Paramount is a relative newcomer to the streaming race despite being one of the oldest film studios in the world. An enviable back catalogue of classic films from The Godfather to Titanic might make the platform an intriguing option for film fans, but TV lovers may be left wondering what’s in it for them.
The answer: a surprisingly good mix of new and back-catalogue content with familiar titles such as Frasier, South Park and Cheers ready to be binged, as well as newly commissioned drama and comedy, from Sexy Beast to The Curse, arriving on the platform at regular intervals.
With more streaming services than ever fighting for our eyeballs and hard-earned cash, our guide offers a regularly updated selection of the best TV shows on the service, meaning subscribers can get the most for their money — and those thinking of trying the streamer can see if it has got content they’ll love.
Love TV? Discover the best shows on Netflix, the best Prime Video TV shows, the best Disney+ shows, the best Apple TV+ shows, the best shows on BBC iPlayer, the best shows on Sky and Now, the best shows on ITVX, the best shows on Channel 4 streaming and our favourite hidden gem TV shows. Don’t forget to check our critics’ choices for what to watch this week, the best shows of 2024 so far, and browse our comprehensive TV guide.
The best TV shows on Paramount+
Quantum Leap
Sci-fi drama, two seasons, 2023-
First things first, no one is saying that this modern reboot is in any way superior to the original 1990s US series in which the great Scott Bakula played Dr Sam Beckett, a physicist trapped in a space-time loop, doomed to for ever correct the mistakes of history. However, if you want a slice of dumb escapist time-travel TV then look no further. Raymond Lee is poker-faced as the physicist Dr Ben Song, who has revived Beckett’s ill-fated Quantum Leap project, and this second series continues to satisfy with its mix of 20th-century nostalgia and modern time-travel thrills.
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Fellow Travellers
Period drama, one season, 2023
Senator Joseph McCarthy’s mid-1950s communist witch-hunt is well known. Less documented is his hounding of homosexuals from the US government, an event that forms the background of this 2023 miniseries. Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey star as the Washington staffers who form a clandestine 30-year relationship. Bomer and Bailey’s performances elevate each individual moment, investing the series with a rich emotional profundity.
Mayor of Kingstown
Crime drama, three seasons, 2021-
If you thought season two of Taylor Sheridan and Hugh Dillon Michigan-set crime drama was a tad too violent, think again. Jeremy Renner continues to impress as morally-convicted kingpin, Mike McClusky, overseeing a volatile company town that’s home to seven prisons in a ten-mile radius, but this remains an intense, brooding affair. Rewards are many, including an astonishingly good ensemble cast (Kyle Chandler as Mike’s corrupt brother, Mitch, is a delight) and a stylish cinematic eye from Stephen Kay (the Sons of Anarchy director).
Insomnia
Thriller, one season, 2024
Vicky McClure stars here as a successful professional whose have-it-all life is starting to disintegrate. Based on a twisty, tricksy psychological thriller by Sarah Pinborough — whose novel Behind Her Eyes was adapted by Netflix in 2021 — the six-part drama centres on McClure’s Emma as she approaches her 40th birthday. Is her sudden inability to sleep a sign that she’s fated to descend into insanity like her mother, Patricia (Corinna Marlowe), who had the same symptoms at the same age? Also adding to her fear of an imminent breakdown is the return of her estranged sister, Phoebe (Leanne Best), as if as a nudging reminder of their shared childhood trauma. Later it emerges that Emma’s husband, Robert (Tom Cullen), and children have been undergoing individual crises too, further shattering the initial impression of a model family.
Lolla — The Story Of Lollapalooza
Music documentary, one season, 2024
Originally conceived in 1991 as a farewell tour for Perry Farrell’s alternative rock group, Jane’s Addiction, Lollapalooza is now a global music festival franchise, which hosts almost half a million people each July. That evolution is the backbone of Michael John Warren’s fascinating three-part documentary. At times it feels as though the series is too in awe of its main protagonist, but the band footage is amazing and you’d be hard pushed to find a better analysis of how the Nineties alternative-music underground was consumed by rabid corporate culture in the 21st century.
A Gentleman In Moscow
Period drama, one season, 2024
The original 2016 novel by Amor Towles was a work of sly historical whimsy about a Russian count who, following the revolution of 1917, is placed under house arrest in Moscow’s Hotel Metropol. This eight-part series, which stars Ewan McGregor as Count Alexander Rostov, retains the arched eyebrow of Towles’ novel and is sure to satisfy fans of Wes Anderson. McGregor’s performance, when it can be glimpsed from behind his huge false moustache, is a work of persnickety perfection.
Sexy Beast
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Crime drama, one series, 2024-
Jonathan Glazer’s original crime drama from 2000 can’t be improved upon — and no one was clamouring for a prequel starring James McArdle and Emun Elliott in the Ray Winstone and Ben Kingsley roles, respectively. However, this is pretty good. Set in the seedy clubland London of the early 1990s, it’s a drama that swaps the artistry of the original for something more brutal and grotesque, but with a gangland conviction that’s almost admirable.
Frasier
Sitcom, 12 series, 1993-
Rebooting a beloved sitcom is a dangerous game — a psychiatrist might even suggest it’s the work of pathological risk-takers. It’s fortunate, then, that Kelsey Grammer’s return as Dr Frasier Crane is a treat — an old-fashioned one, maybe, with its audience laughter and stagey camera angles, but no grisly exhumation of the past. Frasier is back in Boston, his Cheers stamping ground. He’s hoping to bond with his son, Freddy (Jack Cutmore-Scott), a turbulent relationship sharp with repeating history. Nicholas Lyndhurst as Frasier’s old friend Alan, Anders Keith as Frasier’s nephew David and Toks Olagundoye as Roz analogue Olivia promise to become more than makeweight substitutes for the original cast, while jokes about Oedipus and the Brontë sisters prove there’s been no shedding of wit. And if the reboot is not for you, all 11 series of the masterful original (1993-2004) are also available.
The Curse
Black comedy, one series, 2023-
This comedy-drama comes from Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie, the respective architects of the deft cringe creations The Rehearsal and Uncut Gems. Fielder and Emma Stone play Asher and Whitney, who are newlyweds trying for a baby while filming a dubious reality TV pilot. Safdie plays their producer pal, Dougie, and the whole experience is dark, uncomfortably funny and packed with creeping dread.
Rabbit Hole
Thriller, one series, 2023-
There is no one to trust in this new espionage thriller. Certainly not our protagonist, corporate spy John Weir, framed for a murder he didn’t commit (and played with nervy unreadability by Kiefer Sutherland); nor the seemingly innocent lawyer Hailey Winton (Meta Golding) he takes under his wing. You can’t even trust show creators John Requa and Glenn Ficarra, who switch mood and tone and reframe the story with every episode. With just enough knowing irony to paper over the plot illogicalities, this is a gripping update of those 1960s man-on-the-run US TV dramas such as The Fugitive, reworked for our modern age of data surveillance.
The Doll Factory
Psychological thriller, one series, 2023
There are lots of eerie shots of china dolls in this adaptation of Elizabeth Macneal’s 2019 novel; if that information causes a shudder of terror then this psychological thriller is for you, even if viewed from behind a cushion. Set in 1850s London, it stars Esmé Creed-Miles as Iris, a young doll-maker who falls in with both George Webster’s pre-Raphaelite painter and Éanna Hardwicke’s taxidermist.
Lawmen: Bass Reeves
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Western, one series, 2023-
If you are coming to a new western fresh from Yellowstone, the melodramatic family drama, think again. Based on the real-life story of the first black deputy US marshal, with Selma’s David Oyelowo in the title role, this is a gritty mix of bloody frontier violence and emotional family drama. Oyelowo copes well with a role that demands much brow-furrowing, but the real surprise is Dennis Quaid, who invests the show with wild energy as Sherrill Lynn, Reeves’s feral sidekick.
George & Tammy
Biographical drama, one-off, 2022
There are definite shades of 2018’s A Star Is Born in this show, with Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain replacing Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga, and country music providing the backdrop for a troubled love story. George Jones was an established star when he met and fell in love with the up-and-coming Tammy Wynette. Over a 30-year period this drama paints an intimate portrait of a turbulent relationship fuelled by drink, drugs and a passion for music and each other.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
Sci-fi drama, two series, 2022-
After a dialogue-heavy first series this pre-Kirk adventure really hit its stride in its second outing. Set just a few years before the reign of James T, when the Enterprise was captained by Christopher Pike (Anson Mount), this series cleaves hard to the character-driven, adventure-of-the-week structure of the original late-1960s series. Overseen by showrunner Henry Alonso Myers, it’s an incarnation that feels both familiar and fresh, albeit with significantly less monster wrestling on papier-mâché planets than the original. And Paramount+ is your hub for all Star Trek-related content, including the original series, and spin-offs Picard, The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine.
Halo
Sci-fi drama, two series, 2022-
The first series of this $200 million video game adaptation was dazzling, ambitious and just a little dull, diluting the central tale of super-soldier Master Chief John-117 (Pablo Schreiber) with tiresome world building and weak subsidiary characters. Series two is something else again: a lean space-noir conspiracy thriller more firmly rooted in the bleak universe of the original game series.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Supernatural drama, seven seasons, 1997-2003
If you know, you know. The seeds of Stranger Things were arguably sown by Joss Whedon’s supernatural series about a cheerleader (Sarah Michelle Gellar) fated to do battle with the forces of darkness. Its blend of relatable characters, witty dialogue, believable human drama and thrilling plotlines is still the goal of the modern Netflix teen series. If you have never sampled any of this subversive late-1990s drama, behold all seven seasons and marvel at how the mix of comedy, alienation and rich subtexts has allowed it to age so well.
The Offer
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Factual drama, one series, 2022
Michael Tolkin’s drama about the making of 1972’s The Godfather is also rich, pulpy fun and stuffed with terrific performances, particularly Miles Teller as the film’s producer, Albert S Ruddy, and Matthew Goode, who brings an irresistibly sickly charm to his portrayal of studio chief Robert Evans.
Yellowjackets
Thriller, two series, 2021-
It is 1996. A chartered plane carrying an all-girl football team crashes in the Ontario wilderness. Flash forward to 2021 and a journalist is prying into the survivors’ lives. Gripping and melodramatic, with crackpot star turns from Christina Ricci and Juliette Lewis, this is Lord of the Flies meets I Know What You Did Last Summer. A third series has been confirmed.
Yellowstone
Western, five series, 2018-
After four excellent series following Kevin Costner’s brooding cattle rancher as he battles land developers and private-equity companies, season five of the elegiac, curiously melancholy series pushes ever further into Dallas-like soap opera territory. If that reads like discouragement, it’s not. Beneath all the implausible, sensationalist storylines, this remains at heart a big-budget drama about the demise of the western ideal and the death of America. It has also generated two historical spin-offs. First there was 1883, chronicling how the central Dutton family came to Montana and built the Yellowstone ranch, and then 1923: a more stellar prequel with Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren as patriarch and matriarch of an intermediate generation, and Timothy Dalton playing a rival rancher out to grab their land.
South Park
Animated comedy, 26 series, 1997-
Series 26 arrived in February 2023, making Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s animated comedy following the exploits of Stan, Cartman, Kyle and Kenny the second-longest-running sitcom, behind only The Simpsons. Vulgar language, violence and lampooning religion and political events attracted, and still attracts, much ire.
