Paramount+ is getting serious about wooing new subscribers in November.
That explains why the streamer added so many great movies to its already impressive library this month.
But which ones should you watch? Like most people, Watch With Us relies on Rotten Tomatoes’ handy Tomatometer and Popcornmeter to select the best of the best.
This month, we’ve narrowed it down to three great films: Catch Me If You Can with Leonardo DiCaprio, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade with Harrison Ford and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off with Matthew Broderick.
‘Catch Me If You Can’ (2002)
Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer: 96 percent
Catch Me If You Can’s story is too absurd and far-fetched to believe. Of course, it’s based on a real-life figure who had a talent for conning people — especially himself. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Frank Abagnale Jr., a young man who, in the 1960s, turns to a life of crime when he leaves home.
Frank isn’t a bruiser, though. He’s a slick con man who has a knack for making people believe he’s an airplane pilot, a doctor, a lawyer or any persona that will help win the hearts — and wallets — of the people he’s scamming. Frank is good at what he does, but so is Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks), the FBI agent tasked with capturing him. Can Carl get his man? Or is Frank too good to be caught?
Catch Me If You Can is Steven Spielberg’s most lighthearted — and light on its feet — movie, with a jovial sense of fun that makes you feel complicit in Frank’s illegal activities. DiCaprio’s never been more charming than he is here, and Hanks makes a good foil as a lawman who sees the wounded boy behind Frank’s stylish veneer.
‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’ (1989)
Rotten Tomatoes Popcornmeter: 94 percent
Everyone loves Raiders of the Lost Ark, but for me, my favorite Indiana Jones movie has always been The Last Crusade. The third entry in the legendary franchise is slicker, more exciting and has more at stake. Plus, it has Sean Connery as Indy’s cranky dad, who provides the majority of the film’s laughs.
This time around, Indy is after a map that supposedly reveals the location of the Holy Grail, which gives the person who drinks from it eternal life. The Nazis want it, too, and they kidnap Indy’s father, Henry Jones (Connery), so that if Jones finds it, he’ll give it to them. Indy doesn’t intend to do that, though, and he’ll move heaven and earth — literally, since Indy digs up a hidden tomb that contains a key clue — to find the map, save his father and maybe win the heart of Austrian art professor Elsa Schneider (Alison Doody).
What makes Last Crusade the best of all the Indys? It has great action, including several jaw dropping set pieces involving motorcycles with sidecars, a zeppelin and a German tank, that complements a surprisingly moving finale that sees father and son settle some decades-old grudges. It’s the rare Hollywood movie that takes religion seriously while also letting you live out the fantasy of killing some evil Nazis.
‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ (1986)
Rotten Tomatoes Popcornmeter: 92 percent
Teen movies reigned supreme in the ‘80s, but no film loomed larger — then and now — than Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. The John Hughes comedy largely stays out of school and follows its lead trio — Ferris (Matthew Broderick), Cameron (Alan Ruck) and Sloane (Mia Sara) as they ditch class to live it up in downtown Chicago by attending a Cubs game, looking at a Monet at the Art Institute and dancing in a parade. But in hot pursuit is Principal Ed Rooney (Jeffrey Jones), who knows Ferris is up to no good and wants to prove it, even if he has to break into Ferris’ home to do so.
Even if some of the fashion has aged terribly (really, Sloane, a white fringe jacket?), Ferris Bueller is largely a timeless adventure that taps into the common desire to have some fun. Broderick was never more charming than he is here, but it’s Ruck who provides most of the laughs as the fussy hypochondriac Cam. Teen movies haven’t been the same since Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and we’re the better for it.
