“Thriller” is the most overworked word in the movie business. It gets slapped on everything from courtroom dramas and shark movies to high-octane spy pictures to shark movies with tornadoes in them. All these thrills make it tricky when browsing streaming services, and Paramount+, with its cavernous pit of thrillers, is definitely not immune … which I guess isn’t a bad thing?
This weekend I managed to rustle up four of the creepy little buggers—from a Vietnam nightmare that gave a very famous game franchise its creepy look, and a claustrophobic assassination plot on a plane, to a Paris ghost story and a new addition that takes obsession to a new level (my top pick).
4
Jacob’s Ladder
The Vietnam nightmare that built Silent Hill
While I have seen writer Bruce Joel Rubin’s fever dream of a thriller, Jacob’s Ladder, a few times since its 1990 theatrical release, it was the late-great film critic Roger Ebert who nailed it first in his original review from back then, opining that it “enters into the hallucinations of a desperate mind, and lives there. It evokes a paranoid-schizophrenic state as effectively as any film I have ever seen.” That desperate mind is Jacob Singer (Tim Robbins), a Vietnam vet haunted by the death of his young son, Gabe (Macaulay Culkin), a failed marriage, and struggling to live life as a New York postal worker.
But when Jacob starts seeing faceless demons on the subway and in passing cars, and other terrible things start happening to him, he and the surviving members of his Vietnam unit (also seeing the same strange things) start to suspect they may have been subject to a nefarious military experiment. But is any of it real? Its surreal creatures became the visual blueprint for the entire Silent Hill game series.
Jacob’s Ladder
Release Date
November 2, 1990
Runtime
113 minutes
Director
Adrian Lyne
3
Red Eye
Eighty-five minutes, one flight, and cunning Cillian Murphy
Scream king Wes Craven was responsible for most of my nightmares growing up, with his iconic films like A Nightmare on Elm Street and the original Scream. But in 2005, the director proved that he could shoot heart rates up with just two people stuck on an airplane together for 85 minutes. In Red Eye, sweet and unsuspecting hotel manager Lisa Reisert (Rachel McAdams) boards an overnight flight from Dallas to Miami, and ends up being seated next to the cute and charming Jackson Rippner (Cillian Murphy).
Jackson builds trust and rapport with Lisa, but then drops a bomb on her that rocks her world—he’s part of an assassination plot to kill a Homeland Security official who’s staying at the hotel where she works. If Lisa doesn’t call ahead to have him moved to a specified room, one of Jackson’s henchmen will kill Lisa’s dad (Brian Cox). It’s no Snakes on a Plane (Canadian Paramount+ subscribers can see that), but you’d be amazed at the action and intensity that can happen in a plane’s cabin.
Red Eye
Release Date
August 19, 2005
Runtime
85 minutes
Director
Wes Craven
2
Personal Shopper
Kristen Stewart gets texts from dead people
Personal Shopper actually got booed at its press screening at the Cannes Film Festival, but the fest then shockingly awarded Olivier Assayas its Best Director prize. And it deserved it. Another film on this list that teeters on the line between what’s real and not, this ghost-story thriller stars Kristen Stewart as Maureen Cartwright, an American in Paris who works as a personal shopper for a celebrity, Kyra (Nora von Waldstätten). Oh, did I mention that Maureen also has a side hustle as a medium and has been getting mysterious text messages, presumably from beyond the grave?
It turns out that Maureen is in Paris for another reason—her brother Lewis died there (from the same congenital heart defect that she has), and they had a pact that whoever died first would send a sign. As Maureen waits in his empty house, the text messages keep coming, taunting her to do things she wouldn’t normally do. Are they from Lewis? Then, something horrific happens, and Maureen struggles to figure it all out. Stewart is excellently broody as Maureen, and the movie has a solid 81% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Personal Shopper
Release Date
March 10, 2017
Runtime
105 minutes
Director
Olivier Assayas
1
Sweetness
It’s Misery for a new generation
The newest pick on this list is also my top pick, and not just because it’s got the highest Rotten Tomatoes rating here at 88%, but because it’s surprisingly dark, it was shot in the Canadian town of North Bay, and reminds me of Stephen King’s shiver-inducing classic, Misery. In her feature debut, Vancouver writer-director Emma Higgins’ R-rated thriller Sweetness stars up-and-coming actress Kate Hallett as Rylee Hill, a lonely, bullied teen who uses music as an escape.
The focus of her music obsession is a band (tragically) called Floorplan, whose troubled, drug-addicted frontman, Payton Adler (Herman Tømmeraas), accidentally hits Rylee with his car after a show. To make it up to her, the wasted Payton offers Rylee a ride home. But when he wakes up the next morning handcuffed to Rylee’s bed, she goes full groupie Annie Wilkes on him, convincing herself that she’s helping him kick his addiction. Hallett is terrifyingly unhinged as Rylee, as is her bestie and accomplice, Sidney (Aya Furukawa). It’s fun, bloody, and not at all sweet.
Sweetness
Release Date
February 13, 2026
Runtime
93 minutes
Director
Emma Higgins
No sharknadoes, just bloody-good thrillers
Any one of these Paramount+ thrillers will add some creep to your weekend (OK, that was bad), but in the best way. If not, then check out last week’s selection for inspiration before they leave. And if you’re not a one-service kind of streamer, head to our streaming section for coverage of Netflix, Prime Video, Apple TV, HBO Max, and more.
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