These Paramount+ Movies Are 100% Worth the Subscription Fee
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You might know Paramount+ as the place to watch Criminal Minds: Evolution or everyone's new horror addiction, Evil, but the streaming service is home to much more than just addictive TV dramas. It also has a pretty impressive selection of movies, including everything from the best rom-coms and Oscar-winning dramas to science fiction like Star Trek. The streamer is the perfect place to start your next movie night because it caters to everyone. In the mood for a horror classic? Feel like loling over a hilarious comedy movie? The best movies on Paramount+ have you covered. All you gotta do is subscribe.
In case you didn't know, there are two Paramount+ subscription plans. There's the Paramount+ Essential plan, which costs $5.99 per month and features ads, and then there's the Paramount+ with Showtime plan that costs $11.99 per month for ad-free viewing and gives you access to Showtime movies and shows (hello, Yellowjackets season 3). Just FYI, this list is Essential Plan only, so you don't have to shell out any extra cash for Showtime just yet. But do go ahead and sign up because you've got some seriously good movies to watch below!
She's the Man
There was a time when I watched She’s the Man literally every week. It’s a modern Shakespeare adaptation and Amanda Bynes classic about a teenage girl, Viola, who decides to impersonate her brother, Sebastian, at his new boarding school so that she can play soccer and escape her mother’s nagging expectations. Sound wacky? That’s ‘cause it is—in the very best way possible. Not only does the film feature some comedy legends (Bynes, Julie Hagerty, David Cross), but it also stars pre-Magic Mike Channing Tatum. So…yeah, it’s pretty great.
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Mean Girls (2024)
Did the world truly need a second Mean Girls movie, this time based on the musical based on the 2004 movie? No. Are we glad we got it? Yes. Renée Rapp’s commanding performance as Regina George alone is worth the price of admission (or subscription to Paramount+), not to mention the new cast Avantika, Bebe Wood, Jaquel Spivey, Auli’i Cravalho, Angourie Rice, and Christopher Briney.
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Top Gun: Maverick
Top Gun: Maverick may have resurrected the summer blockbuster post-lockdown, but it still ended up where all movies go: on streaming. And good thing, too, because I personally want to be able to watch Glen Powell play shirtless beach football whenever I choose. Oh, and the whole flying planes thing is fun, too.
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Last Holiday
This Queen Latifah rom-com is actual perfection and it doesn’t get enough credit, which is why it being on Paramount+ is so important. It's about Georgia (Latifah), who, after years of living in the shadows and on the sidelines, is diagnosed with a terminal illness. So she does what any self-respecting woman would do: She sells all her possessions and travels to Europe to live her best life!
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Young Adult
If you love mess, then you’ll love Young Adult, a dramedy about Mavis (Charlize Theron), a popular fiction writer who returns to her hometown, where she must face the family she’s left behind, friends she’s abandoned, and her high school sweetheart, Buddy (Patrick Wilson), and his new wife and baby. And she also might finally have to acknowledge the trauma that caused her to leave in the first place.
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Whip It
Drew Barrymore directed this coming-of-age comedy about a teenager, played by Elliot Page, who feels like an outcast. And then they find a roller-derby league and meet like-minded women, like Smashley Simpson (Barrymore), Maggie Mayhem (Kristen Wiig), and Iron Maven (Juliette Lewis). Trust me, Whip It is the perfect stay-in-bed movie for when you don't want to have to think too much and also watch some people hit each other (in a nice, entertaining way).
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Fatal Attraction
Glenn Close’s performance in Fatal Attraction is one of the all time greats and it deserves to be seen! In the classic sexual thriller, she stars as Alex, a woman who begins an affair with a married man, Dan (Michael Douglas). But what starts as a casual hookup ends up being so, so much more when Alex refuses to let Dan go.
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Red Eye
Before he was Oppenheimer, Cillian Murphy played a super threatening and creepy stranger who stalks and attacks Lisa (Rachel McAdams) on a plane. Red Eye is a wild, but thoroughly entertaining thriller that’s the perfect balance between edge-of-your-seat intrigue and straight up terror.
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But I'm a Cheerleader
A staple of LGBTQ+ cinema, But I’m a Cheerleader is a comedy about a blonde cheerleader, Megan (Natasha Lyonne), who is shocked to learn that her parents, friends, and boyfriend think she’s gay! She’s even more lost when she’s sent to a conversion therapy camp to “cure” her, but ends up illuminating her sexual identity instead.
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Titanic
It’s Titanic and it’s on Paramount+, need I really say more? …OK, I will. Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio will forever be known as Rose and Jack, respectively, thanks to James Cameron’s tragic romantic epic about two people who meet and fall in love on the doomed ship. It's the kind of movie you have to watch at least once in your life, and what better time than right now?
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Clueless
Ugh, as if you could make a list of the best movies on Paramount+ and not include Clueless! The '90s classic is not only one of the most quotable movies of all time, but it also has the most memorable closet ever to be featured on film.
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Arrival
Amy Adams gives an Oscar-worthy performance in Arrival, a movie examining how humans communicate with potential alien invaders and each other.
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Mean Girls
Get in, loser, we're watching Mean Girls again. Teenagers have never been as terrifying as they were in Mean Girls, the movie that defined millennial adolescence thanks to performances by Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, and Lizzy Caplan.
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The Wolf of Wall Street
You can't really talk about good American cinema without talking about Martin Scorsese, the director of classics like Taxi Driver, Mean Streets, and The Wolf of Wall Street, which painted an entertaining, but depressing, picture of one man's quest for riches.
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Selma
Ava DuVernay's Selma changed the way we talk about diversity in Hollywood, but beyond its social impact, the film, about the lead up to Martin Luther King Jr.'s march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965, is an incredible showcase for the entire cast, including David Oyelowo and Carmen Ejogo.
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The Godfather Part II
What about The Godfather Part I, you ask? Well, Paramount+ has that one too (as well as Part III), but for the sake of variety, I've decided to place only Part II on this list, as it is pretty much widely accepted as the best film in Francis Ford Coppola's iconic trilogy.
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There Will Be Blood
Heard the phrase "I drink your milkshake," but don't know where it's from? You really need to watch There Will Be Blood, a period film about Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), a power-hungry oil man.
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To Catch a Thief
There aren't a lot of old Hollywood classics on Paramount+, but there is To Catch a Thief, Alfred Hitchcock's delightful romantic thriller starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly.
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Galaxy Quest
Galaxy Quest asks the age old question: what if aliens watched American television and thought Star Trek (also available on Paramount+) was real? The answer is a hilarious comedy in which, somehow, a team of professional actors help save the actual galaxy.
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How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days
How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days will forever be remembered as the movie that secured Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey places in the rom-com hall of fame. Their chemistry is truly *chef's kiss*.
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No Country for Old Men
Javier Bardem made bobs with side bangs the most terrifying haircut around in No Country for Old Men, the Coen brothers movie in which he starred as ruthless hitman Anton Chigurh.
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The Addams Family Values
Before Jenna Ortega's dance in Wednesday, there was Christina Ricci setting a fire during the Thanksgiving show in The Addams Family Values, the sequel to The Addams Family, a pitch-perfect adaptation that also featured Anjelica Huston as Morticia Addams. Both films are currently streaming on Paramount+.
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The Ring
There are horror movies, and then there's The Ring, a movie so terrifying it's given me two decades of nightmares. The entire premise revolves around a VHS tape that dooms anyone who watches it to death, making it a rare horror-educational film for Gen Z.
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A Quiet Place
John Krasinski directed and starred in this supernatural thriller about a family trying to survive in a world overrun by monsters that hear all, but see nothing. The movie was such a hit, it inspired a sequel, A Quiet Place Part II, also streaming on Paramount+.
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Breakfast at Tiffany's
Breakfast at Tiffany's deserves a spot on this list because of its status as a Hollywood classic and a career-defining performance from Audrey Hepburn. That said, the film also features a racist performance by Mickey Rooney, who wore yellowface to play Mr. Yunioshi, Holly's annoying upstairs neighbor. Luckily, he's only in a few scenes, but consider yourself warned.
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School of Rock
School of Rock is a true feel-good movie that'll have you dancing in your seat. The movie stars Jack Black as a struggling musician who takes a job as a substitute teacher at a prep school and turns his class of academics into a rock band.
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Annihilation
Natalie Portman stars in this science fiction film about a group of scientists who venture out to explore The Shimmer, a quarantined zone where something has been changing the biology of all living things.
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First Wives Club
Imagine dumping Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton, or Bette Midler. The audacity! Yet, that's exactly what happens in First Wives Club, leading these three women to band together to get revenge on their ex-husbands. This movie inspired one of Ariana Grande's performances of "thank u, next," so you know it's good.
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Interstellar
Christopher Nolan's space epic stars Anne Hathaway and Matthew McConaughey as two people in a team tasked with finding a suitable planet for humans to colonize. You know what they say, in space, no one can hear you say, "Alright, alright, alright."
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Babylon
Babylon, a love letter to old Hollywood, was the butt of a lot of jokes last year as the Oscar-bait movie that failed to connect with audiences, but that doesn't mean it's not worth watching. It does star Margot Robbie, after all.
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