Nearly everything new on Paramount+ for the month of November dropped on Monday for film lovers. And it continues the trend of giving most of the really great movies to the higher tiers of Paramount+ with Showtime.
That doesn’t sit well for us, so when compiling our choices for the three underrated movies on Paramount+ that you need to watch in November, we made sure to pick movies that are available on all tiers. Our choices include a black comedy Christmas classic, an epic romance, and a harrowing journey to reunite a family that is based on a true story.
Bad Santa (2003)
This year marks the 20th anniversary of Bad Santa, and this is one movie that really lives up to its title. Billy Bob Thornton’s Willie T. Soke isn’t just a bad Santa, he’s a bad person. Every year, Willie and his partner, Marcus Skidmore (Tony Cox), get hired as Santa and an elf at shopping malls only to use their newfound access to rob their employers. But this year, Willie’s drunken antics on the job are even alienating Marcus.
Willie’s one redeeming factor is that he genuinely cares about Thurman Merman (Brett Kelly), a young boy who believes that he really is Santa Claus. But in Willie’s line of work, feelings of charity and goodwill may just get him killed.
Watch Bad Santa on Paramount+.
Cold Mountain (2003)
2023 is also the 20th anniversary of Cold Mountain, a Civil War-era epic romance about William “W. P.” Inman (Jude Law) and Ada Monroe (Nicole Kidman). Their courtship is interrupted by the war between the North and the South, and William enlists with the Confederacy. But after facing his mortality on the battlefield, and receiving heartfelt letters from Ada, William decides to desert and return to his true love.
Meanwhile, a friend of the family, Ruby Thewes (Renée Zellweger), helps Ada keep her farm going. However, Ada and Ruby face some very serious threats of their own, which forces them to rely on each other in order to survive.
Watch Cold Mountain on Paramount+.
Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002)
The United States isn’t the only country with a history of treating its indigenous peoples horribly. For decades, Australia had a policy that took Aboriginal children away from their parents. Rabbit-Proof Fence loosely tells a real story from the era of the stolen generations as young sisters, Molly Craig (Everlyn Sampi) and Daisy Craig Kadibil (Tianna Sansbury), and their cousin, Gracie Fields (Laura Monaghan), are taken from their families.
A. O. Neville (Kenneth Branagh) tries to force the girls to acclimate to their new surroundings, but they refuse. Instead, the girls run away and use Australia’s famous “rabbit-proof fence” as a guide to find their home, which is over 1,000 miles away. Unfortunately for the girls, Moodoo the Tracker (David Gulpilil) is hunting them down to prevent them from reuniting with their families.
Watch Rabbit-Proof Fence on Paramount+.
