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 The Lost City and Candyman to modern classics like The Wolf of Wall Street and Interstellar.
Here are some of the best movies you can find playing on Paramount+ right now.
Updated: October 20
Sci-Fi: Interstellar
The most amazing thing that can be said about Christopher Nolan is his ability to tackle numerous distinct genres. In the past, he’s tamed the superhero movie, the war film, the thriller, and the spy film. In 2014, though, Nolan turned his attention to his most ambitious project yet: the sci-fi space epic, Interstellar.
In a grim future where Earth is plagued by natural disasters, a team of astronauts are sent into space to find a planet capable of sustaining human life.
Inviting obvious comparisons to similarly experimental sci-fi movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Interstellar is the kind of movie that comes along once every decade. A big-budget film that genuinely challenges viewers with its themes and presentation, it’s also received repeated praise from experts for its scientific accuracy and basis in real astrophysics.
Horror: Candyman
Horror has seen a small resurgence in popularity over the past few years, what with all The Conjuring films that have been dominating the box office. Thanks to the release of 2018’s Halloween, slashers, too, have also seen some renewed attention, culminating in sequels/remakes to Scream, Child’s Play, and 1992’s Candyman.
Thirty years after his previous brush with the Candyman (Tony Todd), visual artist Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) begins investigating the Candyman myth in the now gentrified community where Cabrini—Green once stood.
The genius of the original Candyman was the social themes the movie employed. Rather than simply scaring audiences with a high-concept villain, Candyman added in relevant topics of discussion like race and classism. Like its predecessor, 2021’s Candyman finds a similar hotbed of timely subjects, ranging from gentrification, police brutality, and racial representation in the world today.
Mystery: Shutter Island
The closest Martin Scorcese has ever come to directing a horror film came with 2010’s Shutter Island. Scorese’s ode to the noir genre and the films of Alfred Hitchcock, it’s a gripping, fast-paced demonstration of how to create suspense, maintaining that same level of intrigue throughout its two hour runtime.
In the mid 1950s, a police detective (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his partner (Mark Ruffalo) are sent to an isolated mental health facility for the criminally insane after one of the facility’s patients goes missing.
While that plotline alone might sound like your boilerplate pulp horror piece, Scorsese stuffs Shutter Island with plot twist after plot twist, deepening the mystery of his central premise. It’s an out of character movie for a director and actor (DiCaprio) who aren’t used to working in the horror field, but they both pull it off masterfully well.
Thriller: The Conversation
Hired to spy on a young couple, surveillance expert Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) begins to suspect he’s stumbled upon a potentially murderous plot.
Back in the 1970s, no director was bigger than Francis Ford Coppola. The man behind the camera for The Godfather trilogy and Apocalypse Now, Coppola was at the forefront of the New Hollywood movement, ushering in a new era of American movies more complex and genre-bending than any that had come prior.
While The Conversation doesn’t get name-dropped as the best ‘70s movie quite as often as The Godfather or Apocalypse Now, it’s still a daring movie with definitive shades of Hitchcock (we know, we know, we’ll stop comparing everything to Hitchcock).
Biopic: The Wolf of Wall Street
At the risk of sounding redundant picking not one, but two Martin Scorsese films for this list, we’re going to go ahead and choose Scorese’s 2013 Oscar-nominated biographical film, The Wolf of Wall Street, the director’s most popular and frequently-watched movies of the 2010s.
In the early 1990s, Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) forges a promising and lucrative career as a Wall Street stockbroker. As Belfort’s reputation on the stock exchange and the number of his staff grows, he becomes the subject of more and more FBI scrutiny.
The Wolf of Wall Street is your archetypical crime film told in an updated way. You have the lead character’s humble beginnings, his aspirations for greatness, his initially promising start, and his gradual loss to excess and greed. But amazingly, the thing that keeps you watching is knowing Belfort and his cohorts are all real people, their life stories — as difficult as it is to believe — unfolding before your eyes.
Action: Bumblebee
A genuinely good live-action movie based on the Transformers series? Say it ain’t so! After five films and millions spent on CGI explosions, producer Michael Bay actually oversaw a movie that lived up to the heights of Transformers’ popularity, instead of the empty-headed, bland-storied nonsense that he turned out for nearly a decade.
Facing the prospect of final defeat at the hands of their Decepticons, the Autobots launch themselves across the galaxy in the hopes of finding a place to regroup. Arriving on Earth in 1987, the young Bumblebee tries to establish an Autobot base on the planet, enlisting the help of a teenager (Hailee Steinfeld) he quickly befriends.
By stepping back and creating a prequel outside of the overarching continuity of the earlier Transformers movies, Bumblebee’s filmmakers are able to craft a fundamentally good movie without worrying about setting up any sequels or carrying on any narrative arcs. What you’re left with is a lightning-paced Transformers movie that has good action, good direction, and good performances — a first in the Michael Bay-led Transformers live action franchise.
Comedy: The Lost City
Sandra Bullock hasn’t been in a ton of movies within the past few years, but the few movies she does appear are usually worth seeing for some reason or another. Case in point with her most recent film, The Lost City, a sprawling romantic comedy that saw her star opposite Channing Tatum.
On tour advertising her new book, a withdrawn romance novelist (Bullock) is kidnapped by a billionaire (Daniel Radcliffe) who believes she has information about a mythical lost city filled with treasure. The novelist’s only hope is the model who appears on the front covers of her books (Tatum).
The Lost City comes across the spiritual successor to Romancing the Stone. As exciting to watch as it is humorous, it’s a wonderfully lighthearted movie that combines the comedic talents of Bullock and Tatum to dazzling effect.
Drama: There Will Be Blood
Don’t be fooled by its historical setting or prevailing themes: There Will Be Blood is not really a Western. Rather, it’s a psychological character study of a man who cares about three things: money, money, and more money.
In the early 1910s, a powerful oil baron (Daniel Day-Lewis) journeys to the Californian frontier to mine a mass deposit of oil, coming into conflict with a local preacher (Paul Dano) who wants the oil’s profits for himself.
A film that delves deeply into the subject of greed, There Will Be Blood also holds the master of method acting Daniel Day-Lewis’s singularly greatest performance. Surprisingly quotable and darkly hilarious in its own perverse way, it’s one of the truly great epics of the last two decades.
Family: Sonic the Hedgehog 2
It’s notoriously difficult to make a good movie out of a good game. Somewhere along the line, something just gets lost in the translation. But every once in a while, a video game adaptation comes along that succeeds where all others before it failed — an adaptation, let’s say, like Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
Returning to Earth after his defeat at Sonic’s hands, the evil Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey) and his new ally, Knuckles the Echidna (Idris Elba) search for the fabled Master Emerald — an all-powerful weapon that can be used to shape reality itself.
The first Sonic the Hedgehog film was okay — in fact, we’ll say it was better than most people expected it to be. But its 2022 sequel improves upon the initial film in every conceivable way, boasting better humor, better visuals, better action, and a generally better storyline than the first film in the series.
Underrated: The Little Hours
Practically any movie featuring Aubrey Plaza (with the notable exception of Bad Grandpa) is worth watching, and such is especially the case when she’s paired with indie sensations like Alison Brie, Kate Micucci, or Molly Shannon, as seen here.
In the Middle Ages, a fugitive servant (Dave Franco) finds work at a convent filled with eccentric nuns. Hiding under the pretense of being deaf and mute, the servant tries to avoid the temptations of the nuns, each of whom similarly try to resist their romantic feelings towards the young man.
There’s a lot to love about The Little Hours, from the modern day vocabulary of the cast (despite its historical setting) to the numerous actors who appear in bit roles (Nick Offerman and Fred Armisen make incredible use of what limited screen time they have). Like most sex comedies, The Little Hours might not be for everyone, but it’s an extremely satisfying movie for fans of Plaza or Brie’s other films.
This post 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).
