August is a great time to be a Paramount+ subscriber.
The Skydance-owned streamer just added a bunch of new movies this month, and almost all of them are binge-worthy.
How can Watch With Us tell? Well, we use Rotten Tomatoes and look up all the movies that have at least 90 percent critic scores.
We’ve selected three movies — the drama Milk, the crime thriller Gone Baby Gone and the indie hit The Assistant — that meet this very high bar and offer our own takes as to why they’re worth watching.
‘Gone Baby Gone’ (2007)
Someone has kidnapped 4-year-old Amanda McCready, and her mother, Helene (Amy Ryan), and aunt Bea (Amy Madigan) are desperate to find her. They hire two Boston detectives, Patrick (Casey Affleck) and Angie (Michelle Monaghan), to search for the little girl, but they soon discover her disappearance might be linked to Helene’s association with a dangerous drug dealer. Did he take her? Or was it a local child molester? Patrick and Angie have to solve the case fast before time runs out for them — and Amanda.
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Gone Baby Gone is a gripping crime thriller that never spares the tension — or the social commentary. It’s one of the few films to get Boston city life right, and that’s due to director Ben Affleck, a native who knows the rhythms and cadence of the city well. In addition to the superb, Oscar-nominated performance by Ryan as Amanda’s white trash mother, the film boasts a genuinely surprising ending that will frustrate you in a good way. Gone Baby Gone ultimately shows that doing the right thing isn’t always the right thing to do, and some choices you make will live with you forever.
‘Milk’ (2008)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 93 percent
Very few politicians are heroes, but Harvey Milk was one of them. The “Mayor of Castro Street” was a trailblazer for gay rights, and his eventful life and tragic death were documented in the great 2008 movie biography, Milk.
Director Gus Van Sant chronicles Milk (Sean Penn) as he moves from New York City to San Francisco after he turns 40 and is looking to restart his career and life. He quickly becomes a gay activist working alongside Cleve Jones (Emile Hirsch) and works his way up the local political ladder, befriending local politician Dan White (Josh Brolin). But as Milk’s career rises, White’s falters, and soon, Dan develops an obsession with Milk that turns violent — and deadly.
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Milk vividly captures San Francisco in the 1970s — wild, sometimes dangerous, but always interesting. Penn’s Milk is a flawed hero who wants what’s best for everyone, even if he neglects some of the ones who are closest to him. Milk is a moving tribute to a man who hasn’t been forgotten, and chances are, you won’t soon forget the movie about him, either.
‘The Assistant’ (2020)
From the outside, it looks like Jane (Julia Garner) has a great job. She’s a junior assistant at a film production company in New York City, and while she’s kept busy answering phone calls and juggling multiple assignments, it’s a position with a pathway to something bigger and better. But Jane’s dream job is really a job from hell as she realizes the boss she’s working for is a serial sexual abuser.
Because he’s powerful and important, Jane feels she can’t tell anyone what she suspects is true. When a new female employee starts, she fears she might be the next woman to be harassed by her boss. Will Jane find the courage to speak up? And even if she does, will anyone listen?
The Assistant is a #MeToo drama that feels like a thriller. There’s genuine tension in following Jane around on a regular workday as she tries to accomplish several menial tasks while grappling with a moral dilemma that could destroy her career prospects. As Jane, Garner is superb as a woman who feels like she’s the only one noticing what her boss is up to. Succession’s Matthew Macfayden shows up in a memorable supporting role as the head of HR, who says all the right things but means none of them.
