3 great Paramount+ thrillers to watch this weekend (September 11-13)

Credit: Lucas Gouveia/How-To Geek Published Sep 12, 2026, 6:30 PM EDT Derek Malcolm has been covering the worlds of tech and entertainment for more than two decades. Before coming to How-To Geek in 2025, Derek was a contributing editor and writer for the A/V and Home Theater section at Digital Trends, where he wrangled and wrote everything from what to watch on Netflix to reviews, explainers, and guides on the latest Bluetooth speakers, turntables, projectors, and other A/V gear. Based in Toronto, Derek graduated from Humber College's Journalism program in 1999, after which he started covering the worlds of music, movies, TV, and celebrity for publications such as TV Guide, Hello! magazine, and Inside Entertainment. He then got the bug for covering tech and gadgets in 2006, when he served as editor-in-chief of Canadian tech magazine Connected for more than a decade. An avid skier, when all the snow's gone Derek can be found at home spinning vinyl with his daughter or cheering on his favorite F1 team, McLaren. Sign in to your How-To Geek account Things have been a little quiet on Paramount+ lately, unless you've been deep in cover-ops land with Lioness or eagerly awaiting some renewed Harrigan madness with the coming of season two of MobLand on September 18. But on the movie side of things, things are slow, which is a perfect time for a thriller to wake you up. Last week's roundup of Paramount+ thrillers had some chilling contenders, and this week continues the trend with a movie about a CIA-analyst-turned-hero, a huge monster movie with thrills to spare, and my top pick, a creeper that puts you in the nut house with Leonardo DiCaprio in 1954. Happy weekend! 3 Patriot Games Harrison Ford takes up the Jack Ryan mantle for the first time 1992's political thriller Patriot Games has four things that make it easy for me to go back to this Tom Clancy gem over and over again—Harrison Ford as Jack Ryan, running in a tweed suit and yelling; a pre-Ned Stark/Boromir Sean Bean as a rogue IRA terrorist; a pre-Jules Winnfield Samuel L. Jackson as Ryan's bestie; and Darth Vader's voice, James Earl Jones, holding it all down as Ryan's mentor and CIA bigwig. Replacing Alec Baldwin from The Hunt for Red October, and going on to play Ryan one more time in Clear and Present Danger, Ford's first stab at the retired CIA analyst sees him on holiday in London with his wife Cathy (Anne Archer) and daughter Sally (Thora Birch), when he somehow thwarts a terrorist kidnapping attempt on the Royal Family, and kills one of the attackers. That act lights the fuse for the rest of the movie, as the attacker's older brother, Sean Miller (Bean), makes it his life's ambition to take revenge on Ryan, traveling to the U.S. and putting his family in danger on home soil. But as so many have learned before and since, you don't mess with Jack Ryan, who rejoins the CIA and sets out to take down Miller's whole operation once and for all. Patriot Games Release Date June 5, 1992 Cast Harrison Ford, Anne Archer, Patrick Bergin, Sean Bean, Thora Birch, James Fox, Samuel L. Jackson, James Earl Jones, Richard Harris Runtime 117 Minutes Director Phillip Noyce Writers W. Peter Iliff Main Genre Action Budget $45 Million Studio(s) Paramount Pictures, Mace Neufeld Productions Distributor(s) Paramount Pictures 2 Godzilla (2014) The anniversary reboot that finally got Godzilla right It may be a monster movie, first and foremost, but there's no denying that Gareth Edwards' 2014 contribution to the saga of the world's most famous kaiju is also about as thrilling as it gets. Arriving on the 60th anniversary of Toho's 1954 original, Godzilla is responsible for the MonsterVerse that would later run through Kong: Skull Island, King of the Monsters, Godzilla vs. Kong, and Godzilla x Kong. This Godzilla tale starts in 1999 at a Japanese nuclear plant, where engineer Joe Brody (Cranston) loses his wife, Sandra (Juliette Binoche), in a collapse written off as caused by an earthquake. But Joe thinks otherwise, and what he believes is terrifying. Fast-forward 15 years, and Joe's son Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), a Navy bomb disposal officer in San Francisco, leaves behind his wife Elle (Elizabeth Olsen) and kid to head to Japan after his father is arrested for snooping around the grounds of the destroyed power plant. Instead of taking Joe back to the States, however, Ford learns that his dad was right—there's a huge cover-up. They've been hiding enormous creatures called MUTOs that are the mortal enemies of, yep, Godzilla, who shows up to fight them. The special effects are incredible, Cranston, Taylor-Johnson, and Ken Watanabe give energetic performances, and the film has a solid 76% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes. It's a popcorn movie perfect for a Saturday watch. Godzilla Release Date May 14, 2014 Cast Elizabeth Olsen, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Juliette Binoche, Bryan Cranston, Ken Watanabe, Sally Hawkins, Al Sapienza, David Strathairn, James Pizzinato, CJ Adams, Richard T. Jones, Victor Rasuk, Patrick Sabongui, Carson Bolde, Jared Keeso, Luc Roderique, Eric Keenleyside, Primo Allon, George Allen Gumapac Jr., Ken Yamamura, Garry Chalk, Hiro Kanagawa, Kevan Ohtsji, Kasey Ryne Mazak, Terry Chen Runtime 123 minutes Director Gareth Edwards Writers Max Borenstein Producers Brian Rogers, Jon Jashni, Kenji Okuhira, Mary Parent, Patricia Whitcher, Yoshimitsu Banno, Alex Garcia 1 Shutter Island Scorsese, DiCaprio, and an island full of lies ... or are they? There's nothing like a great psychological thriller that bends your mind and distorts what you and the characters think is real and not real. Add a twist ending that blows it all up, and you've got yourself Shutter Island, Martin Scorsese's haunting adaptation of Dennis Lehane's 2003 novel, starring Leonardo DiCaprio. With three movies together already under their collective belts—Gangs of New York, The Aviator, and The Departed—this 2010 hit opened bigger than any of them. DiCaprio is brilliant as U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels, who, along with his new partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), heads to the Ashecliffe Hospital for the criminally insane on a remote island in Boston Harbor. They're investigating the escape of a dangerous patient when a hurricane cuts off the island. Soon, Teddy starts having vivid hallucinations about his late wife, and paranoia starts to grow that the doctors, including Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley), are doing illegal experiments on patients. Teddy's manic ideas start to get the better of him, and the lines between real and unreal are blurred, leading to one of the best ending reveals you'll ever see. Shutter Island Release Date February 14, 2010 Cast Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Max von Sydow, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson, Jackie Earle Haley, Ted Levine, John Carroll Lynch, Elias Koteas, Robin Bartlett, Christopher Denham, Nellie Sciutto, Joseph Sikora, Curtiss Cook, Raymond Anthony Thomas, Joseph McKenna, Ruby Jerins, Tom Kemp, Bates Wilder, Lars Gerhard, Matthew Cowles, Jill Larson, Ziad Akl Runtime 138 minutes Director Martin Scorsese Writers Laeta Kalogridis Producers Arnold Messer, Bradley J. Fischer, Martin Scorsese, Mike Medavoy Main Genre Drama Budget $80 million Studio(s) Paramount Pictures Distributor(s) Paramount Pictures Executive Producer(s) Chris Brigham, Dennis Lehane, Gianni Nunnari, Laeta Kalogridis, Louis Phillips Thrillers, thrillers, everywhere Paramount+'s massive library of movies, new and old, is sometimes a chore to wade through, but when you strike gold—like with the three picks above—you're set up. We dig through all the streaming services for the best stuff to watch, but if thrillers are your genre of choice, we also round up the best of those on Netflix. Subscription with ads Yes, $8/month Simultaneous streams 3 Live TV Select live sports (NFL on CBS & UEFA Champions League) Price Starting at $8/month or $60/year