Michael McKean, Madeline Kahn, Christopher Lloyd, Martin Mull, and Eileen Brennan, Clue is perhaps one of the finest ensemble comedy films of the 1980s. Remaining faithful to the basis of its board game source material, the movie openly parodies many of the whodunit conventions found in Agatha Christie novels, moving at a dizzyingly fast pace that makes a Three Stooges film feel like Lawrence of Arabia.
Drama: Up in the Air
Anyone who says George Clooney is overrated clearly hasn’t seen Up in the Air. Directed by the extraordinarily underrated Jason Reitman, Clooney’s starring role in this Oscar-nominated film illustrates his ability to play otherwise unlikable characters with a great amount of sympathy and understanding.
Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) is a cynical, middle-aged businessman hired by different companies across the country to fire their employees. Taking a young protege (Anna Kendrick) under his wing, Ryan rediscovers the value of enjoying his personal life, slowly leaving his workaholic attitude behind.
Over the course of the film, Clooney’s Ryan transforms from a work-obsessed misanthrope into a more kind-hearted idealist. As he sheds his weary worldview behind, viewers witness Ryan gradually realize there’s so much more to life than business, embracing the excitement and unpredictability that comes with actually living. It’s a hopeful message behind a tender film, brilliantly personified by Clooney’s troubled main character.
Biopic: Amistad
By the late 1980s, Steven Spielberg was going through a creative genesis that would set the tone for the rest of his career. Distancing himself from his early genre films, he began to focus more wholeheartedly on nonfictional stories from real-world history, giving audiences such modern marvels as The Color Purple, Schindler’s List, and 1997’s Amistad.
After staging a successful revolt against a crew of Spanish slavers on the Atlantic, a ship filled with African slaves is detained by the American government in the late 1830s. The incident becomes the basis for an intense legal battle between Southern and Northern politicians and lawyers.
One of the most monumental cases in US history, Amistad sheds light on an important political incident that served as a legal predecessor to the Civil War. What Spielberg did in his heartbreaking exploration of the Holocaust with Schindler’s List, he repeats here with the topic of slavery, handling the subject with gut-wrenching historical accuracy.
Thriller: Devil in a Blue Dress
In late 1940s Los Angeles, the recently-unemployed Easy Rawlins (Denzel Washington) reluctantly takes a job to find the missing fiancee (Jennifer Beals) of a mayoral candidate.
Since his career began in the mid 1970s, Denzel Washington has been delighting audiences and critics on the stage and in front of the camera, earning a reputation as one of his generation’s finest actors.
Though routinely overshadowed by Washington’s equally fantastic roles in Training Day or Flight, Washington’s role in 1995’s Devil in a Blue Dress is just one more fantastic entry in an otherwise near-flawless filmography. Framing the traditional noir narrative from a Black perspective, the movie is a sobering reminder of the social injustices and societal hostility towards POCs in its setting, offering a more accurate representation of ‘40s LA.
Sci-Fi: The Running Man
At the end of the 1980s, Stephen King was a household name unto himself, almost every one of his novels ending up on the best-seller’s list, as well as serving as the basis for a film shortly after publication. Such was the case with The Running Man, a dystopian thriller that was loosely adapted into a satirical sci-fi film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
In a nightmarish future where America is now an authoritarian police state, helicopter pilot Ben Richards (Schwarzenegger) is framed for murder and promptly arrested. As part of his punishment, Richards must compete on a live game show, where the contestants are relentlessly pursued by veteran professional killers.
Seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger in a Stephen King movie seems like a strange combo, but if there’s one word to describe The Running Man, it’s definitely “strange.” Sharing a thematic tone more with RoboCop and Total Recall than with The Shining or Carrie, it’s a film that skewers consumerism, reality TV, and audiences’ growing indifference to high levels of violence.
Western: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Clint Eastwood has starred in many, many films since his cinematic career first took off in the mid 1960s, but few are as remotely iconic as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The final entry in the famed Dollars Trilogy, it’s the ultimate Spaghetti Western in every way imaginable, and a perfect send-off for the character that made Eastwood the universally recognizable movie star he is today.
Discovering the location of buried gold amidst the Civil War, a bandit (Eli Wallach), a mercenary (Lee Van Cleef), and a bounty hunter (Clint Eastwood) race across Confederate and Union lines to reach the treasure before anyone else.
The amazing thing about the Dollars Trilogy is how director Sergio Leone managed to up himself with every new addition to his trio of hit films. With The Good, the Bad and the Ugly — the most epic in scope of the three films — Leone alternates between a revenge story, a prison film, and a war movie with miraculous ease and precision.
Crime: Good Time
Rarely does a career transformation come along as dramatic as Robert Pattinson’s. In the course of just a few years, the former Twilight star managed to transform himself from teen idol into one of the most versatile actors working today, using films like Good Time to help map out the trajectory of his career.
When his brother (Benny Safdie) is arrested in a botched robbery, a petty criminal (Pattinson) sets out to spring him from jail and escape from New York.
Using a fast-moving, anxious pace not seen since the likes of early Scorsese, Good Time not only helped establish its directors, the Safdie brothers, as the best filmmaking siblings since the Coens; it also helped reestablish Pattinson as a transformative actor, able to disappear into the grittiest and most complex roles in independent film.
Underrated: The Burning
The Burning exists as one of the many slashers released in the wake of Friday the 13th, trying its best to cash in on the popular “sleepaway camp” horror trend. While it’s not quite as memorable as other slashers of its era like Nightmare on Elm Street, it still delivers a decent enough horror premise whose reputation has only grown more favorable with time.
Several years after a prank at a summer camp goes horribly wrong, a caretaker (Lou David) suffering from severe burns returns to his former place of employment, stalking and killing anyone who falls into his hands.
Like many of its contemporaries, The Burning received horrendous reviews from critics in the summer of 1981. In more recent years, however, the movie has been favorably looked upon for its more atmospheric horror, as well as its sudden shocking levels of violence. Interestingly, it’s also one of the first movies to star future big-name actors like Holly Hunter, Fisher Stevens, and Jason Alexander.
This article was produced and syndicated by Wealth of Geeks.
Richard Chachowski is a freelance writer based in New Jersey. He loves reading, his dog Tootsie, and pretty much every movie to ever exist (especially Star Wars).