The 50 Best Movies on Paramount+, Updated for July 2024

DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg
STARS: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken
RATING: PG-13

Leonardo DiCaprio’s career has been laser-focused on shedding the “Tiger Beat” teen idol trappings that followed him after Titanic, so much so that he almost never allows himself to have fun on-screen in the name of being taken seriously. But every once in a while, he finds an excuse to cut loose like he does in Catch Me If You Can. Like a mid-century forebearer to today’s audacious scammers, DiCaprio’s Frank Abagnale Jr. cuts quite a trail of fraud and deception as he cons his way into three different professions with the FBI hot on his trail. He’s forging checks, breaking hearts, and proving irresistibly watchable.

Watch Catch Me If You Can on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Gore Verbinksi
STARS: Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson, Brian Cox
RATING: PG-13

If you watch the cursed videotape, you die within the week. Though The Ring comes from an outdated analog era, its thrills and chills still persist today. The first major Hollywood feature to adapt “J-horror” from Japan for an English-speaking audience set the bar high with emotional stakes that feel grounded but horror that feels other-worldly.

Watch The Ring on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Anthony Minghella
STARS: Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow
RATING: R

The squeaky-clean “boy next door” image Matt Damon has cultivated for himself is fascinating because it’s so at odds with the roles he’s chosen. Shortly after Good Will Hunting, he immediately undercut that loveable underdog by playing the enigmatic striver at the heart of The Talented Mr. Ripley. Damon’s Tom Ripley will stop at nothing to have what comes effortlessly to Jude Law’s high society slacker Dickie Greenleaf. But does he want to be Dickie, replace Dickie, or have Dickie? Therein lies the exquisite mystery powering the film’s immaculate intrigue.

Watch The Talented Mr. Ripley on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Christopher McQuarrie
STARS: Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, Ving Rhames
RATING: PG-13

By installment six of the Mission: Impossible franchise, they’ve got this thing running like a well-oiled machine. No series today better understands how to deliver on the promise of a great action set-piece, and the death-defying stuntwork of Tom Cruise adds a palpable sense of danger that elevates them above mere CGI spectacle. Fallout also delivers for longtime fans of the series by putting Ving Rhames’ sidekick Luther front and center.

Watch Mission: Impossible – Fallout on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Jeff Tremaine
STARS: Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Chris Pontius
RATING: R

No need to see any previous Jackass to appreciate the new Jackass Forever. All you need to know is that the boys are back, crazier and older than ever, to do some absolutely bonkers stunts. Sure, maybe you can watch these types of shenanigans on YouTube now, but there’s something to be said for the tremendous amount of planning that goes into ensuring enough camera capture their hijinks from every necessary angle. It’s a guaranteed gut-buster of a watch.

Watch Jackass Forever on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Donald Petrie
STARS: Matthew McConaughey, Kate Hudson, Adam Goldberg
RATING: PG-13

At the height of the “McConaissance,” it became popular to trash Matthew McConaughey’s participation in the kind of early-‘00s studio rom-coms that helped make him a household name. Maybe it’s time for the pendulum to swing back a little bit, though, because a lot of those movies are actually quite fun! The peak might be How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, where McConaughey gets to ooze easygoing charm as he’s the unwitting mark in a plot by Kate Hudson’s magazine writer to drive him batty with her behavior.

Watch How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Michael Bay
STARS: Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, Anthony Mackie
RATING: R

It’s understandable to have limited toleration for “Bayhem,” but the bombastic director finds a very fitting story for his maximalist style in Pain & Gain. As some swole bodybuilders get in way over their heads in some sketchy financial schemes, Bay’s over-the-top sensibilities perfectly convey the absurdity of these larger-than-life men. While the allegory does get a little bit muddled under all the stylistic flourishes and unfocused storytelling, there’s more than just a kernel of an interesting take on the roided-out state of the American Dream. If you want enough thoughtfulness to elevate your action movie night without overwhelming it, here’s your pick.

Watch Pain & Gain on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Ben Stiller
STARS: Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey, Jr.
RATING: R

You don’t need to have seen either Apocalypse Now or Hearts of Darkness, the documentary about its disastrous production, to appreciate Ben Stiller’s deliriously funny Hollywood satire Tropic Thunder. Sure, it’s very specifically a parody of the masochistic delusions of artists trying to make a self-important war epic. But the film splinters off into plenty of trenchant comedy about the state of the film business told in broadly recognizable strokes. (And don’t worry, no one is getting canceled for the use of blackface here.)

Watch Tropic Thunder on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Wes Craven
STARS: Cillian Murphy, Rachel McAdams
RATING: R

Wes Craven knows that sometimes the simplest premises are the best. Two perfect strangers played by Cillian Murphy and Rachel McAdams exchange some flirty banter in an airport bar, end up sitting next to each other on the plane … only for him to then admit his involvement in a domestic terror plot at their destination. Red Eye makes terrific use of its claustrophobic setting to create an environment of intense fear and dread.

Watch Red Eye on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Amy Heckerling
STARS: Alicia Silverstone, Brittany Murphy, Stacey Dash
RATING: PG-13

Knowing that Alicia Silverstone now has a kid she can cheekily recreate scenes from Clueless with on TikTok might make you feel a little old. But little else about the humor of the film feels dated because Amy Heckerling roots the teen comedy in the classic story of Jane Austen’s Emma. Also, Paul Rudd still looks exactly the same today as he did in 1995.

Watch Clueless on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Dean Parisot
STARS: Tim Allen, Alan Rickman, Sigourney Weaver
RATING: PG

It certainly helps to be a Star Trek fan to understand the pointed Trekkie satire of Galaxy Quest, though it’s by no means a requirement to have a rip-roaring great time. This intergalactic adventure that follows actors from a popular sci-fi show who get the surprise of a lifetime – their fantasy world is real and creatures from it are counting on them for salvation – cleverly sends up the wide gap between artists’ self-importance and their actual utility. Beyond the topline stars, too, this comedy features fantastic early-career turns from Sam Rockwell, Justin Long, and a heavily made-up Rainn Wilson.

Watch Galaxy Quest on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Tony Scott
STARS: Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, Kelly McGillis
RATING: PG

If you want to understand how Tom Cruise swaggers so confidently, look for the roots in Top Gun. Get past the film’s thrilling aerial fight sequences and you’ll find this jingoistic Reagan-era military actioner makes Cruise’s cocksure Maverick out to be the coolest cat in town. It’s a testament to the era’s supercharged masculinity that Maverick reaps the rewards of his brash bravado (though Quentin Tarantino picked up on some undercurrents running beneath the film).

Watch Top Gun on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Christopher Nolan
STARS: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain
RATING: PG-13

Christopher Nolan is not exactly well-known for his emotionalism, and some bristled at the sentimental streak running through his galactic drama Interstellar. Whether you think love can cut across dimensions or not, you can surely appreciate the methodical craftsmanship of this sci-fi story about a mission to the edges of space to save earth from extinction. Matthew McConaughey’s crying scene might have its own Know Your Meme page, but within the context of the movie, it works given the personal and global stakes underlining the moment.

Watch Interstellar on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: John Hughes
STARS: Matthew Broderick, Alan Ruck, Mia Sara
RATING: PG-13

Who among us never fantasized about having an epic day playing hooky like Ferris Bueller? The trip through Chicago with his girlfriend and reluctant best friend has become the stuff of legend, but there’s still more to find every time. (Conspiracy theory alert: did Ferris plant the Abe Froman reservation at Chez Quis? Think about it…) Ferris Bueller’s Day Off never ceases to delight.

Watch Ferris Bueller’s Day Off on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Martin Brest
STARS: Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold, John Ashton
RATING: R

The high-water mark for the fish-out-of-water comedy (pun fully intended) may still be Beverly Hills Cop. This blockbuster hit featuring Eddie Murphy at his brashest transplants a streetwise Detroit police officer in the posher environs of Beverly Hills to solve the murder of his friend. The gags arising from the clash of cultures still amuse, as does Murphy’s outsized comic persona poured into the character of Axel Foley.

Watch Beverly Hills Cop on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Alex Garland
STARS: Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tessa Thompson
RATING: R

Alex Garland knows how to make sci-fi for the discerning viewer. The filmmaker followed up his triumphant Ex Machina with the beguiling Annihilation, maybe the closest thing we’ll ever get to a truly avant-garde blockbuster. This tale of four female scientists entering “The Shimmer,” a mysterious ethereal realm where an extraterrestrial presence lurks, goes in boldly experimental directions that defy all expectations. Kudos to Garland for getting Paramount to give him enough money to fully realize this singular vision.

Watch Annihilation on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Michael Mann
CAST: Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith
RATED: R

A movie set over the course of a single night is bound to get the blood flowing, but few pack the end-to-end tension of Michael Mann’s Collateral. In a pre-Uber LA, Max (Jamie Foxx), a taxi driver trying to make the jump to limousine service, gives five-star service to the passenger from hell. He mucks up the car, yes, but the real danger is from what Tom Cruise’s Vincent does outside the car as a hitman. As Max becomes chauffeur to Vincent’s murder spree, the stakes ratchet steadily upwards as he becomes an unwitting accomplice to a brutal killer. Mann makes the audience feel trapped in the moment and in the claustrophobic cab space with Vincent, who’s so terrifying that you’ll wish Cruise was doing more serious acting and less action hero.

Watch Collateral on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Roman Polanski
STARS: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston
RATING: R

They don’t say this is the best script ever written for nothing. Chinatown is a masterful slow burn of suspense as Jack Nicholson’s private eye Jake Gittes tracks down a case that balloons beyond his wildest imagination. As investigating a cheating spouse uncovers a vast conspiracy of water theft in Los Angeles, the film envelops us in a miasma of fatalistic resignation. Never does it feel so satisfying to be so down on the state of the world.

Watch Chinatown on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Robert Zemeckis
STARS: Tom Hanks, Sally Field, Robin Wright
RATING: PG-13

Forrest Gump catches a lot of flak for being the movie that beat Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption for Best Picture, but this film deserves better than to be your Oscars villain. Most people take this American odyssey far too literally, missing the complexity lurking just underneath the “living history” façade. Robert Zemeckis does not uncritically align his film with the winning performance of Tom Hanks’ titular character. Rather, the film asks us what America really is – both good and bad – if it’s structured in a manner that allows a simple man to be at its center during the height of the nation’s power.

Watch Forrest Gump on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: John Hamburg
STARS: Paul Rudd, Jason Segel, Rashida Jones
RATING: R

The “brom-com” – that is, bromantic comedy – is a sparsely populated subgenre. But it honestly doesn’t really need much more than I Love You, Man. This film goes galaxy brain on genre conventions as Paul Rudd’s Peter Klaven seeks a best friend of the same gender to bolster his heterosexual bona fides ahead of his wedding. His journey to finding a best man in Jason Segel’s free-wheeling Sidney Fife ends up hitting all the beats of a boy-meets-girl story along the way, gleefully subverting heteronormativity and having a blast the entire time.

Watch I Love You, Man on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: John Hughes
STARS: Steve Martin, John Candy
RATING: R

It’s a bit startling how little canonical Thanksgiving cinema there is given how big the holiday is in the United States. Luckily, the most prominent entry is one that’s worth watching again and again: Planes, Trains & Automobiles. Anyone who’s ever been on a trip from hell can relate to Steve Martin’s weary businessman just trying to make it home for the holidays, and doubly so if it involves a travel partner as rambunctious as John Candy’s shower curtain ring salesman.

Watch Planes, Trains & Automobiles on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg
STARS: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken
RATING: PG-13

Leonardo DiCaprio’s career has been laser-focused on shedding the “Tiger Beat” teen idol trappings that followed him after Titanic, so much so that he almost never allows himself to have fun on-screen in the name of being taken seriously. But every once in a while, he finds an excuse to cut loose like he does in Catch Me If You Can. Like a mid-century forebearer to today’s audacious scammers, DiCaprio’s Frank Abagnale Jr. cuts quite a trail of fraud and deception as he cons his way into three different professions with the FBI hot on his trail. He’s forging checks, breaking hearts, and proving irresistibly watchable.

Watch Catch Me If You Can on Paramount+

DIRECTORS: Aaron and Adam Nee
STARS: Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe
RATING: PG-13

Is The Lost City basically just doing Romancing the Stone – romance novelist and rugged suitor meet-cute in the jungle – for a new generation? Sure. But if you don’t need novelty and just want to see the sparks fly between a type A Sandra Bullock heroine and a lovable Channing Tatum himbo, then this is a guaranteed great night in. The Lost City delivers on romance and comedy, with a number of cunning belly laughs that far outshine the familiarity of the script.

Watch The Lost City on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: David O. Russell
STARS: Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Melissa Leo
RATING: R

There’s heavy competition for what best embodies the Seth Meyers parody sketch Boston Accent:The Movie. Might I submit David O. Russell’s The Fighter, which chronicles the saga of boxer Micky “The Pride of Lowell” Ward (Mark Wahlberg) and his devoted brother and trainer Dicky (Christian Bale). The local color is just off-the-charts, especially with their coterie of sisters. You’ll never hear the phrase “MTV Girl” the same after they parse it through their lips.

Watch The Fighter on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Randal Kleiser
STARS: John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Stockard Channing
RATING: PG

Do the values of this teen movie hold up? Not really. Grease basically sends the message to girls that they should erase their personality and subsume their wants into being exactly the kind of beauty and personality their male romantic interest wants. So why is it still so much fun? This nostalgic musical uses a soundtrack of show-stopping tunes for a ‘50s that had past – and perhaps never was. The film stands a reminder that it’s possible to enjoy something you disagree with, and sometimes the most interesting viewing comes from wrestling with that kind of tension.

Watch Grease on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: J.J. Abrams
STARS: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana
RATING: PG-13

Here’s a Star Trek movie that’s not purely for the Trekkies. Director J.J. Abrams finds a clever way to reboot the legendary franchise (with a good plot motivation, to boot) so he can reintroduce the characters and themes of the space opera to a new generation of fans. It’s an exciting, invigorating action movie in its own right, but its real magic is to open a portal to welcome the uninitiated to boldly go back into the wide world of the series.

Watch Star Trek on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: John McTiernan
STARS: Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia
RATING: R

Before the fast-cutting style of Michael Bay took over the action genre, you used to be able to watch a movie and understand your way around a space. No movie does this to such an electrifying extent as Die Hard as we watch Bruce Willis’ scrappy John McClane outmaneuver Alan Rickman’s nefarious Hans Gruber within the nooks and crannies of the Nakatomi Plaza office building. On an unrelated note, this is also the best Christmas movie to watch outside the month of December.

Watch Die Hard on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Roman Polanski
STARS: Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon
RATING: Not Rated

And you thought your neighbors were bad! Over fifty years later, Rosemary’s Baby is still an absolutely terrifying movie to behold as Mia Farrow’s guileless expectant mother gets the sense that there’s something nefarious growing inside of her. Director Roman Polanski amplifies her sense of impending doom with a visual sense of claustrophobia that makes us feel as trapped as she does. Consider the movie something of a cinematic contraception.

Watch Rosemary’s Baby on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg
STARS: Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton
RATING: PG-13

Director Steven Spielberg is no stranger to imagining the future, but no vision of what lies ahead is as expertly realized as Minority Report. Some elements of this 2054 are already here, technologically speaking, but we’re still (knock on wood) a long while away from this world’s approach to criminal justice where three soothsaying “Pre-Cogs” can predict crimes before they occur. Tom Cruise’s police chief John Anderton has no problem enforcing their visions … that is, until they claim he will murder someone he’s never met within 36 hours. He’s forced on the run to maintain his innocence for something he hasn’t even done – a concept as chilling as it is thrilling.

Watch Minority Report on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: John Woo
STARS: John Travolta, Nicolas Cage, Joan Allen
RATING: R

If a movie’s opening credits feature Nicolas Cage breaking it down to the Hallelujah Chorus in full priest garb, what other signal is necessary that something insane and epic awaits? Face/Off is a ‘90s action movie at its most bombastic extreme. From its absurd premise of an FBI agent using face transplant surgery to break up a terrorist plot to its hammy performances by stars Cage and John Travolta, director John Woo dials the adrenaline and the fun up to 11.

Watch Face/Off on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Ava DuVernay
STARS: David Oyelowo, Carmen Ejogo, Tom Wilkinson
RATING: PG-13

No access to MLK’s speeches, no problem for director Ava DuVernay. Selma is the cure for the contemporary biopic, framing a pivotal moment in the civil rights movement as the result of something more complex than just the cult of personality. It was more than just Dr. King, portrayed in all his heroism and humanity by David Oyelowo, who made it happen. It was a collective, urgent effort mobilized to prompt action from a Johnson administration content to drag its heels on voting rights until the issue proved more politically expedient.

Watch Selma on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Ben Stiller
STARS: Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Will Ferrell
RATING: PG-13

All these years later, and the world still hasn’t found what Zoolander was looking for: if there’s more to life than being really, really good looking. Ben Stiller outlandish, outstanding parody of the male modeling world is chock full of great quotable lines and inspired comedic set pieces. And yet even if you’ve heard the famous dialogue bits ad nauseam, they still get a great laugh when you hear them in the movie again. (Also, keep your eyes peeled for a very young Alexander Skarsgård in his first role!)

Watch Zoolander on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Sam Mendes
STARS: Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch
RATING: R

American Beauty is something of a punching bag for the film literate now, but guess what? Try as Kevin Spacey might to make this movie unwatchable (it is incredibly icky), this dark suburban satire is still resonant and riveting. This pitch-perfect distillation of a late-‘90s ethos treats the upper-middle class anxieties with the scorn and sincerity they deserve. It’s so obviously reaching for profundity, and you may be surprised how much it manages to grasp in spite of itself.

Watch American Beauty on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Warren Beatty
STARS: Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Charles Grodin
RATING: PG

Heaven Can Wait fuses two subgenres, the “body swap” comedy and the “new lease on life” drama, for one satisfying and sincere look at what matters most. This is multi-hyphenate Warren Beatty at the peak of his prowess, pulling quadruple duty as producer, co-writer, co-director, and star (and getting Oscar nominations for EACH). As Joe Pendleton, a Rams quarterback who dies too early, Beatty gets to explore what gives our existence meaning when he’s given a second chance in life … in the body of a recently murdered industrialist. While his first instinct is to train for another shot at gridiron glory, some complicating factors intervene to make him reconsider his priorities.

Watch Heaven Can Wait on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Adam McKay
STARS: Will Ferrell, Christina Applegate, Paul Rudd
RATING: PG-13

Adam McKay’s recent elevation to a perennial Oscars favorite did not just come out of nowhere. He was honing his satirical chops for a full decade before breaking through with The Big Short … the satire was just often so poker-faced that the targets took it at face value. Much of McKay’s ‘00s output was a farcical sendup of masculine hubris, and it’s realized best in the riotously funny Anchorman as Ron Burgundy and his Channel 4 colleagues embody some of the worst elements of toxic machismo.

Watch Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Sam Raimi
STARS: Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver
RATING: PG-13

As far as genre mashups go, horror and comedy feel like they’d mix as well as oil and water. But somehow Sam Raimi makes it work in Drag Me to Hell, a supernatural scare-fest that follows the fallout from a loan officer who gets cursed by the gypsy whose mortgage extension she denies. Raimi renders her satanic torments with such unrelenting intensity that it’s entirely possible you won’t know whether to laugh or scream at any given moment.

Watch Drag Me to Hell on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Trey Parker
STARS: Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Isaac Hayes
RATING: R

Don’t judge a show by its fandom. While South Park has long been a favorite of immature teenage boys who just enjoy all the irreverent humor, the satirical knives of creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have always been sharp. Their feature-length film version of the show, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut blows up the musicals – both animated and theatrical – from the inside. (In many ways, it feels like a trial run for their Broadway smash The Book of Mormon.) It’s a sendup so strong it could reach the sky.

Watch South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Mark Waters
STARS: Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Tina Fey
RATING: PG-13

How many times can you watch the millennial high school movie classic Mean Girls without getting tired of it? To quote just one of the manifold lines it’s gifted to the popular vernacular, the limit does not exist! This boundlessly funny comedy captures the early-aughts with devastating accuracy while also tapping into something timeless about the clique mentality that defines adolescence in any era. Good luck getting anything this good for your cohort, Gen Z!

Watch Mean Girls on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Paul Thomas Anderson
STARS: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano
RATING: R

There Will Be Blood may well be the closest equivalent that the movies produce to the “Great American Novel.” Director Paul Thomas Anderson riffs on a classical Upton Sinclair text to pinpoint the endemic rapaciousness within the American psyche and how it plagues enterprise in the country still today. It also helps that he enlisted the great Daniel Day-Lewis to play his protagonist, ruthless oil baron Daniel Plainview, and punctuate PTA’s thoughts with an emphatic exclamation point. Their collaboration is a staggering work that looms large over 21st-century cinema.

Watch There Will Be Blood on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese
STARS: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley
RATED: R

“Which would be worse,” asks Leonardo DiCaprio’s Teddy Daniels, “to live as a monster, or to die as a good man?” The closing line of Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island lands with the weight of a ton of bricks because there’s genuine uncertainty as to what the “right” answer to that question is. As Teddy investigates a missing murderer from a remote island’s asylum, he’s brought into the craziness which he investigates. Did he come the island crazy? Did the guards gaslight him? Did the island itself work on him? There’s likely evidence for any interpretation.

Watch Shutter Island on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Brad Bird
STARS: Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Paula Patton
RATING: PG-13

There are cases to be made for just about any of the Mission: Impossible movies being the best, but I’m here to settle this once and for all: it’s 2011’s Ghost Protocol. Director Brad Bird, best known for his work with Pixar, brings a real ingenuity to the action sequences that stems from working in the limitlessly imaginative realm of animation. Even on the smallest screen, the visual of Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt scaling the Burj Khalifa in Dubai is breathtaking.

Watch Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg
STARS: Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, Frances O’Connor
RATING: PG-13

Twenty years ago, A.I. was too cheery for fans of Stanley Kubrick, the legendary director who originated this sci-fi story about a robotic boy programmed to love. At the same time, it was a little too dour for fans of Steven Spielberg, the famous crowd-pleasing director who helped push the film across the finish line. (Ironically, it was Spielberg who pulled the film in darker directions!) This is a film ripe for rediscovery and reappraisal as it probes the mysteries of emotion and authenticity in a robotic age. Spielberg strikes an appropriate balance of sentimental and skeptical.

Watch A.I.: Artificial Intelligence on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Martin Campbell
STARS: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen
RATING: PG-13

Casino Royale introduced the world to a “Bond who bleeds,” and 007 has never been the same since. Daniel Craig’s first outing as the British superspy remains the high watermark for his tenure in the role (at least for now). It’s both a perfect channeling of the James Bond��s debonair roots and a necessary modernization of the character, packed with gripping globe-trotting action and riveting suspense in equal measure.

Watch Casino Royale on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: David Fincher
STARS: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Taraji P. Henson
RATING: PG-13

Though it’s widely regarded as the “one for them” David Fincher had to make for Paramount to get financing for Zodiac, his work on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is far from workmanlike studio hackery. This is an emotionally and visually heart-stopping journey backward through life with Brad Pitt’s titular character who is fated to age in reverse. All the technical wizardry in which Fincher excels all works in service of a story that shows a different way to live and live. It’s a commitment to watch nearly three hours, but an epic story deserves a canvas this grand.

Watch The Curious Case of Benjamin Button on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: John Krasinski
STARS: Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Millicent Simmonds
RATING: PG-13

Remove all distractions, turn off the lights, unwrap your candies … do whatever it takes to recreate the quiet, cavernous environment of a movie theater. The more silent you can make it, the better to watch A Quiet Place. This thrilling monster movie set in a dystopian future where lurking aliens slaughter anything they can hear makes every move fraught with peril. John Krasinski, stepping behind the camera, knows how to orchestrate terrifying tension to an almost unbearable degree.

Watch A Quiet Place on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Sam Mendes
STARS: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Michael Shannon
RATING: R

WARNING: It is entirely possible that you will go into a multi-day funk after watching Revolutionary Road, the elegiac break-up movie about a mid-century marriage (and perhaps for the unsustainability of the American Dream itself). If you thought Leo and Kate’s hearts would go on after Titanic, you were sorely mistaken as their on-screen reteam is the site of some of the most histrionic screaming and vitriolic fighting ever committed to film. But my, oh my, it is a most profound devastation to experience.

Watch Revolutionary Road on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Denis Villeneuve
STARS: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker
RATING: PG-13

“I used to think this was the beginning of your story,” begins Amy Adams’ Dr. Louise Banks at the opening of Arrival. It’s a perfect and poetic opening to a film that gently asks us to reconsider the very notion of time as an ordering principle of human life. Denis Villeneuve’s unconventional alien invasion movie is as brainy as it is beautiful and bold. It’s a startling thing to encounter: a movie that asks us not to fear unknown arrivals but to learn from them.

Watch Arrival on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: James Cameron
STARS: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Gloria Stuart
RATING: PG-13

Say what you will about the length and bombast of Titanic, but sometimes we all just want to settle in with a movie that dares to dream big. James Cameron delivers all that and more in his swooning star-crossed romance set aboard the ill-fated ocean liner. (Leo could have fit on the door, and I will die on this hill.) Like the Céline Dion song powering the over-three-hour journey, Titanic is corny but admirably crazy enough to sincerely believe in the grandiosity of its concept.

Watch Titanic on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Robert Eggers
STARS: Robert Pattinson, Willem Dafoe
RATING: R

Putting two men alone together on a remote island to tend to a lighthouse is a recipe for chaos under even the best of circumstances. When those two men are Willem Dafoe’s Thomas Wake, a crank who’s a jealous guardian of the light, and Robert Pattinson’s Ephraim Winslow, a covetous young go-getter with daddy issues and a big secret, it’s magnificently mysterious madness. Spanning the gamut from horrifying to suspenseful to hilarious and even a bit horny, Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse outshines the garden-variety claustrophobic thriller. This wet, wild mystery box is a raucous ride exploring everything from masculinity to mermaids.

Watch The Lighthouse on Paramount+

DIRECTOR: Joseph Kosinski
STARS: Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Glen Powell
RATING: PG-13

Tom Cruise once again proved his bona fides as perhaps our last real movie star in Top Gun: Maverick. With his daredevil spirit and cocksure attitude, he swaggers across the screen with a boldness that feels sorely missing from today’s cinema. Cruise knows exactly what his audience wants from a retread of his ‘80s action-adventure classic, and he gives it to us with precision, poise, and pizzaz.

Watch Top Gun: Maverick on Paramount+