Summer 2023 has brought plenty of great action blockbusters with it, whether it’s new entries in long-running franchises or completely original movies. If you’re looking for action, though, the big screen is not the only place you can find it. Every streaming service has at least some collection of action movies for you to enjoy, and Paramount Plus may have one of the best collections out there.
With a combination of recent action hits and older titles from the Paramount catalog, you can catch as much action as your heart desires. These are five of the best action movies the streamer has to offer.
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015)
Every single Mission: Impossible movie is available to watch on Paramount Plus, but Rogue Nation is a great entry point for those who are hoping to skip the earlier installments. The film follows Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt as he hunts down a network of rogue spies, but no one really watches Mission: Impossible movies for the plot.
What’s most important is that the action sequences here are breathtaking, from an opening where Cruise hangs on to the outside of a plane all the way through to a climactic sequence set entirely underwater. On top of all that, the movie also introduces Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa Faust, one of the great spy characters in movie history.
Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
If you prefer your action to be tinged with comedy, then Beverly Hills Cop may be exactly what you’re looking for. Following a Detroit cop who follows a murder investigation to Beverly Hills, the movie is in large part about the culture shock he experiences after arriving there.
Beverly Hills Cop has the kinds of set pieces typically reserved for great action movies, and it also firmly established Eddie Murphy as one of the great stars of his generation. There’s a reason why the film spawned two sequels and is still fondly remembered today.
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
One of the strangest best picture winners of all time, Everything Everywhere All at Once is a genre-bending movie that combines heady sci-fi concepts with the pacing of a kung-fu action movie.
In addition to being a sweet story about learning to appreciate the life you’re living, the movie also features plenty of genuinely well-choreographed action, and the Daniels, who directed the film, know how to stage all of that action for maximal impact. It may not have had an enormous budget, but Everything Everywhere All at Once stretched the money it had to create something magnificent.
Bumblebee (2018)
There are plenty of people who are understandably dubious about Transformers movies, but Bumblebee is well worth a shot. The movie tells what amounts to something of an origin story for its titular character, following the Transformer as he arrives on Earth and his life intersects with a teenage girl living in the 1980s.
Thanks to a wonderful central performance from Hailee Steinfeld, and writing that is much sharper than usual for a Transformers movie, Bumblebee feels like a full meal, and comes with a few great pieces of action to boot.
Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
No list of great action movies would be complete without a second Tom Cruise entry. Top Gun: Maverick, the long-awaited and hugely popular sequel to the original Top Gun, sees Pete “Maverick” Mitchell returning to Top Gun to train a new class of elite pilots for a highly dangerous mission.
The movie is filled with death-defying stunts and features footage of the actors actually flying planes. It’s a genuine big-budget blockbuster, and while it may be awash in propaganda for the U.S. military, it’s hard to deny the visceral thrills that the movie is able to provide basically from start to finish.
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