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The Best Things Coming to Paramount+ in August 2026

Zoe Saldaña and Nicole Kidman are back on ‘Lioness’ and Taylor Sheridan hosts a $1 million cowboy competition

Thom Geier,

Updated July 31, 2026

AARP

Updated July 31, 2026

Morgan Freeman, Michael Kelly, Nicole Kidman and Zoe Saldaña in a scene from an episode of Lioness

Left to right: Morgan Freeman, Michael Kelly, Nicole Kidman and Zoe Saldaña co-star in Season 3 of "Lioness," coming to Paramount+ in August.

Ryan Green/Paramount+

As we head into the dog days of summer, Paramount+ is rolling out a wide variety of action-packed content. Nicole Kidman, 59, and Zoe Saldaña return as undercover operatives on the third season of Lioness, while a new docuseries takes us inside the 2011 capture of Osama bin Laden and other high-profile special forces operations. Here are our picks for the month’s best new offerings, including some classic movies that are worth another watch.

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Coming Aug. 1

Best in Show (2000, PG-13)

The Westminster Dog Show has never looked quite the same since Christopher Guest’s hilarious mockumentary, which unleashed wacky characters who utterly believe their own absurdity, from Eugene Levy’s two left feet to Fred Willard’s oblivious TV commentary to Jennifer Coolidge’s vacuous poodle-owner who offers this to explain her connection with her wealthy, geriatric husband: “We both love soup.”

Blade Runner 2049 (2017, R)

Before he took on his still unfolding Dune trilogy, director Denis Villeneuve, 58, updated another sci-fi classic. Harrison Ford returns as an older, hermitlike Rick Deckard, while Ryan Gosling plays a younger blade runner charged with eliminating rogue bioengineered human replicants. The film is visually stunning and psychologically astute, deepening our understanding of the fictional world of Ridley Scott’s 1982 original.

You’ve Got Mail (1998, PG)

She’s the owner of a struggling indie bookstore; he’s the head of a giant bookstore chain modeled on pre-Amazon behemoth Barnes & Noble. But when they meet anonymously through an early form of online dating, Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks turn out to be secret love matches. Nora Ephron cowrote and directed this charming rom-com, which updated the 1940 Margaret Sullivan-James Stewart vehicle The Shop Around the Corner for the dial-up internet era.

Coming Aug. 2

Lioness, Season 3

Zoe Saldaña returns as the leader of a CIA unit of undercover female operatives at the front lines of the war on terror — while negotiating the personal fallout in her home life. This action-packed Taylor Sheridan series has a high-wattage cast that include Oscar winners Nicole Kidman and Morgan Freeman, 89.

Coming Aug. 4

Special Ops: True, Season 1

Veterans of elite U.S. special forces units recall some of the most heroic and harrowing missions in history, from the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu where two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down in Somalia to the 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden. This docuseries combines gripping interviews with previously unseen footage.

Coming Aug. 5

The Challenge: Cutthroat, Season 42

MTV’s reality competition series, which launched in 1998 with alumni from the doc-style series The Real World and Road Rules, has been around longer than most of the show’s new contestants. This time, 24 Gen Zers compete for a $500,000 prize that requires psychological gamesmanship as much as strength and endurance. Contestants are divided into three teams that each choose a captain with the power to decide how to split the winnings (including the option to keep it all themselves).

Coming Aug. 19

Average Joe, Season 2

Joe Washington (Deon Cole, 54) was an ordinary plumber mourning the recent loss of his father when he learned that his dad stole $10 million from the Russian Mafia. After resolving that pesky problem in the first season of this action-comedy series, Joe and his family head to Cape Town, South Africa, where they’re still on the run from mysterious baddies.

Coming Aug. 22

The Run for a Million

The bond between humans and horses is strong, never more so than in the beauty and athleticism of Western performance horse competitions. Sixteen of the world’s top reining riders will lead their horses through a demanding series of circles, spins and sliding stops to claim the title and a $1 million prize. Yellowstone impresario Taylor Sheridan, 56, calls the action, which airs at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS and streams on Paramount+, from Las Vegas.

Coming Aug. 30

Blue Valentine (2010, R)

Michelle Williams earned her second Oscar nomination for this haunting drama about a married couple whose youthful optimism fractures into cynicism and recrimination over time. She’s well-matched by Ryan Gosling, whose carefree ways grow less and less appealing as he becomes a father and turns to alcohol to cope with his life. It’s not an easy movie to watch, but you won’t soon forget it.

Thom Geier is an AARP contributor and the award-winning former executive editor of TheWrap, senior editor at Entertainment Weekly, film reporter at The Hollywood Reporter and associate editor at U.S. News & World Report.

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