Welcome back to our list of the best movies on Paramount Plus! On this page we've selected 20 must-see films, all of which are available to watch right now on the streamer.
Paramount Plus has rapidly grown into one of the best streaming services around, with a great selection of TV shows and films. It has a really strong catalog of titles, including many all-time classic movies as well as loads of new releases. One thing that most streamers share, however, is that sometimes titles leave the service when rights expire. Because of that we've given our list a thorough rejig. We'll also be adding more movies to the list, so check back soon to see what else is added.
Are you ready to find something great to watch? Then let's get started. When you've finished reading this list, why not check out our guides to the best Paramount Plus shows and the best Netflix movies, too.
20. The Naked Gun
Year: 2025
Director: Akiva Schaffer
Available on: Paramount Plus US/UK
The classic '80s/'90s spoof comedy franchise gets the reboot treatment with Liam Neeson taking over from the late, great Leslie Nielsen. Neeson plays Frank Drebbin, Jr. of LA's Police Squad (the son of Nielsen's character), caught up in a mystery connected to Pamela Anderson's femme fatale Beth Davenport and sinister tech CEO Richard Cane (Danny Huston), who intends to use a P.L.O.T. device (yes, really) to take over the world.
If that sounds daft it's because it is. Undoubtedly one of the year's stupidest films, The Naked Gun is also one of its funniest, hurling a new gag at you every few seconds. Not all of them land, of course, but enough do to make this extremely silly escapade well worth your time.
19. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Year: 1986
Director: Leonard Nimoy
Available on: Paramount Plus US/UK
Opinion is divided on which of the original Star Trek movies is the best. The Wrath of Khan is often cited as the winner by critics, while The Undiscovered Country is a fan favorite. For us, though, The Voyage Home is the most purely enjoyable film in the original franchise. The film transports Captain Kirk (William Shatner), Spock (Leonard Nimoy, who also directed the movie) and the rest of the original Enterprise crew back in time to San Francisco in the 1980s in order to kidnap some whales. It turns out our underwater friends are the answer, to fending off a deadly alien probe that threatens the future.
Star Trek has sometimes had difficulty breaking through to a non-fan audience. The Voyage Home does so by being such an easy, breezy good time. It's genuinely funny, and warm-hearted, reminding us why we like hanging out with these characters.
18. The Hunger Games
Year: 2012
Director: Gary Ross
Available on: Paramount Plus US/UK
All five of the films based on Suzanne Collins' bestselling YA novels are available to stream on Paramount Plus. The second movie, Catching Fire, is arguably the best of the bunch, but it's hard to deny the power of this terrific first instalment. Although by no means her first film, Jennifer Lawrence was catapulted to fame following her powerful role as Katniss Everdeen, a young, impoverished woman forced to compete in the titular games – a brutal fight for survival that is broadcast for the entertainment of the wealthy civilians living in the Capitol.
The premise is pure Battle Royale, but what really gives the series its bite is the clear anger with which it approaches its themes of inequality. It helps that Katniss is backed up by some memorable supporting characters, most notably Woody Harrelson's witty-but-tormented Haymitch and Elizabeth Banks's wonderfully awful Effie.
17. 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.
16. 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.
15. Star Trek
Year: 2009
Director: JJ Abrams
Available on: Paramount Plus US/UK
JJ Abrams' revived Star Trek for the big screen with this fast-paced sci-fi adventure. Chris Pine plays a young Captain Kirk, fresh out of Starfleet Academy and suddenly thrust into a position of command when the villainous Nero (Eric Bana) launches an attack on planet Vulcan. Helping Kirk out is the crew of the USS Enterprise, including Dr McCoy (Karl Urban), and two versions of Spock – Zachary Quinto plays the contemporary version, while original actor Leonard Nimoy reprises his signature role thanks to the film's time travel plot.
It's all a lot faster and glossier than we were used to from Star Trek at the time, but Abrams nails the dynamic between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy perfectly. Two lesser sequels – Star Trek Into Darkness and Star Trek Beyond – followed, before the franchise petered out at the cinema once more and returned to TV.
14. Scream
Year: 1996
Director: Wes Craven
Available on: Paramount Plus US/UK
A Nightmare on Elm Street creator Wes Craven and writer Kevin Williamson flipped the slasher genre on its head with this terrific post-modern thriller. Neve Campbell plays Sidney Prescott, a high school student in California whose classmates are picked off one-by-one by a masked killer. As the police try to solve the murders, Sydney and her other terrified friends begin to realize that they need to learn the "rules" of horror movies in order to survive.
Scream works both because of its smart, witty, pop culture-savvy script, and because it's a genuinely effective horror thriller and whodunnit. The franchise that followed (all also available to watch on Paramount Plus) has had its share of high and low points, but there's no arguing with the tight and terrific original.
13. Labyrinth
Year: 1986
Director: Jim Henson
Available on: Paramount Plus UK
David Bowie's acting career was far more varied and accomplished than you might think, taking in an acclaimed Broadway run in The Elephant Man, the icy alien of The Man Who Fell To Earth, and a brief, bizarre turn in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me alongside more human and relatable roles. His most beloved screen turn, however, was as Jareth, the Goblin King in this enduring kids' favorite.
Directed by Jim Henson, with amazing puppets from his Creature Shop, Labyrinth sees Sarah (a young Jennifer Connelly) accidentally wish her annoying baby brother Toby away. The goblins come and get him and she has to venture into a magical, fantastical realm to bring him back. Bowie sings and dances while wearing a quite preposterous wig, while Connelly's earnest role grounds the bizarre-ness of it all. They really don't make 'em like this anymore.
12. Zoolander
Year: 2001
Director: Ben Stiller
Available on: Paramount Plus US/UK
Ben Stiller plays the "really, really, really ridiculously good looking" male model Derek Zoolander in this endlessly re-watchable comedy. Derek is starting to age out of his career just as Owen Wilson's younger, "so hot right now" Hansel is breaking through in his. Cue a rivalry for the ages as the two vain, idiotic, but oddly charming models start a ridiculous feud. Little do they know, however, that fashion designer Mugatu (Will Ferrell) is brainwashing male models and using them assassins in a global plot...
Zoolander is as daft as movies get, but it's always a good time, with quotable dialogue and era-appropriate cameos aplenty from Davids Bowie and Duchovny to, uh, Donald Trump. A grim and cynical sequel was made in 2016 and is best avoided, but the original remains a gem.
11. Arrival
Year: 2016
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Available on: Paramount Plus US/UK
Long before he took us to Arrakis in the Dune movies, director Denis Villeneuve cemented his sci-fi credentials with this terrific tale of humanity's first contact with an extra-terrestrial intelligence. Arrival centers on Amy Adams' linguistics expert Louise Banks, who has been called in to help find a way of communicating with aliens when a feet of ships arrive in Earth's orbit. As the crisis escalates, however, Louise starts to realise that a tragedy in her past and the way these beings communicate are more linked than they first appear.
Villeneuve's films are often a mind-expanding treat, but Arrival succeeds by also being a deeply heartfelt movie. There's a soulful quality to the film, aided in no small part by Adams' stunning performance. It looks the business too, with stunning visual effects that fully sell the epic scope.
10. Saving Private Ryan
Year: 1998
Director: Steven Spielberg
Available on: Paramount Plus US/UK
Steven Spielberg's World War II drama remains a classic of the genre. Opening with a devastating 25-minute recreation of the Normandy landings, we then follow Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) as he leads a squad of brave men on a desperate mission to locate Private James Ryan (Matt Damon) and bring him home against some pretty terrible odds.
Blessed with a terrific cast – including notables such as Tom Sizemore, Vin Diesel, Jeremy Davies, Bryan Cranston, Paul Giamatti, Nathan Fillion, and Giovanni Ribisi – and a surging score by John Williams, this is Spielberg at his most unforgettable. It's action-packed and exciting, but also deeply moving in its portrait of ordinary men fighting for their survival in a truly terrifying situation.
9. Heat
Year: 1995
Director: Michael Mann
Available on: Paramount Plus US/UK
Violence has consequences. Rarely is that truism as methodically and viscerally depicted as it is in Michael Mann's crime classic. A gang of crooks plan an armoured-car robbery in an attempt to make off with $1.6 million in bonds. This only escalates an explosive war between cops and crooks that will be waged across the streets of LA – and almost three hours of running time.
Mann uses the film's epic scope to examine both sides of this battle, with a cast of unforgettable characters, most notably Al Pacino as ex-marine-turned-cop Vincent Hanna and Robert De Niro's professional thief McCauley – two sides of the same coin who, in a different set of circumstances, may have become allies. A brilliant, shocking, and frequently thrilling film and a vivid depiction of the dark side of LA.
8. Punch-Drunk Love
Year: 2002
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Available on: Paramount Plus US/UK
Paramount Plus has recently added this early classic from One Battle After Another director Paul Thomas Anderson. If you only know Adam Sandler from the likes of Happy Gilmore, this hilarious and intensely stressful comic romance will open your eyes to just what a talented actor he really is. Sandler plays Barry Egan, an anxious entrepreneur with overbearing sisters and no love life to speak of. He falls for Emily Watson's Lena Leonard, but quickly finds himself in trouble with some two-bit gangsters.
Even this early in his career, Anderson is already a master of taut direction, perfectly-executed surprises, and wicked comedy. Crucially, though, Punch-Drunk Love also works as a genuine romantic comedy, the relationship between Barry and Lena as touching as it is funny. A beautiful, quirky, often explosively hilarious watch.
Find out what we think of PTA's latest with our One Battle After Another review.
7. 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.
6. Titanic
Year: 1997
Director: James Cameron
Available on: Paramount Plus US/UK
It's hard to overestimate just how big of a deal James Cameron's disaster movie was in 1997. The film catapulted Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet to newer levels of stardom, and further elevated Cameron's reputation as the modern master of blockbusters. Retelling the real life tragedy that befell the RMS Titanic in 1912 as a starry-eyed romance between DiCaprio's scrappy, down-on-his-luck Jack Dawson and Winslet's Rose DeWitt, Cameron made an epic that had historical weight and emotional heft.
But while Titanic is often thought of as primarily a love story, that doesn't quite do its status as a disaster movie justice. Cameron's methodical depiction of the sinking ship is terrifying, while also highlighting the class inequalities that led to so many people losing their lives. Fiercely entertaining, heartbreaking, and horrifying, Titanic stands as one of the '90s best movies.
5. 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.
4. Raiders of the Lost Ark
Year: 1981
Director: Steven Spielberg
Available on: Paramount Plus US/UK
It may officially be titled Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark now, but to us it will always simply be "Raiders." The first and the best Indy movie remains a peerless blast of old fashioned fun. Harrison Ford is charm personified as the unlikely archaeologist turned two-fisted adventurer. In this first instalment he sets out to find the Ark of the Covenant, tackling Nazis along the way, while also falling for spirited bar owner Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen).
The later films softened the franchise to the point where it's easy to forget just how gritty this first movie is, while still being full of warmth and humor. If it's been a while – or you've somehow never seen it – now is the time to witness the birth of a movie legend.
3. The Godfather
Year: 1972
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Available on: Paramount Plus US/UK
What more can be said about Francis Ford Coppola's masterpiece? For many, this crime classic, based on Mario Puzo's novel, is the single best work in American cinema. Al Pacino stars as Michael Corleone, the youngest son of infamous mob boss Vito (Marlon Brando), keen to forge his own path. Escaping his family's legacy will prove to be much harder than he expects, however.
Far more than just another gangster film, The Godfather is about everything from family to the values of post-war America itself. It defined a genre (and not simply on the big screen – there's no Sopranos without The Godfather). The film's sequel is, arguably, even better. And the third movie? Well, it's nowhere near as bad as people say. Start here and work your way through one of the cinema's greatest sagas.
2. Zodiac
Year: 2007
Director: David Fincher
Available on: Paramount Plus US
David Fincher has form with serial killers, having helmed the horrifying, gothic Seven back in 1995. Zodiac is altogether different. A retelling of the infamous – and still unsolved – Zodiac killings from the 1960s, this is a much quieter and more thoughtful piece. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Robert Graysmith, a political cartoonist who grows fascinated with solving the case, teaming up along the way with Robert Downey Jr. as journalist Paul Avery and Mark Ruffalo's Inspector Dave Toschi.
What really impresses about Zodiac is its restraint. This is a film about obsession, more than it is a re-enactment of the Zodiac's crimes. Chasing the killer costs Graysmith dearly, and while the film presents an answer for who may have committed the crimes, we know from the start that the Zodiac was never found. Not just David Fincher's best film, but one of the best of the century so far.
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.
