Wondering what to binge-watch before Halloween? Paramount+ delivers this week with a mix of chilling thrillers, laugh-out-loud dark comedies, and standout originals.
From fan-favorite horror hits climbing the streaming charts to buzzworthy new premieres, Paramount+’s October 2025 lineup is packed with binge-worthy shows.
Whether you’re in the mood for a spooky marathon or something fresh for a cozy night in, these five Paramount+ series are Screen Rant’s top picks to stream from October 27–31, 2025.
Mayor of Kingstown
Mayor of Kingstown is not necessarily a Halloween watch, but season 4 just premiered on Sunday, and the Taylor Sheridan show starring Jeremy Renner is looking better than ever. Taking place in a prison and a corrupt city, Mayor of Kingstown has a lot of violence, even if those who kill in the series aren’t wearing any scary masks.
Early reviews for Mayor of Kingstown are already placing this latest installment above the rest. Screen Rant gave season 4 a near-perfect rating of 9/10 stars, noting, “Jeremy Renner’s Mayor of Kingstown season 4 is back with some of the darkest and most intense storylines yet, putting the series at an all-time high.” If you’re not into “spooky season” and are just looking for a top-tier crime thriller on Paramount+, this is 100% it.
Criminal Minds
During the Halloween season, you can never go wrong with an all-time classic like Criminal Minds. This long-running series premiered two decades ago and is still releasing new episodes, a feat that only a handful of other series can also claim (like Grey’s Anatomy and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia).
Paramount+ is the only streaming platform where you can watch all 363 episodes across 19 seasons of Criminal Minds in one place. The beloved CBS series officially became a Paramount+ original in 2022 with its 16th season. This allowed for a more serialized format, deeper character development, and more expansive storytelling than ever before while still retaining its key cast and identity. There’s still plenty of that classic Criminal Minds feel in the newer seasons of the Emmy-nominated show.
Murder 360
While Halloween mysteries, horrors, and classics can surely be terrifying, sometimes there’s nothing more frightening than the truth. Murder 360 is a gripping true crime docuseries on Paramount+, one of the best and most recent on the entire streaming platform, that follows ten separate true crime murder stories across ten episodes.
Murder 360 was recently released in late August, so there’s a good chance you may not have heard of these 10 chilling stories yet, even if you consider yourself a true crime buff. The series isn’t quite on the level of an HBO or Netflix true crime docuseries, but it is fascinating enough if you’re looking for something relatively new in the genre on Paramount+
The Stand
The Stand is a dystopian sci-fi supernatural horror series that was released on Paramount+ in 2020. Based on the novel by Stephen King, this series has received some particularly harsh criticism (like most TV adaptations of King’s works), claiming it did not live up to or accurately capture the celebrated book.
That said, The Stand features a fantastic cast led by James Marsden, Alexander Skarsgård, Whoopi Goldberg, Greg Kinnear, Odessa Young, Owen Teague, Amber Heard, and more. At just 9 episodes, all between 49–65 minutes each, The Stand could be the perfect horror series to binge-watch before Halloween arrives on Friday.
The Stand mostly divided critics, but The Daily Beast’s positive review noted, “[A] faithful and gripping translation of King’s end-times drama about the dangerous allure of individualism (and tyrannical leaders), and the vital necessity of togetherness in times of turmoil.” The talented cast alone is enough to give the first episode a shot this week.
Why Women Kill
Why Women Kill is one of the most critically acclaimed horror series you can binge this week on Paramount+. A two-season anthology series that ran from 2019 to 2021, Why Women Kill tells the stories of women living in different decades but in the same house, including a 1960s housewife, a 1980s socialite, and a modern-day attorney. Each of them deals with similar predicaments in their marriage, such as infidelity and betrayal.
The series features great performances by Lucy Liu, Alexandra Daddario, Lana Parrilla, Ginnifer Goodwin, Nick Frost, and more. It received an 88% Rotten Tomatoes audience score and a strong IMDb rating of 8.3. One user noted that the series had them “hooked immediately,” while another called it a “fun, superbly executed concept.” The series is, at its core, a dark comedy, but it also features thrilling crime elements. If you were a fan of HBO’s Love & Death, then this series may be the perfect Paramount+ show for you this week.
Looking for more must-watch streaming options this Halloween week? Check out Screen Rant’s updated weekend binge-watching guides for Netflix, Prime Video, HBO Max, and Apple TV.
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