25 Best Movies to Stream on Paramount+

A Quiet Place

Everyone’s favorite office guy, John Krasinski, makes his directorial debut with a tension-builder that seers the senses. Pulling triple duty (director, writer, star), Krasinski shares the screen with his couple-goals wife, Emily Blunt. The two play married parents who live in a booby-trapped farmhouse with their children, staying tightlipped as post-apocalyptic creatures hunt them by sound. Hence, the film’s apt title.

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Bend It Like Beckham

The rules weren’t just made to be bent in Gurinder Chadha’s culture-clash gem, they were made to be broken—along with stereotypes, judgments, and ceilings. Parminder Nagra and Keira Knightley stars as Jess and Jules, a pair of footballers who defy expectations to score goals on the field. A cultural staple with a queer legacy, it’s also an intimate coming-of-age story that keeps getting better every year.

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Beverly Hills Cop

Eddie Murphy was king of the screen in the ’80s. From Trading Places to The Golden Child to Coming to America, the funnyman didn’t miss (still doesn’t). Another fave, Beverly Hills Cop is comedy gold with Murphy igniting the screen as Axel Foley, a fish-out-of-water cop turning the Hills into his playground. There’s high-speed pursuits, slick improvisation, a catchy instrumental theme song—it’s solid ’80s gold.

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Candyman

The 1992 original is a brilliant piece of work that still holds up to this day. So, it would take one helluva supremo to successfully refresh such acclaimed fare. Enter: Nia DaCosta, an inspiring voice who cut her teeth under the tutelage of legends like Martin Scorsese and Steve McQueen. With her primo sequel, she recruits Jordan Peele to help with the screenplay and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II to bear Candyman’s wrath. As for the plot? Just say “Candyman” five times and hit play.

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City of God

A visceral masterpiece about drugs, guns, music, and love, this true-story landmark film should be your first stop on the platform. The story follows Rocket, a budding photographer whose lens captures the chaos of life in the City of God, a favela in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. But his story is only one in a yarn woven with the consequences of crime lords, life on the fringe, and the resilience of the human spirit.

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Clueless

There are great movies you’ll never watch again. And then, there are great movies that never get old. Clueless, Amy Heckerling’s satire that reimagines the characters from Jane Austen’s Emma as posh Beverly Hills teenagers, is rooted firmly in that second camp. Spending an hour and a half with Cher, Dionne, and Tai is time never wasted, as their clever lexicon, iconic ’90s plaids, and winning heroine personae are bottomless wells to tap for inspiration beyond the screen.

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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

You don’t have to know the D&D players’ handbook to get a kick out of this crowd-pleaser from the screenplay buddies behind Horrible Bosses and Spider-Man: Homecoming. A good time cloaked in lore and charm, D&D stars an adorable Chris Pine as Edgin, a thief who leads some adventurers (Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page) on a quest that goes awry. Roll the 20-sided dice and give it a go. It’s fun.

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Fences

Viola Davis and Denzel Washington bring August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play to the screen, with Washington also directing. Tackling themes of race and family, and dissecting the African American experience in an always-changing country, the chamber piece unfolds through Washington’s Troy Maxson, a sanitation worker whose unfulfilled dreams and disappointments strain all his relationships.

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Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

“What’s your favorite John Hughes movie?” It’s a question every film buff has pored over, their answer changing from one decade to the next. That said, the late auteur’s ditch-day classic routinely finds its way to the head of the class. Starring a baby-faced Matthew Broderick as Ferris, the film is a front-row seat to the high jinks had by the king of campus and his pals as they skip school.

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Fight Club

Fighting is never condoned—unless it’s Brad Pitt bare-knuckling it shirtless in an underground brawling ring. Yeah, we said it. A mind-fuck in the best way, David Fincher’s gritty A++ thriller goes inside the dark mind of a disassociated insomniac out of touch with society and sick of consumerist culture. His catharsis comes in the form of a blond soap maker with a killer six-pack named Tyler Durden, and this is where things get really interesting.

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He Got Game

Frequent collaborators Spike Lee and Denzel Washington team up for this late-’90s sports drama about a hoop star bearing the sins of his father. Lee, a visionary who’s helped shape independent cinema and Black culture on the big screen, is in true form here—his dolly shots, vibrant palette, multidimensional storytelling turning the everyday dream-chaser story into an authentic and provocative work of art.

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His Girl Friday

The perfect way to spend a lazy Sunday, His Girl Friday will make you feel like you’re actually being productive while you kick your feet up and reach for the wine. It’s a classic screwball comedy, with rich characters, romantic asides, and gender battles, but the screenplay’s whip-smart, rapid-fire dialogue and the chemistry between Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell as sparring journalists is unmatched.

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Interstellar

The buzz factory was making a lot of noise when Christopher Nolan released his celestial thriller back in the fall of 2014. And for good reason. The innovative filmmaker’s tale about a rocket scientist (Matthew McConaughey) who jumps through wormholes to save mankind is more than white-knuckle science fiction. It’s an emotional odyssey powered by the most enduring feeling of all: love.

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Mean Girls

It’s a jungle out there. And Tina Fey knows it. Co-writer of the instant cult classic from director Mark Waters, Fey offers a biting take on the primal social dynamics that are girl world. When Lindsay Lohan’s Cady moves to town, a clique called the Plastics pulls her into their web. A cautionary tale about wanting to fit in with the wrong group, Mean Girls will forever be a glowing achievement in the pantheon of genius comedies.

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Night of the Living Dead

The horror classic that was once impossible to find streaming has been resurrected on Paramount+. Rejoice! George A. Romero’s landmark horror film tags along with a group of Pennsylvania residents who hole up in a farmhouse to avoid becoming zombie feed. Made in 1968, the film, often cited as an allegory for the civil rights movement, reinvented the undead subgenre, incorporating blistering social commentary and spawning the style of flesh-eaters still invading our screens today.

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Respect

When Aretha Franklin personally picks you to star in a movie about her life, you do it. When that person is Jennifer Hudson, we applaud it. A biopic that charts the vocal powerhouse’s ascendance from church choir singer to the Queen of Soul, Liesl Tommy’s Respect reveals Hudson as a powerhouse of her own, her stage presence and impressive tonsils firmly in control. And, yes, we encourage the standing-O.

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School of Rock

Get ready to jam out with Jack Black and a bunch of precocious grade schoolers. Featuring hits from Led Zeplin, Stevie Nicks, David Bowie, and so many more, Richard Linklater’s kid-friendly band tribute is a triumph in front of and behind the lens. Writer Mike White’s screenplay is superb, while Black is perfectly cast as Dewey Finn, a man-child who finds himself the lead singer of a private school band.

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Scream VI

Though the platform is currently streaming every installment in the Scream franchise, we’re shouting-out Jenna Ortega’s second offering here. Also the newest chapter in the Ghostface saga, Scream VI moves the action to New York City to terrorize Ortega’s Tara and her older sister, Sam, played by Melissa Barrera. And just as you’d expect, the surprises, cameos, and self-aware quips that have become the signature of the franchise are still on point here.

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Smile

Sosie Bacon is a marvel. The daughter of that other very famous Bacon, the actress gets her big break on the silver screen as Rose Cotter—a psychiatrist whose own emotional and physical well-being is being threatened by a super-dark entity—and she absolutely kills it. If it’s heebie-jeebies you’re after, then Smile is your next move. Here’s hoping the film’s debut director, Parker Finn, has a sequel up his sleeve.

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The Joy Luck Club

Wayne Wang’s film adaptation of Amy Tan’s best seller is essential viewing. An intergenerational epic, the story catches up with four Asian women who meet on the reg to swap stories over Mahjong tiles. In its pieces, the film is 16 vignettes, but as a whole, Wang’s drama is a masterwork that bridges cultures across continents and is universal in its messages of love, loss, and loved ones.

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DeAnna Janes is a freelance writer and editor for a number of sites, including Harper’s BAZAAR, Tasting Table, Fast Company and Brit + Co, and is a passionate supporter of animal causes, copy savant, movie dork and reckless connoisseur of all holidays. A native Texan living in NYC since 2005, Janes has a degree in journalism from Texas A&M and  got her start in media at US Weekly before moving on to O Magazine, and eventually becoming the entertainment editor of the once-loved, now-shuttered DailyCandy. She’s based on the Upper West Side.

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