Paramount+ has an unusually deep November lineup, which makes picking a short list a real exercise in restraint. Scrolling through the new arrivals is still worth your time, but if you only have one weekend, these three go first.
I love all three, and each one does something the others don't. One is a romantic classic with a tune that's hard to forget. Another is a war thriller with a surprisingly fun connection to video games. The last is a comedy that I'd rank among my favorites ever, and it's the movie that turned Eddie Murphy into a star.
'An Officer and a Gentleman' (1982)
Let's start with the part I'm least proud of. Roughly half my affection for this romantic drama comes from Jennifer Warnes and Joe Cocker's "Up Where We Belong," one of the most reliably tear-jerking songs ever attached to a love story. The Simpsons parodied the film's final moment in the season one episode "Life on the Fast Lane," which shows how deeply that ending lodged itself in pop culture. Even without the song or the parody, the movie holds up. It may be Richard Gere's best work.
Gere plays Zack Mayo, a hot-headed young guy with a good heart who joins the U.S. Navy Aviation Officer Candidate School mostly to spite his alcoholic father, played by Robert Loggia. Boot camp hits him hard, especially under Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley, a role Louis Gossett Jr. plays at his absolute best. Along the way Mayo meets Paula, a mill worker played by Debra Winger. The two fall for each other even though his Navy buddies are convinced she just wants a ticket out of small-town life. It's a love story that doesn't cheat.
'Behind Enemy Lines' (2001)
Owen Wilson as an action lead is rare enough to be a selling point on its own. I have two more reasons this thriller hooks me, and one has nothing to do with filmmaking. Feeder's "Buck Rodgers" plays early on, and I associate it with long nights of Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec in 2001. The second reason is the relentless tracker who hunts Wilson's character. His tracksuit and general look, my read is, fed into Niko Bellic's design in Grand Theft Auto IV from 2008. Call it a geek's bias. It's still a tense watch.
The setup is simple. Lt. Chris Brunett's plane gets shot down during a reconnaissance mission, but not before he photographs a mass grave that Serbian General Miroslav Lokar, played by Olek Krupa, would rather nobody saw. Brunett spends most of the film on the run from enemy troops. His lifeline is back on the aircraft carrier, where Rear Admiral Leslie Reigart, played by Gene Hackman, keeps him connected to the mission. The tension rarely lets up, and Wilson plays it straight in a way I wish he'd done more often.
'Trading Places' (1983)
This is one of my favorite comedies of all time, and I saw it far too young, courtesy of my dad. There's a scene involving Jamie Lee Curtis's Ophelia, a sex worker with a big heart, that I definitely shouldn't have been watching as a young teen. Of director John Landis's films, only An American Werewolf in London (1981) can top this one. It also put Eddie Murphy on the map, a year before Beverly Hills Cop made him a household name.
The premise is a switched-identity caper. Murphy plays Billy Ray Valentine, a broke con artist, while Dan Aykroyd plays Louis Winthorpe, a wealthy managing director. The scheming Duke Brothers swap their lives on a whim, purely because the millionaires enjoy wrecking people, all on the strength of a single-dollar bet. The third-act train sequence hasn't aged well, and I won't pretend otherwise. The Murphy and Aykroyd pairing still carries the movie, though.
Pick based on what you're in the mood for. Gere and Winger if you want a tearjerker, Wilson if you want a tense chase, or Murphy if you need a laugh tonight. All three are streaming on Paramount+ this weekend.