Paramount Plus is one of the newer arrivals on the streaming scene, and while its roster is rolling out plenty of exciting streaming original and acquired shows, there are plenty of movies that are worth exploring. From the classic to the current and from the vintage to the very new, Paramount Plus offers an excellent movie lineup that rivals any other streaming service. To save you some time from surfing, The Manual has dug out a few of the very best below.
Babylon (2022)
Interstellar (2014)
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
Ascension (2021)
In Ascension, we get to see a modern economy’s growth from the ground up. The 2021 MTV documentary film follows the pursuit of the Chinese dream through a billion-member society that erupts in a riot of class stratification after permitting a regulated capitalism that prioritizes productivity and innovation over all else. This includes civil rights like freedom of speech, press, and more.
Ascension premiered in June 2021 at the Tribeca Film Festival, where it won Best Documentary Feature. Director and producer Jessica Kingdon originally did not intend to focus solely on China. She described it as “an image-driven essay film composed of a series of vignettes, climbing up the rungs of China’s social ladder.” Like steps up society’s levels, Ascension is tiered into three stories, elevating up through classes — the proletariat, the aspirational middle, and a wanton elite — strict social tiers where the wealthiest are crystalized at the top.
South Park: Post COVID: The Return of COVID (2021)
After almost a quarter of a century on air and a movie or two in, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone finally revealed what would happen to Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny later on in life. Kind of. One of the highlights of the holiday season, South Park: Post COVID: The Return of COVID is another rampaging romp through hyperbolic American reality in a small Colorado mountain town.
The plot follows the gang brought back together in 2020 as they try and prevent COVID’s appearance. In this strange place, Cartman is the second most successful of the boys, becoming an apparently devoted rabbi. Kenny, a mysterious billionaire as a man, is still dead. Kyle has a life, but not much of one, and Stan’s has taken a terrible turn. Obstacles of course arise in traveling back to the past, including the appearance of a negative force in Victor Chaos.
At times crude, dark, hilarious, and ridiculous, and yet somehow coherent in spite of it all, the South Park formula works just as well in long form. You’ll have to stream it, however, to see how.
Almost Famous (2000)
“You cannot make friends with the rock stars,” Philip Seymour Hoffman says as Ur-rock critic Lester Bangs in Almost Famous.
Classic line after classic line drops in this true-to-life paean to rock n’ roll.
Cameron Crowe wrote and directed this autobiographical masterpiece about his young life becoming a music writer for Rolling Stone. William Miller (Patrick Fugit) is a high school student who fakes his way into a gig writing for what was the world’s most famous music magazine in the early 1970s. It’s serendipity that throws him into rock band Stillwater’s tour bus.
The 15-year-old Miller’s first assignment is to tour with Stillwater and document the behind-the-scenes experience — warts and all. In a world where planes fall from the sky and beautiful women slip into and out of the fold, bandmates bicker like little kids, and guitarist’s leap from roofs, Miller finds a more complicated adult world on the roller coaster ride.
One of the richest films of its era, Almost Famous includes incredible performances from the gone-too-soon Hoffman, Kate Hudson, Billy Crudup, and Frances McDormand.
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