36 Years Later, the Best Jack Ryan Movie Officially Comes to Paramount+

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Tom Clancy‘s Jack Ryan has become one of the most iconic action heroes of the modern era, right up there with the likes of Jason Bourne and Jack Reacher. The CIA analyst has led multiple films and one of the most popular television shows of the 21st century. These days, the character mostly lives on Amazon Prime Video, but another streamer is now making a play for his legacy.

Paramount+ has just acquired what is widely hailed as the best Jack Ryan film to stream on its platform. The 1990 thriller is based on the very first novel in Clancy’s Ryanverse, and Predator and Die Hard director John McTiernan was tasked with adapting it for the big screen. He hit it out of the park. McTiernan delivered a tight, edge-of-your-seat thriller that nailed the espionage themes and the constant cat-and-mouse beats of the story.

That movie is The Hunt for Red October, and it holds an impressive 88% critic and audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, the highest of any Jack Ryan movie. And starting November 1, it will be available to stream on Paramount+. For anyone who only knows Ryan from the Prime Video era, it’s the perfect chance to see where it all began.

Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.

Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.

Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.

Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.

Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.

Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.

What Is the Plot of ‘The Hunt for Red October’?

Image via Paramount Pictures

Image via Paramount Pictures

Image via Paramount Pictures

Image via Paramount Pictures

Set during the Cold War, the film follows Marko Ramius, a Soviet submarine captain played by the late Sean Connery, who takes command of an advanced Typhoon-class nuclear submarine called the Red October. Shortly after leaving port, the ship suddenly begins heading toward the United States, which sets off alarms as everyone fears an attack. In reality, Ramius is planning to defect to the U.S., and CIA analyst Jack Ryan (Alec Baldwin) has to prove it before a misunderstanding pushes the two superpowers into war.

The film has been so iconic that Season 3 of John Krasinski‘s Jack Ryan series explicitly paid homage to it. In the show, Ryan reluctantly teams up with former Soviet soldier Luca Gorchurov (James Cosmo), and the finale, “Star on the Wall,” puts Ryan in a very similar spot as the film, where he has to bridge communications between an American submarine and its Russian counterpart to avoid the start of World War III. So, for fans who especially loved Season 3 but haven’t had a chance to see The Hunt for Red October, November is the perfect time to catch up.

The Hunt for Red October will be available to stream on Paramount+ starting November 1. Stay tuned at Collider for more.

The Hunt for Red October