The 4 best Paramount+ thrillers to watch this long weekend (September 4-7)

Credit: Lucas Gouveia/How-To Geek Published Sep 5, 2026, 2:30 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 With Labor Day landing on the 7th this year, this weekend comes with a bonus Monday with absolutely no obligation to do a dang thing with, other than watch movies. If you're like me, more often than not I lean towards a good thriller. And if you're a Paramount+ customer in the U.S., the streamer is no stranger to the dark and intense. Speaking of which, as part of the Paramount+ September 1 movie catalog refresh, four great thrillers stand out. One is a missing-child case that just keeps getting worse, while two bend towards the supernatural, including my top pick that stars Christopher Walken in one of his eeriest roles. Rounding out the list is a biblical serial-killer hunt starring Brad Pitt. 4 Gone Baby Gone The brothers Affleck shine in this Boston abduction thriller The minute my baby girl was born in 2011, movies like 2007's intense child-abduction thriller Gone Baby Gone were immediately off the menu. Even rewatching it recently, it still gets me in the feels. But that's precisely what a good thriller is supposed to do—prey on your deepest fears to make you feel what the characters feel. Ben Affleck's directorial debut does all that, with the help of his brother, Casey Affleck, who, alongside Michelle Monaghan, stars as private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro. Hired by the aunt and uncle of a missing four-year-old girl, the pair are brought in because of their ties with Dorchester's criminal underworld, and because the police—including Captain Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman) and detectives Remy Bressant (Ed Harris)—might not be trustworthy. Gone Baby Gone is a thrilling and dramatic ride that earned actress Amy Ryan a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nod for her role as the missing girl's addict mother. Gone Baby Gone Release Date October 19, 2007 Cast Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris, Amy Ryan, Amy Madigan, Titus Welliver Runtime 114 Minutes Director Ben Affleck Writers Ben Affleck, Aaron Stockard, Dennis Lehane (novel) Main Genre Crime Budget $19 Million Studio(s) Miramax Films, Ladd Company, LivePlanet Distributor(s) Miramax Films 3 The Woman in Black Daniel Radcliffe could have used a wand in this British gothic classic Another debut on our list, The Woman in Black was Daniel Radcliffe's first major film role after playing Harry Potter for a decade, and it's a dark, haunting doozy that remains one of the UK's biggest horror hits. Based on Susan Hill's classic 1983 novel, Radcliffe breaks the spell of the Boy Who Lived as Arthur Kipps, an Edwardian-era solicitor sent to a coastal village to settle the affairs of a dead woman whose cursed house sits on a tidal island. The film hits on all the right horror notes—a drab English color palette, shadowy figures in windows, creepy little girls in dresses, and even creepier dolls and old toys—and as local children start dying, Arthur traces the killings to a grieving mother's decades-old grudge from beyond the grave. There's also a sequel, 2014's Angel of Death, which you can stream on Prime Video. The Woman In Black Release Date February 3, 2012 Cast Daniel Radcliffe, Ciarán Hinds, Janet McTeer, Liz White Runtime 95 minutes Director James Watkins Writers Jane Goldman Sequel(s) The Woman in Black: Angel of Death Budget $32 million 2 Seven A grisly serial-killer thriller of biblical proportions Sure, ghosts, serial killers, and missing children are sure-fire thriller fodder, but nothing ramps up the shiver factor quite like some deep-rooted, extreme religion stuff. Enter Seven, David Fincher's 1995 dark murder mystery starring Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, and Gwyneth Paltrow, which still stands as one of the grisliest movies of all time—with one of the craziest twist endings ever, to boot. Pitt stars as David Mills, a cocky detective who moves to town with his wife Tracy (Paltrow) to work with veteran detective William Somerset (Morgan Freeman), who's just days from retiring. But when bodies start piling up, with the victims killed to thematically mimic the seven deadly sins—gluttony, greed, sloth, lust, and pride—the pair work together to take down the killer, John Doe (Kevin Spacey), before he completes the set with envy and wrath. Seven (often spelled Se7en) is an essential thriller that has an 84% Tomatometer score and a 95% Popcornmeter score. Se7en Release Date September 22, 1995 Cast Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, Gwyneth Paltrow, John Cassini, Peter Crombie, Reg E. Cathey, R. Lee Ermey, Daniel Zacapa, Andrew Kevin Walker, George Christy, Endre Hules, Hawthorne James, William Davidson, Bob Collins, Richard Roundtree, Dominique Jennings, Allan Kolman, Gene Borkan, Julie Araskog, Mario Di Donato, Alfonso Freeman, John C. McGinley, Harrison White, Bob Stephenson, Michael Reid MacKay Runtime 127 minutes Director David Fincher Writers Andrew Kevin Walker Producers Arnold Kopelson, Phyllis Carlyle Main Genre Crime Budget $33 million Studio(s) New Line Cinema Distributor(s) New Line Cinema Executive Producer(s) Anne Kopelson, Dan Kolsrud, Gianni Nunnari 1 The Dead Zone David Cronenberg puts his unique twist on one of Stephen King's weirdest While not quite yet at the peak of his cinematic powers that would come a bit later with signature films like The Fly, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, and eXistenZ, twisted thrill-master David Cronenberg took on a story not of his own creation with Stephen King's The Dead Zone, a film you should watch immediately. More than a decade before Christopher Walken handed young Butch his dad's watch in Pulp Fiction, Cronenberg cast the iconic actor in the role of Maine schoolteacher Johnny Smith, who wakes from a coma after five years to find that when he touches someone, he gets violent flashes of their past, present, or future. With his girlfriend Sarah (Brooke Adams) married and living her own life, Johnny decides to use his gift for good, warning people of potential tragedies and helping local sheriff Bannerman (Tom Skerritt) catch a killer. But when Johnny touches Senate candidate Greg Stillson (Martin Sheen), he sees something he can't ignore and can't sit by and let the dire events unfold. See Walken before Walken-esque was a thing in this 89% fresh psychological thriller from one of the best to ever make them. The Dead Zone Release Date October 21, 1983 Cast Christopher Walken, Brooke Adams, Tom Skerritt, Herbert Lom, Anthony Zerbe, Colleen Dewhurst, Martin Sheen, Nicholas Campbell, Sean Sullivan, Jackie Burroughs, Géza Kovács, Roberta Weiss, Simon Craig, Peter Dvorsky, Julie-Ann Heathwood, Barry Flatman, Raffi Tchalikian, Ken Pogue, Gordon Jocelyn, Bill Copeland, Jack Messinger, Chapelle Jaffe, Cindy Hinds, Helene Udy, Ramon Estevez Runtime 103 minutes Director David Cronenberg Writers Jeffrey Boam, Stephen King Producers Debra Hill Main Genre Thriller Budget $10 million Studio(s) Paramount Pictures Distributor(s) Paramount Pictures, De Laurentiis Entertainment Group Turn down the lights and turn off your phone Four very different thriller movies to choose from for this long weekend, so you can dial in your chills as you see fit. While Paramount+ might be more focused on UFC matches and Taylor Sheridan TV, its library of movies is undeniably vast and varied. 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