The end of the year brings a wave of new to Paramount Plus movies in December 2023. One of the streaming service's main draws is its huge film section, which can pull from the catalog of the second-oldest American movie studio.
Every month brings dozens of new titles, many of which are worthy to be added to our list of the best Paramount Plus movies. But scrolling through them all can take forever. And during the holidays, nobody has time for that!
We’re here to help by narrowing down the options to the movies with scores of 90% or higher on Rotten Tomatoes, the review-aggregating site. That’s essentially an A-grade, so you can feel confident these new to Paramount Plus movies are excellent.
10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)
No matter if you saw 2008's Cloverfield, the second film in the franchise isn't quite a sequel or prequel. It features a standalone story that is loosely connected to the original's universe, so you can jump right into the story following Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) after she survives a car accident. She wakes up in an underground bunker with two men. Howard (John Goodman) and his assistant Emmett (John Gallagher Jr.) inform her that a massive chemical attack has poisoned the air outside. But Michelle has suspicions that they're not telling the truth and she seeks her own answers about what's going on.
Genre: Science fiction horror
Rotten Tomatoes score: 90%
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American Hustle (2013)
Some movies are a worthy slog, and some are just sheer fun. American Hustle is the latter. David O. Russell gathers a dream team of actors for a thoroughly entertaining scam story. Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence all got Oscar nominations, though none of them won. In fact, American Hustle has the unfortunate distinction of being the second-highest nominated movie that didn’t win any Oscars.
Awards seem meaningless, though, when you’re enjoying the show. When con artist lovers Irving (Bale) and Sydney (Adams) are caught by an FBI agent (Cooper), he recruits them to help take down a corrupt mayor (Jeremy Renner). But their cover may be blown by Irving’s jealous wife (Lawrence).
Genre: Crime drama/comedy
Rotten Tomatoes score: 92%
Stream it on Paramount Plus With Showtime
The Fugitive (1993)
Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones square off in an electrifying cat-and-mouse game. After he's wrongfully accused of murdering his wife, Dr. Richard Kimble (Ford) is able to escape custody when his prison bus crashes. He sets out to track down the real killer and clear his name, but hot on his trail is U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard (Jones). The crafty officer and clever surgeon are evenly matched as Kimble continues to flee and Gerard pursues him.
Genre: Action thriller
Rotten Tomatoes: 96%
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The Iron Giant (1999)
The beautifully rendered, written and performed tale was underappreciated in its time (it was a box office bomb, though a critical darling). It comes from director Brad Bird, who later won Oscars for The Incredibles and Ratatouille. Set in 1957, it focuses on the friendship that develops between a 9-year-old boy named Hogarth Hughes and a giant alien robot that crash-lands near the small town of Rockwell, Maine. When a paranoid government agent arrives to destroy the robot, Hogarth and a local beatnik artist team up to save the misunderstood machine.
Genre: Animated science fiction
Rotten Tomatoes: 96%
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Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Rosemary’s Baby is one of the most celebrated psychological horror movies of all time, and while it may be a slow burn with a runtime of more than two hours, it builds to a stomach-turning finale. It stars Mia Farrow as Rosemary, a young wife who has recently moved into a new apartment building with her struggling actor husband Guy. Once there they get quickly acquainted with the older couple next door and Rosemary becomes pregnant. All seems well until strange occurrences begin to frighten the young mother-to-be, and for some strange reason, the neighbors seem to be taking a special interest in her pregnancy. - RM
Genre: Horror
Rotten Tomatoes: 96%
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The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Near the top of the pantheon of Dad Movies rests this harrowing incarceration drama based on a Stephen King novella, a film often cited for making grown men weep. Banker Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) arrives at Shawshank State Penitentiary after he is sentenced to life for murdering his wife and her lover, though he claims to be innocent. There, he befriends Ellis "Red" Redding (Morgan Freeman), a contraband smuggler. Over the next two decades, Andy is assaulted, mentors other prisoners and becomes embroiled in a money laundering scheme by warden Samuel Norton (Bob Gunton). Through his travails, Andy dreams of living in a peaceful beach town in Mexico. Hope is the only thing he has left.
Genre: Drama
Rotten Tomatoes: 91%
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Trainspotting (1996)
A British sensation, Trainspotting made a star of Ewan McGregor, gave Danny Boyle a Hollywood calling card and created one of the most terrifying characters ever in the form of Robert Carlyle's psychotic Begbie. Oh, and it also managed to be both outrageously funny and unbearably sad. That it did all this while adapting what seemed like an unfilmable Scottish novel about a group of heroin addicts is all the more remarkable. It's iconic from start to finish, while its soundtrack has to be one of the greatest of all time. A simply magnificent piece of film-making. - MM
Genre: Comedy/drama
Rotten Tomatoes: 90%
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What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? (1993)
See Leonardo DiCaprio, Johnny Depp and Juliette Lewis when they were basically babies in Lasse Hallstrom’s sensitive coming-of-age drama. DiCaprio netted his first Oscar nomination as the mentally impaired Arnie, whose older brother Gilbert (Depp) cares for him and their morbidly obese mother. Gilbert meets and grows closer to a young woman named Becky (Lewis), but his obligations threaten to derail their romance. When Arnie acts out, Gilbert snaps and causes discord in their family.
Genre: Comedy/drama
Rotten Tomatoes: 90%
Stream it on Paramount Plus
