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Paramount+ is ready with an entertainment-packed May this year. The upcoming month will see the premiere of the much-anticipated new season of Showtime’s The Chi and the return of Paramount+’s Criminal Minds. Just like every month, Paramount+ is ready to overload you with great content. So, we’re here to tell you about the 7 best movies and TV shows coming to Paramount+ in May 2025.

Titles with an * will only be available with the Paramount+ with Showtime plan.

Just Friends (May 1) Credit – New Line Cinema

Just Friends is a Christmas romantic dark comedy film directed by Roger Kumble from a screenplay by Adam ‘Tex’ Davis. The 2005 film follows Chris Brander, a formerly obese high schooler who goes through a transformation, and when he returns to his hometown, he tries to get back his former best friend and crush,...

Although the big family holiday celebrations are nearly a month in the past, there’s always a need for a new look at sibs, parents, and kids at the movies. This new release is set across the pond and concerns connected family units headed by two sisters who couldn’t be more different. It’s that whole “sweet and sour” dynamic at play here. It’s also funny, sad, and totally engaging thanks to the reunion of a celebration filmmaker and one of his greatest actresses/collaborators after nearly three decades. This time out they’re giving us an intimate look at a damaged soul who really needs to deal with some Hard Truths.

The film’s story begins on a quiet street in a London neighborhood. It’s early on a sunny Spring-like day as a young man on a bicycle meets up with his boss as the enter...

Chicago – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com audio film review for the new film “Hard Truths,” written and directed by notable British filmmaker Mike Leigh (“Happy-Go-Lucky’), an urgent character study on how one woman’s angry depressive state affects her entire family. In select theaters since January 10th. See local listings

Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) is the mother in a family of three, including her husband Curtley (David Webber) and adult son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett). Pansy is constantly angry or withdrawn, lashing out at her family and her loyal sister Chantelle (Michele Austin). Her anger is a poison in the well of her relationships, and as she slides further down the depressive rabbit hole … exacerbated by a visit to her dead mother’s grave … she risks all of her relationships.

”Hard Truths” is in select theaters since January 10th. See local listings. Featuring Marianne Jean-Baptiste, David Webber, Tuwaine Barrett, Michele Austin and Jonathan Livingstone.

Oscar nominee Angela Bassett and Oscar winner Sam Rockwell hosted a private screening for Mike Leigh‘s “Hard Truths” at the Linwood Dunn Theater in LA Tuesday night. The audience filled with Academy members, press, and other invited guests gave actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste a standing ovation as she sat down with film critic and podcaster Kate Walsh for a post-screening Q & A.

Reunited with Leigh for the first time since she earned an Oscar nomination for “Secrets & Lies,” Jean-Baptiste plays Pansy, a woman wracked by fear, tormented by afflictions, and prone to raging tirades against her husband, son, and anyone who looks her way. The film may sound dark, and there are plenty heavy moments, but there is also an abundance of laughter as the actress delivers one zinger after the next aimed at whoever stands in front of her.

The actress described that Leigh’s writing process is...

The Toronto Film Festival kicked off September 5 with a multi-move opening night that included David Gordon Green’s family comedy Nutcrackers starring Ben Stiller. It kicked off a slate of world premieres and buzzy movies across 11 days for the 49th edition of one of North America’s biggest film festivals.

Other key titles making their debuts in Toronto included The Luckiest Man in America starring Paul Walter Hauser, the Amy Adams-starring Nightbitch, theater guru Marianne Elliott’s The Salt Path, DreamWorks Animation’s The Wild Robot and Mike Flanagan’s The Life of Chuck, which won the coveted People’s Choice Award.

Documentaries that made a splash included Elton John: Never Too Late and Paul Anka: His Way.

Click below to read Deadline’s reviews from the ground in Toronto, where the festival wrappred September 15.

The Assessment ‘The Assessment’

Section: Special Presentations

Director: Fleur Fortune

Cast: Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Olsen,...

Right at the end credits of Hard Truths it says “any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.” I am not sure that is so true. I know many people who are just as mad at the world for various reasons as Pansy, the main character in Mike Leigh’s latest depressing look at working class day-to-day existence in Great Britain. We’ve been here in this bleak zone many times with Leigh, and in fact this is the second time the great Marianne Jean-Baptiste has worked with him, the first being her Oscar-nominated performance in his 1996 classic Secrets and Lies. She was unforgettable then, and she remains unforgettable now, albeit playing a thoroughly unlikable character in Pansy, a woman who somewhere along the way lost any sense of joy, if indeed she ever had any.

Pansy is a real pip if ever there was one. Leigh workshops his scripts,...

"Why can't you enjoy life?!" "I don't know!" Bleecker Street has revealed the first official trailer for Hard Truths, the latest Mike Leigh film premiering at the 2024 Toronto Film Festival soon. It'll also screen at the New York & London Film Festivals as well, and the US release is now set for January 2025. Legendary director Mike Leigh returns to the contemporary world with a fierce, compassionate, often darkly humorous study of family and the thorny ties that bind us. An ongoing exploration of the contemporary world with a tragicomic study of human strengths and weaknesses. For the first time since their award-winning Secrets & Lies (from 1996), Leigh and Oscar-nominated actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste reunite for Hard Truths, a compassionate story about family and the thorny ties that bind us. Marianne Jean-Baptiste stars as Pansy, and Michele Austin co-stars as her sister, a single mother with a life as different from Pansy's as can be.

Among the most-anticipated films on the fall festival circuit is the long-awaited return from Mike Leigh with Hard Truths. Marking a reunion with Secrets & Lies star Marianne Jean-Baptiste, it’s the British filmmaker’s first contemporary work in nearly fifteen years. Ahead of a TIFF world premiere this Friday, followed by a stop at NYFF and one-week qualifying run on December 6th, then nationwide release on January 10th from Bleecker Street, the first trailer and poster have arrived.

Here’s the synopsis: “Legendary filmmaker Mike Leigh returns to the contemporary world with a fierce, compassionate, and often darkly humorous study of family and the thorny ties that bind us. Reunited with Leigh for the first time since multiple Oscar-nominated Secrets & Lies, the astonishing Marianne Jean-Baptiste plays Pansy, a woman wracked by fear, tormented by afflictions, and prone to raging tirades against her husband, son, and anyone who looks her way.

Filmmaking duo Joe Williams and Charlie Edwards-Moss’ latest short film O, Glory! is a thrilling folk horror that pays homage to the iconic films of the 70s that founded the horror sub-genre whilst also ushering in the co-directors’ modern sensibility to the formula. The story follows a psychiatric doctor who visits an isolated house when he learns of a potential patient by the name of Deborah, whose brother believes she is beginning to lose her mind. What then unfolds is a story of hysteria, hallucinatory paranoia and twists that keep you on your toes through a palpably tense atmosphere and genuine moments of terror. Dn invited Williams and Edwards-Moss to join us for a chat about their filmmaking trajectory as creative partners, the era of filmmaking they drew influence from, and the artistic decision to capture everything on the scratchy, tactility of the 35mm film.

O, Glory! feels like a meeting of past and present,...

Showtime and Channel 4’s new comedy from the production company behind Fleabag, has announced its cast. Entitled comes from writer Matt Morgan (Mister Winner) and is directed by Tim Kirkby (The Pentaverate). Morgan and Kirkby also serve as executive producers alongside Fleabag trio Harry Williams, Jack Williams, and Sarah Hammond. Production recently started in Manchester, England, according to Deadline. The series is led by Stranger Things star Brett Gelman, who plays Gabe, a conniving American widower who posthumously must get to know The Beaucrofts, his British wife’s eccentric estranged family, in their crumbling gothic mansion in the English countryside. As Gabe searches for closure and truth, his newly inherited fortune reveals each family member’s secrets and ambitions. In addition to Gelman, the cast also includes Donald Sumpter (Game of Thrones), Brendan Patricks (Downton Abbey), Pippa Bennett-Warner (Gangs of London), Mark Quartley (Lucky Man), Jonathan Livingstone (Peacock), Charlotte...

Showtime and Channel 4 comedy Entitled from the production company behind Fleabag has unveiled full cast and rolled cameras in Manchester.

Joining Fleabag and Stranger Things star Brett Gelman in Two Brothers Pictures’ eight-parter are Donald Sumpter (Game of Thrones), Brendan Patricks (Downton Abbey), Pippa Bennett-Warner (Gangs of London), Mark Quartley (Lucky Man), Jonathan Livingstone (Peacock), Charlotte Louise Arrowsmith (This is Going to Hurt) and Kelly Wenham (Merlin).

Entitled stars Gelman as Gabe, a conniving American widower who posthumously must get to know The Beaucrofts, his British wife’s eccentric estranged family, in their crumbling gothic mansion in the English countryside. As Gabe’s search for closure and truth reveal a newly inherited fortune, each family member’s ambition comes to a head.

Matt Morgan (Mister Winner) created Entitled, which entered production in Manchester this week. Director is Tim Kirkby (The Pentaverate) and exec producers are Morgan, Kirkby, Gelman and Fleabag trio Harry Williams,...

— — The Witches (2020) Film Review, a movie directed by Robert Zemeckis, and starring Anne Hathaway, Octavia Spencer, Jahzir Kadeem Bruno, Stanley Tucci, Josette Simon, Jonathan Livingstone, Miranda Sarfo Peprah, Joseph Zinyemba, Oral O’Rourke, Codie-Lei Eastick, Vivienne Acheampong, Ken Nwosu, Charles [...]

Continue reading: Film Review: The Witches (2020): Zemeckis’ Grounded Take on Roald Dahl’s Fantastical Tale is Full of Hope, Resistance, and a Fair Amount of Nightmare Fuel...