Since keeping up with the constant shifting that movies undergo every month on streaming services is so daunting, we have scoured through all of the upcoming films that will be available for Paramount+ subscribers starting September 1st. This selection of modern and classic films represents the hottest movies Paramount+ will be adding this next month, so now is your chance to revisit or watch for the first time. Each one is a must-watch!
Forrest Gump
Robert Zemeckis followed his weak satirical horror-comedy Death Becomes Her with this Tom Hanks-led film, critically panned once more for its treacly melodrama. To the critics’ disdain, Forrest Gump generated a massive following and box office success, later winning six Oscars (including Best Picture) and becoming one of the most iconic films of the 1990s. Some have negatively re-evaluated the film, but Forrest Gump remains beloved by young and old audiences.
Arrival
One of the best movies of the 2010s comes in the unlikely form of a sci-fi meditation on the nature of language and understanding via a worldwide alien landing crisis. Amy Adams gives a stellar, career-best performance, and Denis Villeneuve delivers his most subtle, absorbing direction yet. Eric Heisserer adapted Arrival from a short story by award-winning writer Ted Chiang, but don’t be scared away by his credits on remakes of A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Thing.
mother!
Though Darren Aronofsky’s controversial motherhood fantasy is an experience you will love or vehemently hate, you will undoubtedly never forget it. Only take the tragic journey of mother! if you can handle the extreme psychological torment, trauma, and violence inflicted on the main character, played by a luminescent Jennifer Lawrence.
Annihilation
Though the adaptation of the first book in Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy had high expectations set by die-hard science fiction fans, Annihilation ultimately paid off artistically, if not commercially. With weighty themes of dread and grief, the film shows an all-female band of adventurers into a growing scientific anomaly quickly altering the part of the earth it covers. The producer’s choice of writer/director could not have been better than Ex Machina‘s Alex Garland.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
An absolute blast of action, drama, and thrills, Terminator 2 set an impossibly high bar for quality entertainment that no future Terminator film, or arguably no later sci-fi action movie of any kind, ever beat. Arnold Schwarzenegger gets to show off a wonderfully stoic delivery of intense and humorous dialogue, and a superior character connection led many to claim this as the best film of the Terminator franchise.
The Blair Witch Project
Balk if you want, but The Blair Witch Project is an iconic zeitgeist-defining horror film that broke found footage into the mainstream. Nowadays, without the spectacular hype and marketing as an unfabricated recording of authentic supernatural phenomena, the film is far from the best horror film ever. However, it proved that anyone can make a worthwhile movie without studio financing if their vision and creativity remain unbounded.
10 Cloverfield Lane
Despite the title attaching 10 Cloverfield Lane to a found-footage film where a monster drops out of the sky, this one is far more a psychological thriller than science fiction. Using an entirely different approach from Cloverfield, the film shows a woman waking up after a car crash in a dank bunker under the care of a strange, perhaps sinister man (played by the incredible John Goodman), who tells her that the world above is experiencing a nuclear fallout. The interaction between these few characters, enhanced by the tension of a locked room and questionable circumstances, leads to thrilling results.
You can stream each of these films on Paramount+ starting September 1st.