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 Life of Pi and True Grit to classics like The Usual Suspects and Sunset Boulevard.
Here are some of the best movies you can find playing on Paramount+ right now.
Updated: March 21.
Adventure: Life of Pi
Life of Pi marks a rare exception when you should make an effort to both read the original novel and watch its feature film adaptation. In both cases, you’ll find yourself embarking on an unforgettably picturesque adventure the likes of which you’ve never seen before.
Needing a good subject for his book, a writer (Rafe Spall) interviews a middle-aged man named Pi (Irrfan Khan), who relates to him a story from his youth when he was adrift in the Pacific Ocean for 227 days with a Bengal tiger.
Like Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings, Life of Pi is a film that strikes a one-of-a-kind balance between stunning visuals and an emotionally rewarding story. Eleven years later and it still contains some of the most audacious 3D effects we’ve seen in film, giving life and personality to Pi’s menacing tiger companion.
Drama: Anomalisa
Depressed and lonely, a motivational speaker (David Thewlis) reconnects with a former lover (Jennifer Jason Leigh), who manages to break the monotony of his day-to-day life.
Charlie Kaufman’s movies tend to be some of the most downbeat and difficult to watch out of any director’s work today. In each of his films, you leave with a somewhat nihilistic impression, wondering about the meaning of life and the point of it all.
Depending on the viewer, this might be either a good or bad thing — but no matter what, Kaufman’s movies are consistently unique and original in their own way. In Anomalisa, Kaufman explores the idea of social isolation to its fullest, a topic that might hit a little close to home for some, but still makes for an incredibly compelling film.
Mystery: The Usual Suspects
It’s always difficult separating the artist from their work, but if you’re able to do so, you’ll find some remarkable movies buried under mounds of controversy. Such can be said for the 1995 neo-noir classic, The Usual Suspects, one of the most tense and shocking films of the 1990s.
Apprehended by the police, a mysterious professional criminal (Kevin Spacey) tells his interrogating officers about a heist gone wrong and the ensuing massacre that left all of his accomplices dead.
Forever remembered for its famous twist ending, The Usual Suspects also has one of the best-written scripts of all time. The acting alone is superb, with Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, and Chazz Palminteri all handing in some of the strongest performances of their career, but the innovative narrative layout of the movie is the true reason to see The Usual Suspects in the first place.
Thriller: The Dead Zone
Legendary cult director David Cronenberg is more commonly associated with his genre-defining body horror movies, but over the years, he’s proven himself adept at striking out into other genres as well — as seen with the sci-fi thriller, The Dead Zone.
Awakening from a coma, school teacher Johnny (Christopher Walken) discovers he has uncanny psychic powers. Now able to envision the future, Johnny sees a grim reality where a corrupt political candidate (Martin Sheen) wins the presidential election, prompting Johnny to do everything he can to stop him.
Based on Stephen King’s novel of the same name, The Dead Zone was instantly viewed as one of the best adaptations of King’s books at the time of its release. Far less horror-centric than most of King or Cronenberg’s respective projects, it's a palpably suspenseful thriller that blends fantasy perfectly with more realistic subject matter.
Sci-Fi: Galaxy Quest
If you’re a hardcore Star Trek fan, there’s a decent chance you’ve seen Galaxy Quest by now. A lovingly-made spoof of Gene Roddenberry’s influential sci-fi series, it’s an hilarious homage to Star Trek: The Original Series, parodying the fictional universe invented by Roddenberry and the actors attached to the actual show.
In desperate need of protection, a peaceful alien species enlists the cast of a Star Trek-esque sci-fi series, believing them to be genuine heroes rather than the characters they play on TV.
One part Star Trek, one part The Magnificent Seven, Galaxy Quest imagines a scenario where William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and Nichelle Nichols are mistaken for their Star Trek characters and forced into an actual sci-fi adventure. The ensuing film is an affectionate lampoon of space opera that’s sure to delight dedicated fans and those completely unfamiliar with the Star Trek franchise.
Western: True Grit
While the original 1969 True Grit is an undisputed Western classic, most people are guaranteed to also enjoy its later 2010 remake, directed by the Coen brothers. Brilliantly acted and containing plenty of the Coens’ trademark humor, it's a haunting, humorous, and beautiful portrait of life in the Old West.
Seeking justice for the death of her father, a stubborn teenage girl (Hailee Steinfeld) recruits a taciturn U.S. Marshal (Jeff Bridges) and a charismatic Texas Ranger (Matt Damon) to track down the killer (Josh Brolin) and his gang in Arkansas’s wilderness.
One of the only books ever adapted by the Coens for the big screen, Charles Portis’s True Grit is an ideal match for the artistic sensibilities of the famed filmmaking siblings. Stylistically, it’s a sensible cross between the lighter humor of the Coens’ previous movies and the darker nature of their later films (most especially No Country for Old Men).
Family: Popeye
In theory, Popeye the movie sounds like something you’d want to avoid at all costs — after all, live-action feature films based off of beloved cartoons don’t usually pan out very well. However, Popeye’s reception has considerably warmed with the years, many viewing it as an underrated entry in Robin Williams’ body of work.
Searching for his father, the strong-armed sailor Popeye (Williams) arrives to the coastal town of Sweethaven, encountering the mean-spirited Bluto (Paul L. Smith) and his fiancee, Olive Oyl (Shelley Duvall).
Directed by the iconic Robert Altman, Popeye was the last major studio film overseen by the New Hollywood filmmaker (due to the overwhelmingly poor reception of the movie, he was basically shunned from working in Hollywood again). For all the negative press the movie received initially, it has since become a cult classic family film.
Noir: Sunset Blvd
Along with The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon, and Double Indemnity, there is no film that embodies the noir genre quite as fully as Sunset Boulevard. Perhaps Billy Wilder’s greatest achievement as a director, it's also one of the oddest noir movies of its era (alongside the other ‘50s oddity, Kiss Me Deadly).
Happening across a deserted-looking mansion on Hollywood’s Sunset Boulevard, a screenwriter (William Holden) meets an eccentric former star of the silent era (Gloria Swanson), who’s planning an ambitious comeback.
Serving as an influence on everything from The Disaster Artist to the films of David Lynch, Sunset Blvd is as spellbinding and hallucinatory a movie as any made during the 1950s. In many ways, it’s almost a Gothic love story, as well as an analysis of fame, fading celebrity status, and the ruthlessness it takes to make it big in Hollywood.
Documentary: An Inconvenient Truth
If you’re familiar with 2000 presidential election nominee Al Gore, you know a major focus of his campaign was environmentalism and the looming threat of global warming. As with his campaign for the presidency, this topic takes center stage in the 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, written by and starring the former vice president.
Over the course of an hour and thirty minutes, Gore discusses his own uphill battle in informing people about the dangers of climate change, as well as about the inherent dangers associated with conservation.
Regardless of your individual political leanings or your thoughts on Gore, An Inconvenient Truth is an extremely illuminating documentary that’s as timely to watch now as it was in 2006. With climate change having entered the mainstream political discussion, it’s a given that we should educate ourselves as thoroughly about the subject as possible — starting with this informative and comprehensive film.
Underrated: The Out-of-Towners
Comedy giant Jack Lemmon starred in quite a few films written by Neil Simon. The more well-known among them is likely to be 1968’s The Odd Couple, but two years later, Lemmon and Simon reunited for yet another humorous collaboration with The Out-of-Towners.
After looking into a job in New York City, a couple (Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis) from Ohio travel to the Big Apple for an interview, only to hit repeated obstacles along the way.
A precursor of sorts to Planes, Trains and Automobiles, The Out-of-Towners is a travelers’ worst nightmare — building off of a premise where everything that can go wrong inevitably does wrong (flight delays, missing luggage, inclement weather, and so on). At the very least, after watching it, you’ll be able to look back at any travel issues you encounter and think to yourself, “Okay, this is bad, but it’s not The Out-of-Towners bad.”
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).