Welcome to our brand new list of the best movies on Paramount Plus! On this page we've selected 10 must-see movies, all of which are available to watch right now on the streamer.
Over the last few years, Paramount Plus has grown into one of the best streaming services out there. While it's not quite as big as Netflix, it has a really well-stocked selection of films, including many all-time classics, along with some of the best new movies. There's so many to choose from that we're not stopping at 10... Over the next few months, we'll be building this list out, so check back soon to see what else we've included.
Ready to find something to watch? OK, let's get started. And when you're done here, take a look at our lists of the best Paramount Plus shows and the best Netflix movies, too.
10. Gladiator
Year: 2000
Director: Ridley Scott
Available on: Paramount Plus US
Ridley Scott's historical epic kicked in the doors on a new millennium and revived the sword-and-sandal genre in the process. Russell Crowe is Maximus Decimus Meridius, a loyal Roman general horrified when Emperor Marcus Aurelius is murdered and replaced by his power-hungry son Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix). Sold into slavery by the new Roman ruler, Maximus is forced to fight for his survival. But as his fame grows around the empire as a gladiator, so too does his chance to take revenge...
With visceral fight scenes that put the viewer right in the action, compelling performances from Crowe and Phoenix, and an epic sense of scale, Gladiator is muscular filmmaking that remains impressive today. Gladiator II, the belated and honestly a bit rubbish recent sequel, is also available on the streamer.
9. Mean Girls
Year: 2004
Director: Mark Waters
Available on: Paramount Plus US/UK
Few films have captured the viciousness of high school life than Mean Girls. Directed by Mark Waters from a script by 30 Rock creator Tina Fey, the comedy follows Lindsay Lohan's Cady as she transfers to high school after years of homeschooling. She quickly makes friends with Janis (Lizzy Caplan) and Damian (Daniel Franzese) and develops a crush on classmate Aaron (Jonathan Bennett), but learns that he is off limits due to being the ex-boyfriend of Regina (Rachel McAdams) – leader of the school's coolest clique, who Janis and Damian dub "the Plastics." That's enough to spark all-out war...
Fey's script is laugh-out-loud funny and shot through with a streak of nastiness – it's called Mean Girls for a reason, with Cady becoming as ruthless as her nemesis. That's, of course, the point, in a smart and sharp movie that has inspired countless memes, a popular stage musical, and a recent remake.
8. Point Break
Year: 1991
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Available on: Paramount Plus US
Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze is a bromance made in movie heaven in Kathryn Bigelow ridiculously fun surfer/crime flick. Reeves plays the incredibly-named rookie FBI Agent Johnny Utah, tasked with infiltrating the surf community to track down a gang of bank robbers known as the "Ex-Presidents." Swayze is the leader of said gang, Bodhi. The two quickly strike up a genuine friendship that must eventually turn to betrayal if Utah is to keep his career.
Yes, it's silly, but Point Break is also a hugely exciting movie, Bigelow proving herself a master of action filmmaking as she would again in 2008's The Hurt Locker. But it's the genuine chemistry between Reeves and Swayze that makes this such an endlessly charming movie. That and the surprisingly hilarious bit where Bodhi distracts Utah by throwing a dog at him.
7. Pulp Fiction
Year: 1994
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Available on: Paramount Plus US/UK
Quentin Tarantino followed up Reservoir Dogs with this thrilling and funny crime portmanteau – and became the hottest director of the '90s. Over four intertwined tales, Tarantino pulls together a cast of unforgettable actors and characters: John Travolta and Samuel L Jackson as a pair of smooth hitmen. Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer as lovestruck small time crims. Uma Thurman as Mia Wallace – a mobster's girlfriend who gets entwined with Travolta's character. Bruce Willis as an ageing boxer paid to lose a fight... and more.
Pulp Fiction strutted onto the scene with a bulletproof sense of its own cool and, remarkably, lived up to all the hype and expectation. Where Tarantino's weaker work can sometimes feel like empty pastiche, Pulp Fiction looked to the past while feeling perfectly of the moment. It remains iconic to this day.
6. Call Me By Your Name
Year: 2017
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Available on: Paramount Plus US
This dreamy love story elevated Timothée Chalamet's career to another level. Having previously appeared in Christopher Nolan's Interstellar, the young Timmy took the lead here as Elio, an introspective musician living with his parents in Northern Italy. When his father invites the handsome Oliver (Armie Hammer) to spend the summer with the family, the two strike up a connection.
Based on the 2007 coming-of-age novel by André Aciman, Call Me By Your Name is a beautifully shot and tender portrait of youthful desire. It's not an uncomplicated movie – Oliver is older than Elio by some way – but director Luca Guadagnino (whose own career was also given a significant boost by the film's success) makes it clear that their relationship leaves its scars. A beautiful film and so evocatively shot, you can practically feel the high heat of summer.
Read our five star Call Me By Your Name review.
5. Interstellar
Year: 2014
Director: Christopher Nolan
Available on: Paramount Plus US
The Dark Knight trilogy may have changed the face of comic book movies, and Oppenheimer granted director Christopher Nolan serious Oscar respectability, but Interstellar remains his most ambitious film. Set in a future where humanity is experiencing the disastrous effects of climate change, Matthew McConaughey plays former NASA pilot Joseph Cooper. Called back up from a quiet life farming, Coop is tasked with leading a desperate mission to find new habitable planets. It'll be a time, space, and mind-bending journey that will separate him from his young daughter forever, unless Coop can somehow find a way back...
This is science fiction filmmaking on an epic scale, full of heady concepts – time dilation plays a major role – and satisfyingly tactile set pieces. But it's the film's heart that really makes the film so powerful and which gives its ending such tearjerking emotional heft.
Find out what we made of the film at the time with our Interstellar review.
4. Top Gun: Maverick
Year: 2022
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Available on: Paramount Plus US
Top Gun: Maverick could have gone so very wrong. A 36-years later legacy sequel to Tom Cruise's 1986 action movie/airforce propaganda flick, Maverick risked looking jingoistic and old fashioned in a movie market now dominated by superheroes. Instead, something remarkable happened: the film was actually really good. Great, even, with astonishing flight photography that was largely achieved by strapping its cast into real fighter jets. Better still, it reinforced Cruise's status as a true movie star – perhaps the last one standing in an IP-saturated landscape.
The secret sauce, though, was its humanity. Where the original Top Gun is characterized by its machismo, the sequel finds vulnerability in its characters. Iceman (Val Kilmer) is dying, while Cruise's Maverick is older, wiser, and sadder. He's still haunted by the death of Goose in the first movie and now has to contend with training his son. By showing us these frailties it transforms previously invulnerable – and un-relatable – icons into flawed, empathetic heroes.
Find out why we called this film "thunderously enjoyable" in our Top Gun: Maverick review.
3. There Will Be Blood
Year: 2007
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Available on: Paramount Plus UK
Paul Thomas Anderson's fifth feature is a masterpiece of blood and oil. It's 1898 and Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis, in a career-defining performance) has found silver. A few years later he goes one better, striking oil that will make him impossibly wealthy. That's still not enough for him, however, and the film follows Plainview's meteoric rise and growing vendetta against Paul Dano's preacher, Eli Sunday. As the title suggests, there will be blood shed here, as Plainview's greed and obsession curdles into madness and violence.
There Will Be Blood changed Paul Thomas Anderson's reputation forever. Once the buzzy young talent behind Magnolia and Boogey Nights, he was now a lauded auteur, with The Master, Phantom Thread, and Liquorice Pizza only building on There Will Be Blood's success. It's a masterpiece of American filmmaking.
2. Past Lives
Year: 2023
Director: Celine Song
Available on: Paramount Plus US
Celine Song's heart-wrenching debut is a story of love and time. Greta Lee (Natasha Lyonne's hard-partying bestie in Russian Doll) plays Nora Moon, a young Korean woman who has moved to New York. She reconnects with her childhood sweetheart Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) and the two strike up an intense bond over video calls. The relationship peters out and time moves on, but their connection remains and hovers over Nora's life in the present.
Past Lives has all the elements of a classic love story, but what makes it transcendent – along with the beautiful, understated performances and evocative direction – is the way that it resists cliche. Nora's present day partner Arthur (John Magaro) isn't some awful third wheel and there are no soap opera dramatics here, just a quiet, sweet meditation on the enduring bonds we make with our loved ones. As melancholy as Past Lives sometimes is, it's also joyful.
Our Past Lives review called it an "exquisitely judged wonder."
1. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Year: 1991
Director: James Cameron
Available on: Paramount Plus US
34 years after its release, James Cameron's spectacular sequel remains one of the greatest action and science fiction movies of all time. Building on the ominous ending of the first movie, T2 smartly twists expectations about its characters. The main Terminator here is no longer a villain, but a reprogrammed hero sent back in time to protect young John Connor (Edward Furlong). Sarah Connor, meanwhile, has changed from a happy-go-lucky everywoman into a hardened survivalist, tooled up and ready for a looming future apocalypse.
Everything about T2 works. The effects are bigger, better, and in the case of the antagonistic T1000, genuinely groundbreaking. The action is bolder and more exciting. But the film also lingers long in the memory because of its palpable anxiety. Few films have depicted the horror of a nuclear conflict more memorably than this. It is, as Linda Hamilton once put it, "a violent film about peace."
For more TV streaming picks, you can read our lists of the best shows on Amazon Prime, the best shows on Disney Plus, and the best shows on Netflix.
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