The Best Movies Now Streaming on Paramount Plus, From ‘Apartment 7A’ to ‘Gladiator’

Paramount+ is your one-stop streaming shop for content from Paramount, CBS, Nickelodeon, and Comedy Central. If you’re a Trekkie or a die-hard South Park fan, the Paramount+ Essential plan has you covered.

It’s October, so Paramount+ has highlighted its scary films for Halloween movie marathons just like all of the other streaming providers. One of the more interesting offerings is Apartment 7A, an unexpected prequel to Rosemary’s Baby starring Julia Garner. Smile 2 is scaring up box office dollars in theaters, so it’s a good idea to sink your teeth into Smile on Paramount+ first. Other movies worth streaming on Paramount+ include Gladiator, A Quiet Place: Day One, Scream VI, Sunset Boulevard, Goodfellas, and every Star Trek movie.

Which of the following will you add to “My List” on Paramount+?

Smile (2022)

In the supernatural horror film Smile, Sosie Bacon plays a therapist who begins to have disturbing visions and experiences after witnessing a patient take her own life in front of her. Parker Finn’s directorial debut is a follow-up to his short film Laura Hasn’t Slept.

Originally set to debut on Paramount+, Smile instead premiered in theaters due to positive feedback from test screenings. The decision made the bean counters at Paramount smile ear to ear after the low-budget horror film got decent reviews and made more than $217 million worldwide. A hit sequel, Smile 2, opened in theaters on October 18, 2024.

A Quiet Place: Day One (2024)

Paramount+ is the only subscription streaming provider offering A Quiet Place: Day One. The prequel stars Lupita Nyong’o as a terminally ill cancer patient who struggles to survive in Manhattan as aliens with super hearing arrive and hunt anything that makes noise. Stranger Things actor Joseph Quinn helps Nyong’o’s character try to escape from New York as quietly as possible.

Michael Sarnoski takes over directorial duties from John Krasinski, the latter of whom directed the first two films in the franchise. Nyong’o really sells this origin story as a dying woman who refuses to go down before she has one more slice of her favorite pizza and can get her pet cat to safety.

For the third film in a franchise, A Quiet Place: Day One got surprisingly decent reviews and made some noise at the box office.

Scream VI (2023)

The sixth installment of the Scream franchise follows sisters Sam and Tara Carpenter (Melissa Barrera and Jenn Ortega) as they move to New York City and encounter a new Ghostface with an axe to grind. Courteney Cox and Hayden Panettiere reprise their franchise roles as Gale Weathers and Kirby Reed, respectively.

Even though Scream VI is the first movie in the franchise to not star Neve Campbell as Sidney Prescott due to a pay dispute, the sequel still made a killing at the box office. Now that Barrera and Ortega have parted ways with the franchise, Campbell is set to return in Kevin Williamson’s Scream 7.

Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

In Top Gun: Maverick, Tom Cruise reprises his role as the titular naval aviator who trains a new Top Gun class while haunted by the ghosts of his past. Cruise reportedly trained with the actors playing pilots in a three-month boot camp so that they could get used to high-flying aerobatics.

The production team scored 20 real planes for filming, including several F/A-18E/F aircraft. The reason why flight scenes such as this one in Top Gun: Maverick feel so authentic is that Cruise was actually in the backseat during filming while Navy pilots flew the F/A-18 Super Hornets.

The Oscar-winning, long-overdue sequel became the highest-grossing film of Cruise’s career, earning nearly $1.5 billion worldwide.

Apartment 7A (2024)

Apartment 7A is a prequel to 1968’s Rosemary’s Baby starring Julia Garner as Terry Gionoffrio, a dancer who moves into the Bramford apartment building in New York City after residents Minnie and Roman Castevet (Dianne Wiest and Kevin McNally) offer to pay her rent. It turns out that the Castevets are Devil worshipers seeking a young woman to give birth to Satan’s spawn.

This prequel directed by Natalie Erika James deftly captures the tone and look of Rosemary’s Baby — also streaming on Paramount+ — even though more than half a century has passed between the original and Apartment 7A. Wiest chews the role of the obnoxious, pushy neighbor made famous by Ruth Gordon in Rosemary’s Baby in this prequel that leads right up to the beginning of Roman Polanski’s 1968 horror classic.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 gothic horror masterpiece merges the legend of Vlad the Impaler with Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The movie stars Gary Oldman as Dracula, Keanu Reeves as Jonathan Harker, Winona Ryder as Mina Murray, and Anthony Hopkins as vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing. Dracula won several Oscars, including Best Costume Design and Best Makeup.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula came out in 1992 during a time period when goth music experienced a revival. The chilling scene in which the vampire Lucy (Sadie Frost) descends into a crypt carrying a child that she intends to drain is GOTH in all caps. When streaming the movie on Paramount+, let the end credits play for a bit to hear Annie Lennox’s hauntingly gorgeous song “Love Song for a Vampire.”

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark introduced the world to everyone’s favorite whip-cracking, fedora-wearing archaeologist Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) as he tries to find the biblical Ark of the Covenant before German forces in 1936.

Paramount+ retitled the classic adventure Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark in its library so it shows up in searches alongside other movies in the franchise such as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. If you have yet to see Ford’s final turn as Indy in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, make sure to revisit Raiders of the Lost Ark first to remind yourself how his cinematic adventure began.

Jawbreaker (1999)

In the dark comedy Jawbreaker, Rose McGowan, Rebecca Gayheart, and Julie Benz play members of a popular high school clique who accidentally kill one of their friends with a piece of jawbreaker candy and try to cover up the crime. Judy Greer is hilarious as an awkward student named Fern whose sudden popularity goes to her head after the clique makes her over as a vivacious “new” student named Vylette.

Darren Stein’s Jawbreaker is a spiritual sequel and homage to Heathers. Meaner than Mean Girls and just as quotable, Jawbreaker deserves rediscovery as the bridge between 1988’s Heathers and 2004’s Mean Girls.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, the second movie in the Star Trek franchise, is the rare sequel that outshines its predecessor in every way. In The Wrath of Khan, Ricardo Montalbán reprises his role as the genetically engineered psychopath Khan from the original series who seeks revenge for Captain Kirk (William Shatner) and the crew of the Enterprise exiling him on a desolate planet 15 years prior.

Paramount+ is home to all of the Star Trek movies, with Wrath of Khan hovering near the top as one of the franchise’s best entries. This is also the installment in which Spock (Leonard Nimoy) makes the ultimate sacrifice at the end for the “good of the many.”

Gladiator (2000)

In Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, Russell Crowe plays Roman general Maximus Decimus Meridius who suffers betrayal when Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) murders his own emperor father, seizes the throne, and forces Maximus into slavery as a gladiator. Did we mention that Commodus also murders Maximus’ wife and young son? When Maximus drives a knife into Commodus’ throat, try not to get too elated.

Maximus’ journey from general to slave to gladiator to savior of Rome attracted enough moviegoers to fill the Colosseum many times over, earning $465.4 million. Gladiator won five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Crowe.

Gladiator II, also directed by Scott, opens in U.S. theaters on November 22, 2024. Now is the time to revisit the 2000 Best Picture winner on Paramount+ to refamiliarize yourself with the characters, some of whom appear or are referenced in Gladiator II.

Interstellar (2014)

Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi epic Interstellar follows a crew of astronauts who travel to a wormhole near Saturn in a desperate search to find a new home for mankind. The movie’s stellar cast includes Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Ellen Burstyn, Matt Damon, and Michael Caine.

There is no such thing as a “light” Nolan movie, and Interstellar is no exception with its heady discussions of black holes, time dilation, and paradoxes. Aside from all the scientific mumbo jumbo, Interstellar is at its heart a story about a little girl who just wants to communicate with her astronaut father one last time after he disappears for years.

Interstellar was nominated for five Oscars, winning for Best Visual Effects. You can see why on Paramount+, which showcases the movie’s breathtaking visuals in 4K Dolby Vision.

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Paramount+ offers a number of classics, including Billy Wilder’s iconic dark-comedy noir Sunset Boulevard about a struggling screenwriter (William Holden) who shacks up with fading — and deranged — silent-film actress Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) in her mansion.

Sunset Boulevard is a cautionary tale about life after fame and the delusional fantasies people create to cling to the memory of a world that has moved on. The landmark film won several Oscars, including Best Story and Screenplay, and is considered one of the best movies in history. Sunset Boulevard also inspired other movies, TV shows, songs, and a Broadway musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Goodfellas (1990)

Martin Scorsese’s crime epic Goodfellas stars Ray Liotta as real-life New York mobster Henry Hill. The film follows Hill’s rise and fall and the toll it takes on his family between 1955 and 1980. Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci are unforgettable as wise guys who associate with Hill.

Goodfellas is up there with The Godfather as one of the best gangster films of all time. The former got nominated for six Oscars, with Pesci taking home the only golden statue for Best Supporting Actor. It still hasn’t sunk in that Liotta left us in 2022, but watching one of his best roles in Goodfellas keeps his memory alive.