Top 10 Movies To Watch This Week on Paramount Plus | July 20-26, 2025

It took 24 years, but we’re finally back in the Colosseum—and honestly? It was worth the wait.

Gladiator II picks up with Lucius (Paul Mescal), all grown up and mad as hell, after his home is taken by a new generation of power-hungry Roman emperors. To reclaim his past and his future, he ends up exactly where his uncle Maximus once stood: in the sand, sword in hand, fighting for survival and legacy.

Ridley Scott’s back behind the camera (because of course he is), and the cast is stacked: Denzel Washington as a mysterious power broker? Pedro Pascal as a Roman general with vibes? Joseph Quinn as an unhinged emperor? Inject it directly.

It’s brutal, sweeping, emotional, and yes—there are tigers.

2. Man with No Past (2025)

Waking up with amnesia in a strange city is already a bad day. Waking up and realizing you’re being hunted? That’s a movie.

Man with No Past doesn’t reinvent the spy-thriller wheel, but it does hit the gas hard. Tim Fellingham plays the unnamed lead—a man with no memory, no ID, and way too many enemies. What follows is a bullet-laced breadcrumb trail through double-crosses, secret tech, and a very powerful someone who wants him silenced.

Think Bourne if it was shot with a grittier budget and a little less GPS—but hey, the fight scenes slap, and the mystery keeps pulling you in.

If you like your action with shadowy conspiracies and brooding stares, this one’s worth a shot.

3. Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

You’ve probably already seen it. Maybe twice. Maybe in IMAX. But Top Gun: Maverick still flies like hell—and if you’re somehow one of the five people who missed it, congratulations: you get to experience it fresh.

Tom Cruise returns as Maverick, older, faster, and still allergic to authority. This time, he’s training the next generation of Top Gun pilots (hi, Miles Teller as Goose’s son), and the stakes are sky-high—literally. The mission is top-secret, the flying is practical, and every second of screen time looks like it cost $100K and a slight concussion.

It’s adrenaline with a plot. Nostalgia with a pulse. And yeah, you might cry during the beach football scene.

4. Smile (2022)

If someone ever smiles at you just a little too long, you might want to skip this one—or lean all the way in.

Smile starts with a freaky incident and spirals into a full-blown psychological horror show. Sosie Bacon plays a therapist who witnesses something horrifying and soon starts seeing grinning figures lurking everywhere. And once you see one… well, let’s just say it doesn’t go away.

It’s creepy, it’s smart, and it digs way deeper into trauma than you’d expect from a jump-scare fest. Plus, it has one of the best “oh no” final shots in modern horror.

Watch it in the dark. Regret it immediately.

5. September 5 (2024)

This one’s intense in the best way—not a war movie exactly, but a pressure-cooker thriller about people trying to do their jobs while the world falls apart.

September 5 drops you into the middle of the 1972 Munich Olympics hostage crisis, but from a different angle—through the eyes of an American broadcast team suddenly reporting live on a nightmare unfolding in real time. Peter Sarsgaard leads as a rookie producer trying to stay professional while the situation gets more chaotic and deadly by the hour.

It’s shot like a newsroom thriller, plays like a political drama, and feels very now.

If you liked The Post or United 93, this is that—but tighter, sweatier, and more morally messy.

6. Scary Movie (2000)

This movie walked so every meme-driven parody after it could stumble.

Scary Movie is the original horror spoof that took Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Matrix, and basically every other late-’90s pop culture hit—and ripped them apart with a chainsaw made of fart jokes and chaotic brilliance.

Anna Faris makes her unforgettable debut, the Wayans brothers go full throttle, and Regina Hall gives us the iconic “ Cindy, the TV’s leaking!” It’s crude, loud, and totally ridiculous—but it still hits. Hard.

If you’re looking for something smart, scroll on. But if you want to watch a killer get dropkicked by a blind grandma? Welcome home.

7. Scary Movie 2 (2001)

Sequels usually drop the ball. This one drops it… and then smashes it with a haunted piano.

Scary Movie 2 leaves slashers behind and goes straight for haunted houses, exorcisms, and poltergeists—with the same anything-goes energy that made the original a sleepover staple. Anna Faris is back. Regina Hall is back. The weed-smoking parrot is… unfortunately also back.

You’ve got James Woods spoofing The Exorcist, a possessed clown doll, and Chris Elliott’s cursed little hand. It’s dumb, it’s gross, and it’s somehow still endlessly quotable.

If you ever wanted to see Tim Curry scream-laugh his way through a ghost orgy, this is your weird, wonderful moment.

8. South Park: The End of Obesity (2024)

Leave it to South Park to turn weight-loss drugs into a full-blown cultural apocalypse.

In The End of Obesity, Cartman is denied access to the trendy new miracle shot that’s changing lives (and waistlines) across town. Naturally, this spirals into a war over access, privilege, and how far people will go to stay “thin” in a world where image is everything.

The jokes are savage, the message is razor-sharp, and Randy—of course—gets way too involved in the weirdest possible way.

If you’ve ever side-eyed a friend’s Ozempic glow-up, this is your satirical comfort food.

9. South Park: Not Suitable for Children (2023)

So a South Park teacher has an OnlyFans page. That’s the setup. What happens next? Absolute chaos—and not just in the classroom.

Not Suitable for Children is peak South Park: a scandal rips through the school, and Randy ends up falling down a very NSFW rabbit hole of online clout-chasing. It’s crude, it’s hilarious, and it somehow manages to say more about modern influencer culture than most documentaries.

There’s no lesson here. Just deeply inappropriate jokes and painfully accurate jabs at the state of the internet.

Watch it. Just maybe not with your kids. Or your parents.

10. South Park: The Streaming Wars (2022)

If you’re exhausted by having 17 different streaming apps, The Streaming Wars is here to roast all of them—and somehow involve Cartman’s mom in a water rights feud. (Yes, really.)

This movie-length special turns South Park’s most absurd family drama into a full-scale satire about corporate media, environmental collapse, and good old-fashioned toilet humor. It’s ridiculous in all the right ways and somehow still makes perfect sense in 2025.

Bonus: Cartman builds a tiny hot dog-themed dream house. That alone is worth your runtime.

If Don’t Look Up had been animated, shorter, and way funnier, this is what it would’ve looked like.

And That’s a Wrap

There you go—ten Paramount Plus picks that run the gamut from Roman revenge (Gladiator II) to haunted houses with a weed-smoking parrot (Scary Movie 2). You’ve got pulse-pounding thrillers (Man with No Past, September 5), sky-high spectacle (Top Gun: Maverick), and psychological horror that will make you really hate smiling (Smile).

And if your vibe leans more chaotic and animated? South Park’s got you—times three. From Ozempic-fueled meltdowns to influencer takedowns and streaming feuds, Cartman and crew are as unhinged (and weirdly relevant) as ever.

Whether you’re in the mood to laugh, flinch, cheer, or rewatch a classic in gladiator sandals, this week’s queue has serious range.

Grab the popcorn. Press play. Let the streaming begin.